Last night it was my turn to be a language student! I took a Spanish language class in the beautiful Playa Del Carmen area of Mexico. Except I didn’t leave my desk. I was offered the opportunity to improve my Spanish in an online class by my colleagues at IH Riviera Maya and I’m so glad I took it up!
I did feel a little nervous as I logged onto Zoom. Would I be able to keep up? Would they all be better than me? How would I last two hours? Which then made me feel good. Good because I was seeing things through the eyes of OUR online students. I’ve been encouraging people to join IH Manchester’s online English classes for the last 4 months. Now I was reminding myself what it feels like to make that big leap of faith. From contemplating signing up, to taking the plunge and diving in. Yes, I’m in! And that is the power of a quality brand like IH and the care shown by a talented salesperson and teacher. Trust. I trusted Myrna when she told me it would be fine. And I really needn’t have worried because from the minute I entered the classroom I was made to feel so welcome.
“Hola Peter! Bienvenido. Como estas? Bien?” said our teacher, Lucy.
“Hola! Si, gracias, todo bien.” I replied, and from that point on everything was just fine.
I quickly met my classmates, people of my age from the USA, mainly; Maryland, Florida, California.
“Are you British?” said one, “What a cool accent”.
Lucy quickly got us started and we were straight into describing people, their physical characteristics, how they looked and commenting on their personality. My student instincts from the past kicked in, but no time to take notes, questions were coming and I had to be ready to answer! And so we forged our way through; asking each other questions, answering, describing friends and listening to native speakers do the same. We even did a bit of writing, too. It was wonderful to be able to decipher a conversation, I was amazed how much I understood. I even identified Lionel Messi from a “guess who” game! The time flew by and what was incredible was how much of the language I could recall as I was sitting down to dinner, telling the family what had just happened.
Takeaways have got to be: trust the brand, throw yourself in and don’t worry about making mistakes. Good language learners take risks and can live with uncertainty! That’s how we learn and Lucy was always there to provide guidance if we got stuck. Now I’m checking times of the next intensive course because I’ve got a taste for this online language learning now!
You can learn more about the English language courses we offer here:
General English Courses
IELTS Preparation Courses
Professional English Courses
Medical English Courses
As well as a whole range of languages offered by the International House World Organisation
