Spanish classes in Muskegon

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 First, the pedagogical methods used, from my understanding, are outdated in terms of approaches for adult language learners.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.

I think Berges is great. I did not expect that, as I'm fairly skeptical about these things, but it was a really good experience, and the course materials were quite well organized and the quizzes were challenging. I look forward to the second level.

I really enjoyed attending the course because it was easy to follow. The teachers included all of the students to participate. The time schedule was very flexible that I could easily change the day and time if needed. I really enjoyed going to the in person classes, which was one of the main reasons why iI chosed Berges Institute. I am looking forward to attending the next courses. Best, Max

This was a wonderful beginning Spanish class. We were able to build sentences and convey basic information within just a couple of weeks, while understanding the building blocks of the language and where it differs from English.

Ms. Ordonez is a very lovely person and I am guessing she taught the class based on the requirements of Berges. The class each week was 1 and 1/2 hours. In that time, we spent half the time going over the homework from the week before. The other half of the class a lecture about the current information. There was no additional support other than the text book from Berges and frequently it was difficult to understand. I could have taught myself instead of taking the class considering the lack of information about various parts of how Spanish works. The college classes were cheaper and were more time for each lesson. I'm not sure who benefits from your classes.

Berges offers a great way to learn, incorporating the basics of Spanish grammar with vocabulary so you understand how to put ideas and words together. The course took me from an absolute beginner to a beginner who can form both written and spoken sentences . . . haltingly for now, but way beyond what I could have imagined during my first class.