Well thats it, expats will come back if they are comfortable and seen to be "doing their best" or at least making a token effort.

My experience is in internsive language courses that people spend 1000s (or 10,000s) of euros on to get to a decent level to allow them to study or work in that langauge. These courses really work, but require time and effort. And the teachers only ever speak at the language they are teaching.

I went to full time college when i first moved to spain to learn spanish. Our class of 30 had russians, english, austrian, germans, koreans and checoslovakian mainly.
Some did not speak english but the majority did.
Our profesor only spoke spanish - he knew the odd word of english if we were really stuck but would describe something over and over in many different ways until we got it and if we didnt then there would be someone in the class would could give an example in our own language.
For an hour prior to my lesson I would meet with a spanish person and chat in spanish and english, to practice. After our lesson, the whole class and the profesor would go and have a coffee where we could only speak spanish.
Since then I have had other teachers to brush up, but they would be english or english speaking. This way I would 'cheat' and slip into english at every opportunity and end up helping them with their englsh rather than brushing up with my spanish.
Personally I would recommend being taught by a native spanish speaker who didnt speak much english.

I'll add to the BOLLOX theme also....

My brother-in-law owns and runs a language school in France.
The school teaches English to high powered businessmen and women, they are spoken to in their own language as well as in English, it's the only way to fully understand what you are being taught.

Perhaps we are not all as smart as you? Some of us slightly older folk need a different learning style and don't have the benefit of a native partner to help us.

You are or appear to be so well integrated into Spanish life/culture it amazes that you even bother with BritishExpats.

Maybe on the sly you really need your fix of Englishness (is that a word?) or are you on a mission to educate us all?

|You can take the boy out of X but you can't take X out of the boy.

I bet you wolf down your migas and then head straight out the door loooking for a chippy or kebab shop.

Your pretentious comments fool no-one.

As far as I can see it is the only way to teach.

After getting over the "me Tarzan" (with the obligatory chest beating) and the the "you Jane" bit with the finger pointing gesture, it beats me what would be the very next step in learning, if only the target language can be used in class.

And from what I can remember of my classes, one of the most important and useful "tools" in the whole process, was when the teacher asked me to explain what I had just learnt in my own .

That way they will know if you have really understood the lesson or not.

If there happened to be a dog turd on your seat, and the teacher pointed to it and said "stink" how would you know if she meant, shit, stink or brown, if she did not explain it in your own language.

Maybe we need a bit of input from the "docentes" amongst us, I only have experience of being "teached".

Innit?

Thank you for this information, very helpful!

Thank you all for the input

Actually CM has a point, in that the preferred way of teaching a language is with a native speaking teacher, who conducts the whole class in that language. Of course it doesn't always work out that way, and on the other hand I believe the vast majority of language classes in Spanish schools are held by Spanish teachers who have passed the necessary oposiciones. Interestingly it's argued as one of the reasons given why the Spanish didn't learn English so well in the past, although that is now changing. Certainly, if you're teaching in a summer school in the UK, and the class is composed of people from Belarus, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Italy, then there isn't an option!
In reality of course, people learn better under different methods. A lot of people swear by Michel Thomas's tapes, and he uses English as well as the target language. But in a class setting it does make for more rapid progress if the whole class is held in the target language - that includes crucially the interactions between students. Again the preferred object is to have 60%-70% pupil talking time, with the teacher guiding and correcting when necessary. It doesn't always work out that way though.

My learning experience was quite similar to yours in that my teacher (native Spanish) spoke very little English and conducted classes in Spanish only. Our class size was very small, however, never more than 8 people and often less. Once I had got to the stage of being able to hold a conversation, I too did an intercambio twice a week with one of the language school's Spanish students who was learning English, for practice, and I found that extremely useful. Our class never went out for meals, occasionally we would go out for a coffee and a couple of times a year the school would organise a social evening where Spanish students learning English and English students learning Spanish could meet and chat with each other. We had a couple of Scandinavian students in some of the groups I learned with, but mainly British.

Some people did seem to be taking a long time to progress beyond the beginner stage, but to be honest that was not really the fault of the teacher. People would turn up not having done the homework she had set, they never tried to practice speaking what they had learned beyond ordering a coffee or a beer as they never really came into contact with Spanish speakers except in bars, and they went back to the UK for extended periods and dropped in and out of classes as it suited them.

Strangely, I can't really remember how the teacher managed to explain things in Spanish, but it wasn't by the "me Tarzan, you Jane" finger pointing method!

I've already agreed, but I'll agree again. I imagine it's possible to do it all in say Spanish, but almost impossibly difficult I'd have thought if starting from absolute scratch. Nowadays we have more a tertulia than a class,and of course it's only ever Spanish, but for first year students I can't see it working well at all. I think though that maybe we are making the mistake of forgetting that CM is on a different level to most normal human beings, it has to be made easier for us lesser mortals.

It's part of any legitimate language training course (and another reason why the 4 week course is far superior to the cheapie weekend some take) to show how you can take beginners (although in fact most are "false beginners" as almost everyone knows some English words) and teach them the language. We had a Catalan teacher who gave us an initial lesson in Catalan without speaking English once. It sounds hard, but let's face it, we all learnt a language from dot as children. Of course, the excercise book and dictionary allows the student to consult words, phrases and explanations in their native language.

I didnt speak a word of spanish when i arrived in Spain and was amazed to hear that they had a different alphabet (well extra letters) Like LynnR I dont remember how I managed but there was alot of repetition. I sat in the class for weeks wondering what was going on but then it seemed to click. Like LynnR alot didnt stay/manage as they didnt keep up with the work, missed classes etc. We started with 30 in the class and by the end of the year, there were only about 8 of us. It only cost us about 60 euros for the year - government course - and was the best 60 euros I spent.
Now I can read and understand. I'm shy and hold back when i have to converse but thats my problem not the teachers. I work in a predominately Brit area although the professionals I have to speak to only speak Spanish. I hate making phone calls in spanish as I like to see the person and then I can draw a picture or write something down, if I'm not sure. Numbers in canarian/spanish - 2 and 12, 6 and 7 are easy to muddle. Not a good thing if you are making an appointment!
I came not knowing anything and am so pleased that i took that year to get a grounding. I dont think I would have survived or lasted without it.

Thinking about it, those people who train to teach English as a foreign language aren't required to speak the language of those who will be learning from them, are they? If you had a well-regarded qualification such as CELTA, you could go anywhere in the world to teach, and would be teaching in English only. So why should teaching Spanish be any different?

I think I've said it before and don't wish to sound like a parrot, but I benefitted greatly when I took the advice to leave the TV and radio on a Spanish channel all day, in the background.

I still do it now on occasions, and now understand some of it, I didn't at first.

We shopped in Mercadona earlier, and the helpful assistant told us the amount in English, 127 plus Euros. My wife has got the funny habit of translating the amount, usually from Spanish for me, because at that point she is nearer to the check-out, or she thinks I'm deaf.

Today she turned to me and said 127 in English, just like the checkout girl. I said 127 in Spanish, the girl nodded and my wife translated it back into English.

I got the giggles first, then the checkout girl, but it took a while before my wife raised a smile. One of us is going deaf, that's for sure.

There are loads of ways to learn a language, and to do it better and in the sortest time possible, it is alway preferabel to explain the grammar rule in a way the pupil can understand better, which is usually in their own language.

Ie instead of struggling with a sentence with a few adjectives for the word box and going for hit and miss, as in red, round nice cigar wooden big

Wouldnt it be easier to tell a Spanish person, in Spanish that the rule for placing adjectives before a noun follow a set pattern.


Opinion

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A lot easier than to learn than trial and error with black, big, old dog etc.

But then again the TEFL academies would not be able to string out learning so as to reap more and more money in from students, as for that purpose a snails pace is better.