I have seen somewhere, that certain towns offer free spanish courses to foreigners. Can anybody sugest how I can find out if Alicante or Elche offer any such free courses?

Thanks,
Matlab

go to your local ayuntamiento (council offices)

I am not living in Spain untill May. I am trying my best to learn spanish independently, but i feel with the presence of other students and a teacher I would improve a lot more.

Are there websites of local ayuntamiento's or not?

my local one has one, and has a section about the lessons - just google the town & ayuntamiento

here is Elche's - I can't see anything about classes http://www.elche.es/ilive/Main but I've only looked very briefly

one problem some have is that classes are often huge - I know someone who has classes in a town near us with about 50 students in the class of various nationalities

3 years on she knows tons of Spanish but can't actually speak much at all

courses around here don't run in the summer afaik - June-Oct

Thanks very much for your help! I am planning on staying for a long time (hopefully forever), so its not vital that they run over summer

Be careful in the Fuengirola area as apparently EU citizens are not classed as foreigners, so are not eligable for free lessons. WTF is going on there then, I would of thought if you couldn`t speak Spanish you would need the lessons.

I cant speak spanish, although I am trying to learn it myself. I had a look on the Novelda and Monforte sites, and cant seem to see anything either

If you look around, there are private language schools in places like Madrid and Valencia, that will give you daily Spanish classes from 60-80 Euro a month. To be honest, if you can't afford that, you shouldn't really be thinking of moving just yet.

Yes, im sure that is affordable! Ive had a look for those kind of schools but tey all seem to be about 130 euro per week.

Here's one in Madrid. 69 Euros per month, although that's only for 4 hours a week. Prices go up for more hours (as you'd expect). I suspect 4 hours a week would be fine, if you also joined an intercambio (language exchange) and studied hard yourself.

http://www.williams-school.com/horarios+precios.html

Little note of warning - the schools normally charge a Matricula (registration charge) of around 20 or 30 Euros. So don't book unless you're confident of taking the class, as this is non-refundable - as is the course charge each month.

Thanks a lot

I will have to have a look see if there are any in Alicante - where I am moving to.

Good luck - we do have some posters here who know Alicante. Hopefully someone will know of a decent budget language school there.

If you are a complete beginner check out Livemocha.com. The basic lessons are free and there is a very cool community of members that will correct your exercises and give you feedback. That should get you going till you move to Spain.

In Spain, take a look at the local schools in your area. Some of them offer free evening Spanish classes for non-Spanish speaking students and their parents. I don't know if you can still sit in if you don't have kids going to that school though. But, you can ask.

If you are a beginner and can get the BBC website have a look at the Languages section and then Spain. The colleges in the UK use Talk Spanish as a base for the courses. There is also Books and CDs available from Amazon, amongst others associated with it.

The BBC website also has 2 other Spanish courses on the the website, My Vida Loca and Spanish Steps

Our town hall in Hondon de las Nieves used to provide free classes for foreigners in the past but the Valencian government wouldn't provide the funding for 2009/2010 because of the "crisis" and shortage of money. The teacher that did the free classes set up a private class running for 8 weeks @ €30 for the course and €30 for books. A school in Aspe runs a course for differents levels about 1 and half hours a weeks form September to June.
Enrolments for these courses are usually with the town hall at the beginning of September.