I opened Berges Institute in 2013, after running a small Spanish language tutoring studio in New York's Upper East Side for a few years. My business partner Vanessa and I had met in Barcelona back in 2004, when we briefly played together in a pop-jazz band that rehearsed in the suburbs and played very few gigs. We both moved to the States in 2008, and I've been teaching Spanish full time since 2011.
Developing our program and creating our textbooks was no small task. It took us almost a year to write the first three volumes, and I finished the final two after Berges Institute had already opened. Since we had very few students initially, we weren't able to schedule the first Level 4 class until December 2013, which gave me plenty of time to complete the series!
In those early days, I was working around the clock, handling everything administratively while also doing much of the teaching alongside Vanessa and Verónica Castro, who was with Berges from day one until she moved to Denver in 2016. Over the years, we've grown steadily, and I've been able to build an amazing team of instructors and administrators who create the best possible experience for our students.
Thousands of students have taken classes at Berges Institute, and many have completed all five levels plus conversation classes along the way. There's no greater satisfaction for a Spanish teacher than witnessing the students' progress, and I've been incredibly fortunate to play an active role in so many people's language learning journeys.
We still make an effort every day to learn, grow, and do things better. If you haven’t taken any classes with us, I encourage you to complete our online placement test and sign up for one!
Un saludo,
Dan Berges
