Mester Spanish Courses

The purpose of these accelerated intensive courses is to facilitate the process of language acquisition in total immersion, yielding faster results of assimilation.

These courses are taught to small groups and adapted to all levels. They can be linked to other courses and are ideal for students that will have a short stay in the host country. These courses will allow students to combine intensive language study and free time to pursue their own interests and to interact in the culture. In the classroom, the students will find themselves thriving in a very stimulating environment that results from a diverse mixture of ages and origins. The low student-teacher ratio will favor the development of linguistic ability at a much faster pace. Beginners will find that they can exchange simple, practical information in a very short time. If students already have some knowledge of Spanish, they will both improve and enrich their skills accordingly. Furthermore, group study encourages making new friends in the new culture.

WHAT, WHERE AND HOW: Courses overseas for our program are held in June and July, for a length of six very intensive weeks in Salamanca. Classes are held at Academia Mester Monday through Friday with each lesson lasting fifty minutes. Classes are in the morning from 09:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and in the evening, students meet again for classroom instruction and visits to historical places and geographical sites of interest. As a group we will also attend cultural events such as music recitals, fiestas regionales, theater presentations, a flamenco show, a bullfight, and visits to museums and art galleries.

METHODOLOGY AND MATERIALS: The acquisition of a new language could never be accomplished successfully through an arid series of notions picked up in a classroom. The success of Mester's methods comes from the combination of different learning and teaching techniques in order to achieve an ultimate goal. This goal is that students will learn to express themselves in real, everyday situations. Grammar, therefore, is studied in a communicative context and is stimulated by creative use. A great deal of space is dedicated to exercises that develop understanding abilities, expression and writing by means of the incentives created by communicative situations and the materials provided. The teaching staff at Academia Mester is comprised of university graduates and ABD's. They hold degrees in Teaching Spanish as a Second Language. The school has a rich assortment of teaching materials: textbooks and teaching aids compiled by the faculty, learning games, tapes, maps, videos, newspapers, periodicals and monographs. The following aspects of the language are used as teaching tools in all the classes at all levels:

1) COMMUNICATION. Each lesson is organized around a specific subject. The vocabulary and idioms relevant to the subject are introduced and, as the lesson unfolds, given depth and meaning.

2) VIDEO. The audio-visual materials serve as a support for the lesson providing reinforcement to the materials learned. Sometimes classes are taped to aid the students in the process of language acquisition and in hearing and seeing themselves, they learn to control their ability to speak Spanish.

3) PHONETICS. Particular care is devoted to pronunciation and to correct the intonation of the student's use of the Spanish language. Because the different levels some times overlap in proficiency, eight basic group courses are offered. Often times the work done can be combined. They divide as follows: Elementary I&II, Intermediate I&II, Advanced I&II and Superior I&II, according to the student's knowledge of Spanish.