Whee Institute Spanish Classes: My Experience
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I have a notebook with butterflies on the cover.
Yes, you read that correctly. In the days leading up to beginning my Whee Institute Spanish Classes, I knew I needed to be well-prepared. I didn’t study in advance, but I did have a super-cool notebook and three different color pens. Study in advance?!?! Pssshht! I was already two steps ahead!
Now back to that notebook. For anyone that has a problem with a grown man using a notebook with butterflies on the cover, I double-checked—they’re not butterflies—they are dragonflies. WHEW…close call! Although you know what they say: “It takes a real man to use a notebook with butterflies on the cover.”
The Whee Institute building is bright…but not as colorful as my dragonfly notebook!
Whee Institute Spanish Classes: My Masterplan
Before beginning week one of classes, I honestly believed that I would get myself fluent in Spanish with just five weeks of Whee Institute Spanish Classes. FIVE WEEKS, starting from level 0 and progressing to fluency. Foolish I know, but hey, aim for the moon, right?
That plan; however, was quickly derailed once my lost phone incident forced me to miss roughly half of my first week of classes. I then saw myself slip behind my classmates from the very beginning.
“Wait. You mean to tell me I won’t be fluent in just 4-5 weeks?!?”
Whee Institute Spanish Classes: My Actual Experience
There’s often a fine line between reality and illusion.
For me, regarding my approach to studying Spanish, the above quote couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality: I began my Whee Institute Spanish classes with a working vocabulary of about 5-10 Spanish words. The illusion: see my masterplan above.
“Started from the bottom, now we here.” –Drake
Ok, spoiler alert…maybe I did not gain fluency, but I definitely started from the bottom. So when comparing my week 1 Spanish ability level to my week 4 Spanish ability level, the vast improvement is a testament to my time spent studying at Whee.
What I liked about studying at Whee Institute
- The pace. Although we started slow, with basics, we progressed rapidly.
- The small class sizes. Classes are kept to a five student MAXIMUM, which gave each student an equal opportunity to participate and receive adequate individual attention from the instructor.
- The length. At three hours per day, I still got the feel of being immersed, but not overly consumed by classroom time.
- A new teacher each week. The benefit of this for me was that it exposed me to multiple accents, which is great for listening comprehension when learning a new language.
- The extracurricular activities arranged by the school. Perhaps what I enjoyed most during my time in Colombia! The staff at the institute do a great job of making each student feel welcomed. They actively promote various activities ranging from dance classes, to movie nights, to even playing Tejo (a Colombian game that is quite popular among the locals, which involves trying to hit a hidden target that explodes upon contact).
Intense focus is required while playing Tejo (and typically a lot of beer drinking too!)
The Final Verdict
I appreciate the fact that Whee Institute was founded as a non-profit and their main goal was, and still is, to offer quality education at an affordable price. Classes are student-centered and the atmosphere is more like that of a family than that of a school. For learning Spanish in South America, Whee Institute is definitely a great place to begin your journey.
In the comments below, mention your most memorable school or language learning experience!
45 Comments
i learnt spanish as well for around 10 weeks and could only do the beginners, will love to get back to it!
I can still only do the beginners as well but I hope to go back also!
Well, great things start from small beginnings, right? 😉 Fluency in a new language in just 5 weeks does seem a bit ambitious (I mean that in a good way, no offense). But a good working vocabulary and diction could probably be more than manageable in that time frame. Too bad for the phone you lost–that would indeed be a setback if that happened to anyone, especially if you’re in a foreign country.
the whee institute and classes sound amazing! hahaha i love that you’re “aiming for the moon” its brilliant.
Learning a new language is one of my goals for this year and that sounds like a fantastic place to learn. Having an experience like this and learning a language in a new country would be fun! Thanks for sharing this information, you’ve got me inspired to organise some Spanish lessons!
I love that the institution is a non profit. Having access to language education is so important in today’s world since we’ve become such a internationally connected society. I’m trying to brush up on my spanish too! but just using books and duolingo.
I’ve always wanted to learn the Spanish language, probably because it’s close to our Filipino tongue. The school looks awesome and your experience tells us that you really had fun. Language classes should be more focused, comprehensive and practical than other regular classes because the field requires greater context understanding . All in all, I enjoyed this post and learned some stuff from it! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Whee institute is colorful. I like the pink, purples and violet shades. It looks like a building in storybooks. New teacher every week is quite exciting.
The Spanish language has always fascinated me. I started learning it when I was a child. Then, I took Spanish as one of my electives in college. But, I eventually forgot most of what I learned because I didn’t have someone to communicate with.
That’s the frustrating thing about languages. After all that hard work would put in…it still comes down to “use it or lose it”
Yes, just try until you make it! I also tried learning Japanese around 2012, but I just learned the basic. I never had the patience. I hope your interest in learning a new language will not die. Just keep on learning! I wish you had a picture of that notebook though! HAHA
I was really debating whether or not to include a picture of the notebook! haha
What a great way to better yourself, learning a new language is always such a valuable skill. I studied Spanish for my GCSEs, I scraped a passing grade but that was about it, I am terrible at learning languages, I’ve lived in Dubai for 26 years and I can still only count to ten in Arabic – in fact I know more Thai than anything (bar English of course).
Wow, 26 years and only count to ten. I understand though, sometimes it’s hard when you’re still surrounded by English, yet in a foreign country.
I took Spanish before and I am now hatinf myself for my being so serious before. It is only now that I appreciated the language and know of its importance. That aside from English and our native dialect, it is advantageous to have another language. If given the chance, I will again learn Spanish. And I also would love to try Japanese and French.
I lived in Japan for 3 years and I wish I would have been more serious about picking up the language when I was there…what I love about learning a new language is how it opens up a whole new world.
cool.. i grew up in a town that has a dialect that merely influenced by Spanish… and I would love to explore more about it and learn Spanish Language soon… I hope I can find an institute here in my place specializing with such language too
I hope you can find a place to study soon as well!
I would really love to learn Spanish. I understand almost everything but it’s really hard for me to talk. As far as I can see, the groups here are quite small which allows the teacher to work more individually with each student. Learning a new language and having an opportunity to learn it is a great honor. So, good luck with your language learning, this seems are a great school, especially for beginners.
Speaking is also where I struggle as well. It just takes a whole lot of trial and error.
This post honestly had me laughing out loud, and so cool of you to take on a new experience the way you did!
Thank you 🙂
The Whee Institute sonds great . I especially like the idea that you have a varied class with new teachers each week. This is great as it gives you the experience of various teaching methods from different teachers.
Yes, I really enjoy the different teaching styles.
I’ve never heard of this school before, but it seems so cool! I love that you were given hands on learning with extra curriculars. That’s the perfect way to get a grasp of the language. There is nothing wrong with a dragonfly notebook…rock that ish!
Thank you. And I have fully embraced the dragonfly btw haha!
Sounds like a great place to learn spanish. You are right only a real man would be brave enough to have a dragonfly notepad! Keep up the hard work
Thanks Emily!
It is so good that you are trying to learn a new language. 🙂 the details sound so good.
If quality and price matches then it is ideal place to be in. Great that you could make commendable improvement in your language in 3 weeks.
It’s probably the most affordable school in the city, so from that standpoint the quality greatly outweighs the price 🙂
This sounds like an exclusive learning glass for Spanish. I haven’t had the opportunity to learn this most demanding language till now. May be soon!
Great fun!
I haven’t ever thought about learning Spanish yet but I know the importance when my cousin went to Costa Rica and she realised the significance of Spanish..I feel one should always be adaptive
First of all if you want to use a butterfly / dragonfly note book go for it – people are too judgemental and that;s their problem not yours. Glad to hear you had fun and it was like a family vibe and also affordable.
I tried studying Spanish before in college. I thought it would be easy because here we use some spanish words already. I was wrong! It turned out to be harder than what I expected. What’s great about your class is that there’s focus (since you have 5 students max) and newness with different teachers!
Wow, this is truly such a great experience. I’m not sure If can able to learn Spanish Language, but I truly admire you for being courageous and so determined to learn another language. Anyway, I like the positive vibes of the school and seems to be a great school to enroll. I hope that you can pursue this even more and would love to read an English word translated to Spanish soon from your blog. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.
Hopefully I’ll get to the point where I’m confident enough to do a blog post in Spanish!
I have such a difficult time learning a language because there aren’t a lot of people to speak to. I probably will never learn a second language!
Never say never Katie!
Well first of I am in love with how bright and colourful the Whee Institute is. Secondly it is great that the proficiency of your Spanish has improved. Congratulations!
Thanks Ana…You’re right about the colors. It would be a perfect backdrop for one of your photo shoots!
I studied in Xela (Quetzaltenango) Guatemala, one-to-one classes for five hours a day. Like Colombian mountain Spanish, Guatemalan mountain Spanish is supposed to be a very clear dialect which makes it a little bit better for us gringos starting out with español..
I’m hoping to get to Guatemala this summer also. Your one-on-one lessons sound amazing Mike.
Ah yay! Well done you, learning another language is such a great challenge – I learnt French and even a bit of Chinese Mandarin which was very hard!
Yes, and I love a challenge, but I foolishly thought because I’ve studied Japanese and Korean that Spanish would somehow be easy…boy was I wrong!
This sounds like a great school to learn Spanish in a Spanish speaking country. I am actually looking for a similar experience but in Italy. The fact that the class was kept at maximum 5 students is brilliant as you can always learn and understand faster in a smaller group. And the out of class activities sound really good as well! I’d love to learn how to play Tejo 🙂