nona1

I remember seeing details of an English training co in Spain that owns a whole village. I organises 'immersion' courses for people whereby they live alongside native-speakers of English. I'm interested from the English-speakers point of view - they use volunteers and you basically get a free holiday in return for spending all day speaking English to Spaniards! My son might be interested in volunteering - anyone got any ideas who runs this as I can't remember.

ekscrunchy

I posted about this here on Fodor's in the last year...I thought it was called something like Pueblo Espanol but cannot find it with a Google search. See if you can find my post here..

wrrllw

I think that the program/village you refer to is called Pueblo Ingles; more details can be found at www.vaughanvillage.com. Seems like teenage boys are in demand!

lincasanova

i have ot admit i used ot think this was a totally insane idea.. but i have since met some people who live in spain and occasionally do this , and i can see now that all sides gain.

those attending the immersion conversation sessions (no clases exactly) are usually top executives/deans or professors from across spain and sometimes other countries.

so it is a great networking place.

good luck.

Pegontheroad

I think this is a great idea! If I wanted to learn English, I'd jump at the opportunity to take an immersion course like this.

Most of my knowledge of German has been acquired in immersions schools, at Goethe Institutes and at a school in Portland, Oregon, called Deutsche Sommerschule am Pazifik. Participants speak only German, some of them badly, some of them well. All instructors are native speakers of German.

azzure

A fellow member of a Rick Steves tour I went on had done this. According to her, the point of the program was not so much to teach English as to teach non-native speakers a sort of casual, idiomatic way of speaking, rather than the formal type of language taught in most courses.

ekscrunchy

Ha! No wonder I could not find my old post! Of course it is Pueblo Ingles! Not Pueblo Espanol!


http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35091243

kenderina

I agree with Lin, the people who goes to these "inmersion courses" are usually top executives or other people who , in most cases, have the courses payed by their employers. They are extremely expensive for anyone else. In fact, they are more expensive than going to England for a regular course there.

altajoe

Is the English School the only thing in Valdelavilla? The pictures look a lot like a tiny mountain village that a Spaniard friend took us to see 10 years ago. I don't remember any talk of a school.

I do seem to remember him saying that it was a refuge during the Spanish Civil war due to its remote and highly defensible position.

lincasanova

all i know is that a friend goes with his wife for a 4 star hotel break a few times a year and thoroughly enjoys it.

great food.. and fun learning for the executives.

i think the pupils pay 1.500 euros for 5 nights.

which is not more expenive than a similar course in england in a four star hotel.

kenderina

oh, then they have now shorter courses....or they have changed their management. When I looked at them, the courses were three weeks...and they were about 12000 euros.

kenderina

I forgot to add they weren't in a four star hotel...but a village house.

lincasanova

maybe there is vaughtown and vaughnvillage?

i have heard my friend refer to vaughn"town".

wow. 12.000!!

also, my friend may not have the price right.. who knows.

i am just passing on secondhand info.. which as you know sometimes is not a good idea!

hey..kende.. you never came for fallas?????

you might have met teacherincanada!

nona1

wow thanks everyone for the information.

My son hasn't stopped talking since he emerged from the womb so it's the perfect working holiday for him!

mztery

I did this back in 2003 when there was ONLY "vaughan village" At some point Mr. Vaughan and his partners had a falling out so now there are 2 programs

vaughan town is the "original" - started and run by Richard Vaughan, who owns a series of businesses in Spain catering t o professionals who want to improve their use of English. There are 2 locations n Spain - one in Gredos, that I attended and a newer one in another town.
http://www.vaughantown.com/EnglishNew/dates.asp

The split-off program, kept the original name. Vaughan VIllage/Pueblo Ingles, and has several locations including Italy (for those who do a Spanish program first)
http://www.vaughanvillage.com/

The program is not easy to describe. You're not really "teaching English" tin the way you would imagine. The program is for Spanish professionals and young people who basically know standard English, and speak pretty well, but who need to know the type of colloquial English oyu would encounter at business functions, teleconferences etc. The example give to us was , being at a party, and an "Anglo" says "How many kids d'ya have?" and the PSaniard has no idea what is being asked!

So what you do for 7 10 or 14 days, is...talk. Talk about anything and everything. The goals are to NOT speak Spanish; NOT let your Spaniard take over the conversation and to talk AS NORMALLY as you can- i.e. not work very hard to MAKE yourself understood, but talk as oyu would to a friend and encourage your charge to ask questions about the slang etc you use.

The talking is done in 50-minute blocks, all one on one except for a few scheduled activities, and in good weather you're encouraged to walk to town with your charge or otherwise interact off-site. There are 8-10 sessions per day plus the 3 meals you share with the group, where again, you're expected to talk talk talk.

It's really fun, I had a good time but it definitely NOT a vacation. The food is OK (the food generates the most complaints from Anglos) and the people are really nice. But you do work your proverbial tail off....

kenderina

I couldn't go , Lin !! I'm so sorry !!! My mom had a few days before a cardiac "arritmia" and was at hospital for two days, it was not really bad but she got very anxious and frightened ...she asked me not to go because she didn't want to stay alone with my dad.
She is much better now, she's still a bit afraid though.

Sorry for hijacking the post !!

nona1

Thanks MZ for giving us an idea of what it is like. Don't you get any 'down' time during the day?

mztery

no downtime during the day, except a short "siesta" time after lunch.

Jo_Montreal

Hi,

I read somewhere that there's a similar program in Germany. (I'm interested in the ones in Spain and Italy but think I am ineligible since I speak Spanish and Italian.)

Does anyone have information on the German one?

Thanks a lot!

Jo
Montreal