Jerry Crasnick
2021-11-01
It's 90 minutes once a week, about 98 percent in Spanish. We began each lesson sharing personal updates, then spent about an hour discussing 5 news stories that we were assigned as homework. Then we would spend 15 minutes or so on a designated discussion topic (life in Mexico or Colombia, technology and its impact on our lives, etc.) before signing off with a few more minutes of conversation. In addition, we had to give two fairly lengthy presentations in Spanish -- one on a famous person and the other on a Latin-American celebration or holiday. You have to put in some time outside of class. But if you do, you can make significant progress.
Joseph Rivera
2021-10-28
The course was excellent. As a class we were able to practice our skills in a real-world setting as we discussed our day to day lives. It gave us an opportunity to apply the lessons we learned in an organic way that matched how we might actually use them in our lives.
Sarah Manhardt
2021-09-12
Class was great conversation practice. Nicolás is very skilled in leading and generating conversation
Melissa Ford
2021-08-08
A great course, the questions and articles for homework were helpful for me to learn new words and feel more confident in my Spanish conversation skills
Jose Castillo
2021-08-07
I made progress towards my goal.
Rosemary Conlon
2021-08-03
It is wonderful studying with Rolando. He makes it easy to understand a conversation in Spanish. In addition, he selects a variety of topics to discuss each week so we can expand our vocabulary. I have signed up for more classes with him.
Peter Kulesza
2021-08-03
Having a conversation in Spanish is a great way to improve your language skills. In this class we read articles and comment on them.
Carole Oblenes
2021-07-28
Rolando is terrific! Engaging, interesting and patient. The classes were fun.
Maxine Phillps
2021-05-18
Congenial people, lively conversation. Nelson makes sure that everyone participates and that the topics are interesting.
Samantha Grund-Wickramasekera
2021-05-16
The transition from Beginner's spanish to Basic conversation was a little jarring. On my end, it was definitely less structured and I did not study my conjugations as often as I should have. However, I feel like more guidance could have been provided as to how to approach reading fairly complex articles in Spanish. In order to save time, I would read the article in English first and then read it in Spanish, which I feel kind of defeats the purpose of the course. Perhaps more guidance on this would be helpful.
Robyn Occhiogrosso
2021-05-15
Enjoyable, relaxed discussion in Spanish. Eva is welcoming and encouraging, always.
Lisa Drapkin
2021-05-12
This course was great! Nelson was a wonderful teacher and he made sure everyone felt comfortable. For me it was the right mix of challenging but also not so much so that I felt I wasn't good enough to be there. I would definitely recommend to others.
Peter Kulesza
2021-05-11
Excellent quality with this particular teacher. I have to say there are not many quality ones. But Andres is.
Maxine Phillips
2021-03-03
Lively conversation on a wide range of topics with interesting people that I might never meet otherwise.
Doris Hart
2021-02-25
very stimulating conversations; Rolando is a fine teacher. I learned a lot.
John Sabulis
2021-02-25
This didn’t seem to be a beginner conversation class.
The other students were a very different and various levels. There was little time for corrections from the instructor and there was some really bad Spanish and painful pronunciation.
Also, the instructor seemed focused on getting through the assignments not correcting grammar or pronunciation.
The assignments, to research and talk about current news events were not picked well. In the second class of the 6 or 7 topics chosen, I researched all of them in El País, La Jornada, La Prensa, News in Slow Spanish, Latin American and News in Slow Spanish, Spain. NOTHING ON ANY OF THEM!
What a waste of time. I left the classes after that, neither the teacher, nor the other classmates engaged me.
I won’t be taking another class at Berges and frankly should have my money refunded.
AP
2021-02-12
Nicolas keeps the class moving with varied topics for discussion and helpful tips for improving our speaking. I've taken this class several times with Nicolas, because I enjoy his teaching style and how he interacts with all of us students.
ANA
2021-01-25
Highly recommendable, great for breaking the fear of speaking...interesting topics, everyone equally included, conversation can always go outside of the homework topics so just be brave and go for it :)
Anonymous
2020-12-02
Excellent online course and opportunity for practicing speaking and listening and reading.
Anonymous
2020-11-25
The Basic Conversation class with Andres was extremely useful. Andres provided a forum for all students to participate and practice listening and speaking at our own levels about everyday topics and current events. He also set up exercises for us to participate in more rapid-fire production of sentences, using new vocabulary and responding to basic questions from one another. He is an excellent teacher.