One-on-one Spanish language lessons in Cochabamba, Bolivia

From the beginning, the focus is on communication, employing techniques such as dialoguing, phrasing, conversation, exercises, pictures, radio, television, and other media. The teaching is direct, active, and requires intensive student participation. It is taught at all levels, from beginner through intermediate and advanced levels, including all the intermediate stages. An initial assessment of the current level is done at the beginning.

During the course of the program, you will have a one-to-one teacher. Only in rare cases are small groups taught together. There is a permanent rotation of the teacher, which means your teacher will change almost every day. The school has had good experiences with this approach because every teacher has their own teaching style and tools, besides varying professional backgrounds and life experiences. In this way, you have to adapt to a variety of speakers and methods, which the school found to be very useful. For beginners, teachers are chosen who also speak another foreign language that the student is familiar with, such as English, French or German, to be able to give instructions and explanations to people who don’t speak any Spanish.

Most of the teaching materials have been developed by the school itself. The director has been developing teaching methods for Spanish and Quechua for more than 30 years. The material provides insights into life in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Latin America. Sources include texts written by the director, history books, oral traditions, Bolivian and Latin-American literature, ethnology books, and various publications.

Following the specific interest of the student, special topics can be included in the teaching material, for instance, ecology, western and traditional medicine, Bolivian, Latin-American, and Spanish history and literature, technology, religion, geography, local culture, social, political, or economic questions.

The school also offers language lessons in the indigenous languages of Quechua and Aymara. These languages are very useful if you volunteer or do an internship with indigenous communities in rural Bolivia.

Weekly schedule of the language lessons

Typically, lessons are taught 20 hours per week, 4 hours per day from Monday to Friday (8:15-12:15 p.m. or 1:30-5:30 p.m. including a half-hour break). Alternatively, it is possible to do only ten hours per week and be flexible about the times, allowing for language lessons besides your internship or volunteer work. There are also super-intensive courses of more than 20 hours per week.

The school is open throughout the year, and lessons can start on every weekday, including Saturday. It is closed on official holidays, but lessons are given on alternative days in this case.