Spanish classes in Berkeley

This course fell far below my expectations. Honestly, I'm surprised you even sent an eval form given when I discontinued coming to the course I sent a detailed email as to why, requested a conversation about continuing with private lessons instead, and never received any response from the school or instructor. First, the pedagogical methods used, from my understanding, are outdated in terms of approaches for adult language learners. My class, and I'm not kidding, consisted of a full hour of laboriously going over sentences assigned for homework, which few of the participants did, so we had to sit there and wait for the students to figure out the homework on the spot. Then maybe 30 minutes of actual instruction of new material. Moreover, we are ADULT LEARNERS. Calling on students without their consent, just calling out someone's name to give an answer, is insulting and does not take into account different learning styles or anxiety someone may feel speaking in front of others. It also means the entire class has to sit there while another *adult* who does not know the answer has to sit and sweat it out in front of the group. Not acceptable. I attended this class with my husband who is already fluent in three languages. We couldn't believe how not engaging it was. I can't believe we paid to primarily review homework sentences every week. One day we were sitting doing our homework together and my husband started yelling, "I'm not going to write a paragraph in the present tense using this vocabulary. I'm not doing it!" And we just decided to never go back. At that point, I looked for the instructors contact info but couldn't find it. So I wrote a very nice email to the school stating the class wasn't a good fit for us, but were potentially interested in private instruction with the teacher and never heard back. So that was that.

The course was comprehensive, challenging but manageable which I loved. We moved along at a fairly rapid pace but that kept it interesting and enriching. Also each stage built on the previous one and the progression was logical and the foundations we acquired solid.

I really enjoyed this class and I felt that It provided me with some basic Spanish language information that I need to move on to the next level. I highly recommend Berges institute!

Good process through out, Andres is very helpful and gives great background on language and good context for verbs and vocabulary

I liked that the course was on-line, the class consisted of 3-6 persons, and there were options of days and times - especially the availability of a Saturday class. The workbook was easy to understand and exercises helped with the retention of the language. At the end of the 10 week course I am able to read, write, understand and engage in a Spanish conversation. I cannot wait to start level 2.

Rolando was a great instructor! The textbook and lessons were clear and paced well.