July, 2009

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Italian Group enjoy their last week in Spain!

Friday, July 31st, 2009

The Italian Group that we’ve had staying with us the last two weeks have now finished their Spanish Course with us in Salamanca! The group have been here for 2 weeks to improve their Spanish and to see Spain. They’ve joined in some fantastic trips and seen a few cities, including a trip to Portugal!

Salamanca at night

The group all together in Segovia

The group is made up of 9 students and their teacher Vania, who’s also taken part in a Spanish Teachers course with us, and have come from the Science school Belfiore in Italy. There’s more about what they got up to in their first week on our blog and about the Teachers Course that Vania, the group’s teacher, has been taking during their stay in Salamanca.

The Cathedral of Segovia

The Ancient City Walls of Avila

The group has taken part in the normal activities that we offer as a part of our Cultural Program, including cookery classes, Tapas trips, a guided tour of Salamanca and conferences in the school – amongst other things! You can read all about this in our previous blog post on the group.

The beach at Aveiro

The group in a Spanish Class

This week the group have enjoyed a trip to Aveiro, a beach resort in Portugal, which was a great trip and the weather was great for everyone to enjoy the beach! They’ve also been lucky enough to take a trip to both Segovia and Avila, two local important and beautiful cities. They’re both old walled cities with loads of history and culture and important buildings to see. The Cathedral of Segovia is particularly impressive! You can see the walls and the Cathedral in the photos above.

Rubén and Asun, the group's teachesr, with Vania

Rubén and Asun, the group's teachers, with Vania

The Italian Girls and Vania at the door of our Salamanca school

The group has some fantastic photos of their trip that you can see on Facebook in the album of photos that we have for them, of all their trips and of the group too!

Posted in Group programs, Photos and Pictures, Salamanca Program | 1 Response »
Tags: Aveiro, Ávila, Course, Cultural Program, Exxcursions, Group, Guided visit, Italian, Program, Salamanca, Spanish, Trip

Salamanca school’s new Residence opens up!

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

The bedroom 312 with space for 3 students

Our Salamanca Spanish School has opened a new residence to our students, inside the school itself! The residence is one of many that we have all over Salamanca for our students, and provides full or half-board accommodation. The residence is brand new and occupies the 3rd floor of our Salamanca school!

Room 311, again with room for 3 students.

It has room for 40 students and has rooms with anything between 1 and 5 beds, and a private double-room with a double bed. The residence is complete with computers and televisions in the rooms, and shower rooms and toilets on each corridor. The bathrooms are all brand new and are on each corridor of the school for the students. Each room has a shiny new television and lots of the rooms have a computer supplied, and all of the residence is fitted with free WIFI.

The bathrooms in the New Residence

There are televisions in all the rooms of the Residence

The double room, 308

There’s daily cleaning in all of the bedrooms for all of the new residence, and a big clean once a week of the whole residence itself.

There’s even a terrace where the students can sit out in the day between class with views over Salamanca! and an area with drinks and food machines that’s available for the students 24hours a day. The meals for the residence are being provided by the lovely cafe/restaurant downstairs, the Café Ideal. They are providing a special menu for our students staying in this residence.

Room 301 with doors onto the Terrace!

Staying in a residence is a great option for group trips as it’s easy to keep everyone together and even better if you’re in the building, nobody can get lost on their way to class! For the teachers it’s a fantastic way of making sure everybody’s safe and together, as there’s no need to cross the city to get to the school or wander around at lunch time.

The residence is only one option that we offer as accommodation in Salamanca, but also in Seville and Granada. The other options are a shared student flat or a home stay with a local family. The shared flats are a great way to be more independent, but they also require you to clean up after yourselves and look after the flat. Staying with a family is a really good way to get to see how the typical Spanish lifestyle is and try some proper home cooked Spanish food!

Another option that we offer is a private apartment, but this option is only available for over 18s. If you’d like any more information on the residence, or would like a quote for your group trip don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Posted in Info and Offers, Salamanca School, School, in Salamanca School | 1 Response »
Tags: Accommodation, Group trips, Residence, Salamanca School

Italian Group From “Liceo Scientifico Belfiore” in Spain!

Monday, July 27th, 2009

The Italian Group on the Tapas Trip in Salamanca

A group of 10 Italians have come to stay with us and study in Salamanca. The group has enjoyed a week long stay with us so far and still has a week to go in Salamanca! This last week they’ve been involved with loads of different activities. They’ve come as 9 students from the science school Belfiore and their teacher, Vania, to study Spanish in Salamanca.

The students have been following an Intensive Spanish Course during their stay, and Vania has been making the most of her time here too following a Spanish Course for Teachers, SUPE. This course is a course we offer specifically designed for teachers of Spanish, mostly non-native. The course is focused to improve fluency, help with any grammatical concepts that need refreshing and offer new methods of teaching! The program is made up oftheoretical and practical parts, mixing classes looking at teaching methodologies and Spanish language use. We also look at new techniques for teaching and how to use language laboratories, the internet and other components!

The Italian Group up the Cathedral of Salamanca

The group have enjoyed a tapas trip, a guided tour of the city, their intensive classes and much more activities here in Salamanca whilst staying with us, all as part of our Cultural Program to really immerse them all in the Spanish Culture! On Sunday they were also lucky enough to enjoy a trip to Aveiro in Portugal to spend a day at the beach and have a look around the town. The girls are really enjoying themselves and looking forward to their second week here! The activities in the school also include cookery classes, where they learnt how to make some traditional tapas, a guided tour of Salamanca, different conferences and films, amongst other things! They also went up the Cathedral of Salamanca with the ieronimus project. Let’s see if they do as many things in the second week and the first!

Vania enjoying her Spanish Course for Teachers with Asun and other teachers in her group.

If you’re a non-native Spanish teacher currently working in America and would like to take part in a superior Spanish Course for Teachers then have a look at our Scholarships that we offer for you in Salamanca. These scholarships include the price of your course with us, for one or two weeks, and the only thing you have to take care of is your accommodation!

Posted in Group programs, Info and Offers, Salamanca Program, in Salamanca School | No Responses »
Tags: Advanced Program for Teachers, Group trips, Salamanca

German group come to Salamanca to Learn Spanish with us

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

This week we’ve had a group of 25 students from the city of Moeckmuehl in Germany come to study Spanish with us in Salamanca, north Spain. They’ve come with their 2 Spanish teachers, Roman and Caroline!

The group have had a great time with us in Salamanca and enjoying the Cultural program that we organised for them they’ve seen most of the cultural and historic sights of Salamanca! They were lucky enough to go and visit the Cathedral of Salamanca and, thanks to the ieronimus project went up the Cathedral and saw the city from the best view point. The ieronimus project lets you go up the Cathedral and walk around the outside at the top, go inside the Cathedral very high up and has loads of information about the Cathedral and it’s history. It’s beautiufl inside and has some amazing views from the top where you can see all of Salamanca! The Cathedral of Salamanca is actually made up of 2 Cathedrals, the old and the new one. It took so long to finish builidng the Cathedral of Salamanca that we talk about the old and new Cathedral. The construction covers a range of styles, but the New Cathedral is both Gothic and Barroque in style.

The students also did a tour with us of the Convents of Salamanca. The convents are old and historic and full of culture and history of Salamanca. The best way to visit them is to go on a guided tour so that you can find out all about how and when they were made and the history of the monks and nuns that live there. There are convents all over the centre, sometimes hidden or so discreet that you don’t even realise they’re there!

On Saturday the students went to visit the nearby cities of Avila and Segovia, two beautiful old cities in Castille and Leon and near to Salamanca.

The students have had a great time in Salamanca improving their Spanish and we’ve really enjoyed having them with us this week. Their group program was organised just for them, just like we can organise a group program for your school or group. The students that come with us to study as a group don’t have to be from a school or University. If you’re interested in a group trip to Salamanca, Granada or Seville you can find out more on our website or get in touch with us at the school! You can see an example of a group trip plan in Salamanca on our website, and you can also check out a budget for your group trip to Spain with us.

Posted in Group programs, Salamanca Program | 1 Response »
Tags: Cultural Program, Group trip, Monuments in Salamanca, Salamanca

The Summer Tapas Tour

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

This Monday the latest Spanish Students staying with us in Salamanca got the chance to go and enjoy some of the best local tapas! The Tapas Tour is a trip we run every week as part of our cultural program, and offers the students the chance to get to know each other and the city a bit better, whilst trying some of the best local food!

On the trip we normally go via some of the best bars in Salamanca, including: The Cuatro Gatos (The 4 Cats) on the Rúa Mayor, Delicatessen, Doctrinos, where they serve the best jamón! and Mater Asturias, an Asturian Cider bar serving typical Asturian Cider and delicious food. Some other bars include Bambú, a bar next to the square serving loads of different tapas and rations of delicious meat cooked on the grill, amongst other things.

Spanish Students enjoying Tapas in Mater Asturias

In Salamanca some of the best local foods are the famous Jamón, the best type coming from near to Salamanca itself! and the delicious Tortilla Española. The Tortilla is made up of fried potatoes and eggs and is sometimes filled with different things. Some of the most typical are ham and cheese, or vegetables – more often than not including tuna and salad.

Another typical food of the region is Farinato. A Spanish type of Haggis! It’s meat and bread with herbs, onion and seasoning inside either a real or synthetic stomach lining, and can normally be found in the shape of a sausage! It normally comes served fried with a fried egg.

This week the Spanish Students currently staying with us in Salamanca enjoyed the Tapas Tour and here you can see a photo of them enjoying some pinchos, tapas in the Mater Asturias bar, right next to the Plaza Mayor. There are loads of photos on Facebook of other Tapas tours that we’ve done in the past so that you can see what we get up to! There’s also posts on our blog telling you more about the Tapas tours!

Posted in Activities, in Salamanca | 1 Response »
Tags: Cultural Program, Salamanca, Tapas Tour

Mester School Blog, with Spanish to anywhere…

Blog with information, news, activities, events from Spain and about Spanish Courses

July, 2009

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The Summer Tapas Tour