Gap Year

The people I dealt with at Language international and at Enforex Malaga were extremely friendly and welcoming. I was disappointed in my overall experience, for the follofing reasons:
A. Registration process
I wanted to study Spanish in Malaga Spanish. I found the Enforex website, and when I was trying to register for the language course I discovered that there was also a Spanish cooking class that I could take at the same time and so I registered for both. Or so I thought. After the registration process was done through Language International and I had paid, I received notification that I had only registered for the cooking course and I needed to take a language course at the same time. This was surprising to me as I thought that I had registered for both. However, I went ahead and paid the extra a fee tuition fee for the course and was registered. In addition, when I started the registration process, there was also an offer that if I had registered by a certain date I would get a four-week online Spanish course free in preparation for the in-person course. I never did receive that on-line course, and I can only think that the registration process and the confusions took so much time that the offer had expired.

B. Placement In the course
I was told that I would have to be at the school at 8:00 in the morning on the first day of classes to take a placement test so I could be placed correctly. While I was traveling to Spain, I received a text and e-mail with an on-line pretest (85 multiple choice questions), which I was able to complete in the week before the course started. I had no idea how I had done on the test, but I thought that would all be solved when I did the placement test on Day 1. However, there was no placement test when I arrived at the school, but the academic adminstrator placed me in level B1, and we agreed on a schedule of classes.

When I arrived to the course at the appropriate time on my timetable, I discovered that I was put into a class that had already been going for two hours, which meant that I was joining in the second half of the morning class, in which some students had already been working for several weeks. While I felt that the level was right, and I was able to keep up and do the work, it was very awkward as I started each day in the middle of a lesson in catch-up mode, and I also had to start working at the end of the text book, which meant a lot of extra-curricular studying each day just to figure out what had been recently taught. It seemed very socially awkward as well, as most students had been in class together for some time, and already knew each other well.
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C. Interactions with staff.
1. Once I was on site, in the school the staff was terrific. They were friendly and helpful professional knowledgeable.

2. The classroom the teacher, Maria, was an excellent teacher: personable, knowledgeable, caring and supportive of the students, able to convey the the work with humor but also making sure that people understood and kept up. I would give Maria um five stars in her teaching

3. In the cooking class, Magda was a sweet lady who was very friendly and warm and with a great sense of humor.

D. Course content
1. In the language class, I was a little at sea in the classroom, as I explained before. It also took me a very short time to get used to a different accent and the use of the “vosotros” pronoun (I had been taught previously by Latin Americans). While I kept up with the lessons reasonably well, I do not think my Spanish was much improved with only two hours a day for two weeks, and I would choose a different type of course if I were to do this again.
2. In the cooking class, I was very disappointed because it was not at all as I expected. We made very simple dishes that I regularly make at home myself. We also only made one recipe each day, and not complete meals. I had been very excited about coming to Spain to learn Mediterranean cooking, and in fact learned very little new. In addition, because of the timing of the class, I did not participate in any cultural activities at the school, and I felt the cooking class was basically a waste of my time and money.

E. Homestay.
1. Before I arrived, I was told that there were two people, a man and a woman (brother and sister), that they they were in their late 50s or early 60s, that the gentleman was still working as a teacher that the lady was retired. When I arrived at the homestay it turned out that I met the woman once as I arrived and I did not see her again after that. My interactions for the rest of the time that I was in the home was only with the gentleman. He was very personable, quiet and helpful and spoke Spanish to me all the time in our interactions, provided breakfast and dinner as expected. However, I will have more to say about this situation under point 3.
2. The physical situation of the home that the room that I stayed in was good in the sense that there’s a private entrance, it was a completely self- contained area with a little kitchenette, a bed/sitting room and bathroom. While I had a key to the locks, one of the doors leading to another (shared) sitting room was not able to be completely closed, so privacy was not secure (although the family did not intrude, so I felt comfortable in that aspect.)
3. Really I would like to add a little bit about privacy personal space. First, when I asked for instructions on using the washing machine in my suite, the host gentleman insisted on doing my laundry himself, which I found a little odd, and an invasion of privacy. Second, even though it turned out alright in my case, I do not think it is appropriate to put a single woman in a homestay with a single man (despite the fact that a woman was listed as being in the home). I understand that the school does extensive checking out of who's providing the homestay but there's still a potential for some problems that might arise. This is a situation where a male student might feel more comfortable.

My teacher was ok, but there was not much effort made to find out where I was in my current GCSE preparation and help me progress from this particular point.

She mentioned that 5 lessons were not really much time for my one-to-one hour long lessons, and this made me feel that she really didn’t expect me to progress very much, which was disappointing.

Ich war bereits im Februar 2020 bei Enforex und es hat mir sehr gut gefallen. Daher habe ich mich wieder für Enforex in Málaga entschieden!
Sehr lehrreich! Habe große Fortschritte gemacht. Allerdings habe ich nach zwei Wochen den Gruppenunterricht gegen Einzelunterricht getauscht. Was natürlich noch produktiver war. Nette, engagierte Lehrer.
Und eine sehr nette Frau die am Empfang ist und für das organisatorische Rahmenprogramm (Ausflüge etc.) zuständig ist. Es werden tolle Ausflüge angeboten.

Malaga ist eine sehr schöne Stadt mit viel Flair! Direkt am Meer. Die Schule ist am Rande der Altstadt. Ein sehr schönes Gebäude!

Es war eine schöne Zeit! Ich komme wieder!

The school was beautiful and in a central part of town. The classes were well paced with periods of concentrated learning followed by something more relaxing and revision of what we'd learned. Our teacher was always encouraging and I never felt like a stupid person despite my many mistakes. She had an amazing talent for understanding what we were trying to say despite our dreadful accents and poor grammar and then gently helped us find the right words. I would definitely go to this school again.

My homestay experience wasn't at all good. I think 'family' needs to be more than one person so that we are exposed to every day chatter.

I got covid in the middle of the first week and went into the school at a quiet time to ask what t do. I would have thought that a student with covid was a fairly common occurrence. The woman at the desk was just cross with me for going in and told me not to go back. I felt dreadful and really needed somebody to be nice to me. I was making arrangements on my own in a foreign country while feeling absolutely awful. The school did email me the next day but I'd sorted myself out by then. I went back in the middle of the second week.

The activities seemed rather like tourist outings. At a language school in Italy the teachers took turns to do 'interesting talks' to the whole school at 4pm. They were useful and memorable and what I would have liked in this school.

The school is very well located, near to the main attractions and the building is very clean and the staff friendly. Due to the season, there were not too much people into classrooms and the teachers have changed during the classes, which is a little bit annoying but the overall satisfaction is very good

Some background for context:

I'm almost 40, I started to learn Spanish 6 months ago, and had 2 intense weeks of individual lessons before. I've lived in Málaga since then.
I'm a French Native speaker with a very good understanding of occidental grammar since I am also proficient in English and German. So learning Spanish is relatively easy for me.
Also, I'm a very fast learner and am bored quickly in group lessons, so I opted for individual lessons back then and this time.

I booked 1 hour per day - instead of 4 like at the previous school - for 2 weeks at Enforex.


I liked that teachers who gave me individual lessons were both interested to help me with something I wanted to learn more about. I loved how the second teacher would know exactly what the previous one already taught me.

I did not like spending all ten lessons on this one subject matter though, with a lot of grammatical explanations and few opportunities for me to practice and speak.
At times we "drifted off" and had proper conversations during which I was able to use what we were just learning, but I felt that the teachers did not want to have such conversations, but focus on "explaining" me how things work. This was not the best approach for me, since I do not have difficulties understanding rules. What I needed was practice and being corrected on the go. The first teacher provided learning material handouts, exercises and homework. The second week I got no handouts at all.
Since this was not clear to me beforehand, I would make sure I'm mentioning this to my next teachers: I need more conversations and exercises, and less explanations.
I found it sad to not be able to build rapport at all despite surprisingly political topics brought to the table by the teachers during lessons.

The location was super central, super easy to find, close to where I lived. That was super handy. Also: the building is fairly fancy and made a very clean impression. I appreciated the emphasis on proper Covi-19 precaution measures. I felt safe.
On the other hand, the building itself gave a pretty "cold" impression to me. It felt more like a dental practice than a lively school to me.

During my stay I did not use any facility nor participated in any activity. I believe there were none due to the pandemic.

I was housed privately, since I am currently living in Málaga and didn't need an accomodation.

To sum it up:
Very good quality teaching and environment, but too "normal"/traditional for me. I will probably go to another school when I can resume taking lessons again. There are plenty in town. It's surely a question of taste and special needs though.

I was surprised by the quality of the teaching methods as well as the incredibly nice and motivated teachers! I didn't think I would learn that much in one month. The classes are perfect in size and there is not too many students. I really recommend this school! I will maybe be back in the next years. The location was good and it was near the beach, so it was quite useful after class.

Although the building was a little warn out, the staff was very welcoming and inviting. The location was nice because near the beach, but far from the center. I know their is a new school being built, hopefully the next students will be able to experience the new classrooms. Overall, very nice teachers and the housing was very welcoming also. My mother made sure we tasted the true Spanish culture, through food, rituals and music.