The Tecun Uman school of Spanish is one of about
30 or so in the city of Antigua, Guatemala. It was our choice
because of a recommendation from a friend who had attended it,
so Mary Ellen and I decided we would go there on her advice. We
were not disappointed! Here are the features that we felt worked
very well for us:
1. The instruction is given one-on-one, so that the entire
"class" is you and your instructor
2. Classes can be of varied lengths. We opted for the four-hour
per day classes, Monday-Friday
3. Each class is customized to your specific needs from
beginners to more advanced. For example my classes focused on
learning the forms of past tense verbs and
conversational skills and they fit my needs perfectly.
4. The school is very flexible. When I requested that my
instructor walk me around the city of Antigua to explain the
city (and country) history, that is exactly
what we did.
5. For the four-hour option, classes began at 8:00 and went to
10:00. There followed a break for about 15-20 minutes
and we resumed class again until noon.
6. Students from all over the world attend. During our stay, we
met students from Japan, Canada, Korea and learned
that others (not during our stay) came from
Europe and other locations.
7. Classes are taught entirely in Spanish. Only when clarity
cannot be obtained is any English used.
There are many other schools in Antigua, but apparently only
five are licensed and have actual trained instructors. If
economy is your goal, there may be less expensive options, but
in our case, we paid (in 2019) US $1400 (total for BOTH of us)
for our four-week classes. Given that we were there for four
weeks/five days per week, that means each class cost us $35.
That is $35 for a private tutor for four hours! It is
hard to imagine finding an actual trained instructor for less
than $8.75/hour.
If this appeals to you, here is the information for you to look
into it further:
Name of school is: Tecun Uman
Website is: https://www.tecunumanschool.edu.gt
Your primary contact there will be: Mario Castellanos (School
director)
Many options exist for housing and our recommended location is
at the other link, but just to be clear, there ARE other
choices, but from what we could glean, we were very fortunate to
stay where we did.
You will find much of the information I mentioned above on the
website to confirm that I wasn't kidding! Also, if you have any
other questions, you can write to me.