Back to School

Sorry we haven't posted in awhile. We pretty much have no excuse other than laziness, and the fact that we've been watching the MLB playoff games on delay, but we did return to school for the last two weeks, so we weren't doing nothing.

We did not return to Lacunza, the "fancy" private school where we completed 55 weeks of classes in our first 18-or-so months in San Sebastian. Instead, we signed up at the Official Language School, which is run by the provincial government, and provides language instruction in English, French, German and Euskera, as well as in Spanish.

We definitely have noticed the difference between public and private language education. First, we only attend class four hours a week, compared to 15 hours a week at Lacunza. On the other hand, the total cost for a school year (October through May) is only 200 Euros for both of us, which includes our books, while Lacunza cost almost that much for one week. Finally, although it was possible that our class could be much larger than at Lacunza, and there appeared to be 15 people signed up, it looks like only about 10-11 will be attending. So, not much larger than what we are used to. Our professor is very nice, as are our fellow students, who are originally from the US, Scotland, France, Brazil, Algeria, Ukraine, and Russia.

In terms of content, we are at the same level we were when we left Lacunza (C1), which appears to be the correct level for us. But, the amount of work is extensive including a lot of homework, writing assignments and even an oral presentation. Most of the students in the class seem to be there to prepare for the end-of-year test, which is required for certain jobs in Spain. However, since we just want to improve our level of Spanish, Shana and I don't even plan to take the test, which makes the stress level of the class relatively low despite the quantity of work.

I am not sure if we are happy to be back in Spanish school, and it is difficult for us to motivate ourselves to go to class Monday and Wednesday evenings, but it will be good to continue learning and practicing the language. And, since we are doing a lot of traveling between now and the end of the year, we are going to miss four of the next eight weeks anyway. (We are definitely less diligent students now than we were when we were younger.) But, we are hoping to attend more regularly in 2020.

Hasta pronto,

Jeff and Shana