In Madrid there are many Spanish language schools, some have intensive classes, others have extensive classes… Some of them are closer to the city centre and others are further away. We have already mentioned in another post the most important things to take into account when choosing a school to learn Spanish. However, only at Inhispania Spanish school you will be able to do these 5 things. Do you want to find them out? Keep reading! 🔥💘
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1. Celebrate Spanish cultural events at school
At Inhispania, as well as learning the Spanish language, you will get in touch with the culture and traditions of Spain. We find it interesting that students participate in significant events in Spain. Other schools and teachers would explain what each one consists in, but we go one step further. We want you to dance, eat, see and hear the festivities that make us to be what we are: Spaniards and Madrileños.
Every year at Christmas you can try the roscón de Reyes, a typical Spanish dessert that is eaten accompanied with hot chocolate. When New Year’s Eve approaches, you’ll eat grapes with us. We will eat them as the ring at the Puerta del Sol Square chimes in a video, a tradition that Spaniards usually do at home on New Year’s Eve. At Carnival, we’ll dress up in fancy dresses and, when it’s San Isidro festivity, you’ll learn to dance chotis with your teachers and we’ll eat “barquillos” at a party.
Look at this photo of our 20th anniversary dancing chotis with the students! How bad we were all at dancing it! 🤣 Haha
2. Taste Spanish and foreign cuisine
Eating authentic Madrid "barquillos" is just one of the things you will do at Inhispania. Every week, when new students join the school, we welcome them offering them some Spanish tapas and "pinchos de tortilla" (Spanish omelette skewers), so that you can get to know what our gastronomy tastes like. Of course, when you go back to your country, we also say goodbye with a celebration with tapas and drinks.
We take every chance to eat with our students! In Spain we love to share food. If you are studying at school, you will often see teachers bringing desserts to class or students preparing food typical of their countries for their classmates to try it. It's great when every student comes from a different country! Classrooms become places of language learning and cultural exchange.❤
3. Camaraderie and fellowship
The average age of our teachers is 25 years old, did you know that? This means that you will often not be able to tell whether they are teachers or students when you see them around the school. This may seem a trivial fact but because they are so young, classes are geared towards having fun learning. We use games, role plays and all kinds of props (e.g. balls) to make the classes more participatory. In addition, there is a maximum of 9 students in each class. You won't be embarrassed to talk because it will be fun, and your classmates and teachers will soon become your new friends in Madrid.
At Inhispania we used to organise sports competitions between students and teachers. Nowadays every week we offer cultural and leisure activities, so you can make friends from other classes and get to know the city, your teachers will accompany you! You can join excursions to other cities like Segovia or Toledo, eat tapas, dance bachata in the Retiro Park and discover the city while you improve your Spanish.
(Image: In summer, a teacher brought a water pistol to correct her students' presentation in class; if they made a mistake, she soaked them! 😆)
4. Learn how to dance
Our teacher Lucía Mayán is a semi-professional dancer. When she was only 15 years old she signed up for a modern dance course (funky, afro, jazz, etc.) and since then she hasn't stopped learning: classical and contemporary ballet, urban dance, sevillanas, Latin dances and K-Pop. Although she specialised in urban dance/hip-hop, she dances “lo que le echen” (whatever), as she always says.
In Cadiz, her hometown, and in Madrid she has worked as a modern dance teacher in several schools as an extracurricular activity. Nowadays she is a Spanish teacher in our school! She combines her passion for dance with teaching Spanish.
We organise dance activities in the Parque de El Buen Retiro guided by her. So far she has been teaching Latin dance and Spanish dance (sevillanas) to our Spanish students, but we do not rule out the possibility of offering more advanced classes in other styles in the future! 🙃
5. A renowned artist explains the lessons with drawings
Antonio Feliz is a street artist and illustrator who has been working in Inhispania for more than 10 years. His alter ego, "Parsec!", started out in Hamburg making profile tags on walls. Later on, he began to recycle materials he found on the street with the aim of returning them to their place of origin in the form of paintings and intervened objects. Since 2006 he has continued to create murals in rural contexts, sometimes forgotten or isolated, using painting to reclaim them.
Today you can find his work in the Tabacalera in Madrid (an underground space of renown in the capital), in many shops in Madrid and in several rural areas of Spain. Moreover, in his hometown, Castrogonzalo, almost every mural bears his name.
We are very proud to have him in our school. Moreover, he often explains the Spanish lessons by drawing pictures on the blackboard! 😮 Look at these two:
Have you already packed your suitcase? We are waiting for you! If you still have doubts about whether Inhispania is the best option to learn Spanish in Madrid, just take a look at this other post: 10 activities to do near Inhispania school. We are in the very centre of Madrid and next to the Retiro Park! (2 minutes walking distance from Gran Vía street). 🙌 See you in Madrid!
