www.CostaRicaTicas.com

I'm a CRLA Alumni too. Maybe we should form a group and hold reunions or something. Do a search for posts by me with the word CRLA in it and you will find tons of info not just on CRLA but other education options as well.

Thanks for all the info guys. CRLA sounds pretty good.

Sounds like a good school for all levels of the language.(crla)

Thanks again for everyones help. I will try CRLA in August for a week and I will post how it was for me. I know a week is not long but maybe I will learn something!

I was X-MAN but I changed my username to Fubar. So no one will get confused with me and Xman anymore.

I speak very little Spanish, and am thinking about taking classes at CRLA in September, but I can only get away for a week. Is one week of morning classes with afternoon private lessons enough to learn something? I'm sure two weeks is better, but can't stay that long.

Woody,

All the schools I talked to told me you could learn
enough to get by (nothing major) in 1 week but 2
would be better.

My Spanish SUCKS! So I will let you know
how my week goes.

Woody...
Think you could learn enough in a week if you went private lessons every day all day. That'd get you the same number of hours I've had in three weeks. In that time, I've gone from knowing nothing to being able to communicate my ideas at least.
Get by great in resturants and at bars. Even carried on a halfway-decent conversation with a Tico last night. Tried to talk to a Tica dancer but she was a student majoring in English and spoke it better than I do so...
I don't think classes in the morning and private in the afternoon would work well. Think you'd find yourself jumping ahead of the class and would end up just reviewing the same material you learned in the private class the day before.
Not really sure what the best answer is but I've enjoyed my month at CRLA...

I did it that way with 3 hours group in the AM and 2hrs private in the PM and to some degree what you suggest was true but not completely.

Afternoons were spent partly just brushing up on and covering in greater depth what was covered in the morning and partially jumping ahead of the morning class. However, even without afternoon classes there was a fair amount of jumping around in the book. To some extent the course is progressive with some subjects necessarily coming before others but there is still a lot that can be done in any order the instructor feels works for those students. In the afternoon, you might jump way ahead to cover material that the rest of the class wouldn't cover until a few days later (by which point you might have been graduated to the next level class - so no duplication).

Also, although they try to initially assign students according to their level of Spanish at the outset, unless you're all starting from absolute zero there will still be at least some variation in abilities from the very beginning and then, even without any afternoon classes, your various classmates will naturally progress at different rates. For example, some people are just naturally quicker learners and others study or practice more outside of class. There will be faster and slower students in your class just like there were in your classes back in school, but the intstructor constantly evaluates if the gap gets too large and if you or her feel you've gotten too far ahead they'll bump you up to a more advanced class even it its in the middle of the week (then your afternoons will be spent playing catchup). That happened to me at least 2-3 times during my stay.

Last few words of advice: I doubt many of you will go for the homestay, even though as much as anythig else that could really help increase your rate of learning, because it probably won't be so easy to sneak your BM "novias" past mama. However, if you don't do that at least try and use your spanish as close to 100% of the time as you can. As much as I enjoyed hanging out and chatting with my CRT buds (in English) back in the Gulch after class, it didn't really help my absorption of Spanish.

Prolijo good post.

I start class on August 6 for one week at CRLA.
I will do homestay from Sunday 5th to Thrusday 9th.
I hope that 4 nights with a CR family will help some.

Did you feel that the group class was good or would
you take private classes if you had the chance?

Fubar before you go pick up a book called Madrigal's magic key to learning Spanish. It's a great book . (only 10$ at amazon)

One on one attention is always going to be better than sharing the profesora's attention with the rest of your group. But that does't mean you can't learn an awful lot from a group class. And, of course, private lessons cost a lot more than group so which is the best value is anybody's call. Here's the thing though: At CRLA at least, the group classes are never that large so you can get almost as much attention in the group class. The smallest class I had was just 2 students. The largest was me and 4 young and hot looking european chicks which wasn't so bad either. In fact, that brings me to my 2nd point about group classes, IMHO a lot of how much you get out of it depends on how what level you're at and, as importantly, how you match up with the rest of the class. Initially, I was placed with a gringo and gringa close to my age but a LOT slower at learning. Even though there was just 2 of them, we spent too much time on real basic stuff because of it. They try to place you appropirately after an initial test assessment but they also recognize if the placement is off or the learning rates widely diverge and then they will transfer you up or down to another class if appropriate. In my case I got bumped up 2 or 3 times. Finally, I ended up with all those young girls. They were actually way ahead of me, but even though I was sharing class time with more people I actually got a lot more out ot that class because a) it pushed me more than if I was just learning on my own and b) believe it or not you can also learn a lot from just listening to others ad your fellow students usually speak a lot slower than native spanish speakers which helps a lot.

Still, I think you're going about it the right way. Homestay, group lessons in the morning followed up with 1-2 hours of 1-on-1 in the afternoon. I also recommed you take advantage of their free afternoon conversational classes, not to mention their salsa and cooking classes. Both of the latter are also done in spanish offering even more opportunity for language practice not to mention the chance to learn other aspects of latin culture.

Great posts Prolijo. I've gotten lucky (or maybe it's because I'm a Spanish idiot) the past two weeks. I paid for group classes but I guess I'm 'special' because I've gotten private tutoring one-on-one with a profesora for two full weeks now at no extra charge.
Fubar, good choice for learning spanish! Sorry I'm gonna miss you as my last day is the Friday before you arrive. Don't leave till Aug. 7 so if you wanna pick my brain, PM me for my SJ number.
And too all out there interested, if you will PM me, I have kept my word lists of all the words I've learned in Word documents as well as one Excel spreadsheat with all the verbs and their first five conjugations... It's an invaluable study aid and glad to send it to anyone who wants them.

I'm staying in SJ for two weeks. I was wondering if 1 week at CRLA was good enough to learn spanish? I wanted to spend 1 week learning spanish and 1 week mongering at MP. I guess I could spend 2 weeks, but I would have to do my mongering in the afternoon?

CRLA is a great school and you can attend each morning for 3, 4 or 5 hrs. and then have your fun in the afternoons and evenings. You can walk to San Pedro Mall each day for lunch if you take the 4 or 5 hr. class. If you're serious about learning go for the 2 weeks, study and don't stay up too late!

_________________

Living well is the best revenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwUtj_YnNoY

Sorry for bombarding you guys with questions. Is there a lot of difference beween the 3 hour or 6 hour class? If you were doing 2 weeks, would you do the 4 day a week program or 5 day a week program? I guess you can take the bus to CRLA, the same bus to San Pedro Mall. I would like to monger too, besides studying spanish. I heard there are a lot of euro and american hotties there.