Quorum Centro de Idiomas

I have been an occasional student at Quorum for the past three years. My working hours made it impossible to join a “residents” course so I had to have private lessons. Being the only student has great advantages. You learn at your own pace, you have the full attention of the teacher and the hour is intensive. However, the big downfall is the cost and the feeling of being isolated from the rest of the students at the school. Therefore, I decided to use my holidays to take an Intensive course.

I was placed in the level “B2” which is at the intermediate stage. This course tackles the infamous “Subjunctive” mood. The day is split into two hours of grammar followed by two hours of conversation. For me, the Grammar classes were the easiest, in that I am OK with the written exercises and the “theory” of the language, even the subjunctive! The problem is putting all the theory together and using it in conversation.


Outside classroom "Sevilla".

Having said that, I did find the Grammar lessons extremely useful. Most of the lessons seemed to be revision but a number of lessons stand out as break through moments. Personal highlights include Natali’s explanation of the up to now unfathomable “le/lo/la”, the dreaded direct and indirect objects that even the Spanish get wrong. Then there’s Fran’s easy to understand rules on Grammar that usually include a great little story as a memory aid and a few “Picaso” drawings on the board.


Gramatica con Fran.

Although Fran lists “Torturing Students over the Subjunctive” as one of his hobbies, the real pain comes in the Conversation class with Antonio. There is little more terrifying than suddenly requiring to find the right words, the correct verb tense and remembering all the required rules. Don’t even think about pronouncing it all correctly! It’s a good job Antonio as the patience of a saint. At times he must wonder what the hell we do in the Grammar lessons, as we can never seem to get it right in practice.

I know Antonio well from my earlier visits to the school, as he was my teacher. My usual “get out of jail free card” would be to talk football. Antonio being a passionate Málaga fan. However, in a group situation where the majority of students couldn’t care less about football there was no such safety net. We found refuge in sticking to our favourite phrases. “me gusta”, “vamos a ver”, “creo que si” and anything else we could thing of in the present tense. The discussions were quiet fun, even if I seemed to come out of most of them sounding like a right wing fanatic and disagreeing with virtually every one in the class (bloody socialists the lot of ‘em!).

Overall I have found the course to be highly enjoyable and feel like I have gained more confidence with my Spanish. I feel very confident with the grammar. I just need to kick on with the comprehension and conversation in Spanish. Hopefully I will soon lose my tag as the Black sheep of the school on the next Tapa’s trips out with the School.