Instituto Superior de Espanol

Good teachers really bad organisation

Rating: 25%

If you take the program to learn Spanish in Galapagos, find some other school. This school is really trying to get as much money as possible from you. For example, in the Galapagos they charge you $30 a day for food at the hotel, even though the price of breakfast is included in the price of the room. The school overcharges you $12 a day just for food. Also, teachers do not follow you on guided tours nor accompany you anywhere after the classes, but many other schools do this. Their methodology is also based on learning from a new teacher every week, though in Quito I had the same teacher for weeks. Their methodology is good but they do not use any books. Also some important parts were missing on my final day, simply because different teachers do not want to teach the same things. The school in Quito is rather noisy, they have small booths for all the classes and you can hear the noise from all the other rooms due to very thin walls. I will return to Ecuador, but definitely not to this school. They don't pay any of the transit cost, like airport pickup, even though the school information mentions this. Plus, I never received any diploma or certificate after my studies. The school charges you for afternoon excursions around the Galapagos, nearby your hotel. These are without guides and when I complained, I was told that "you are a grown up person and should manage yourself." I saw other language schools who had arranged local guides for these excursions. At the Quito location, there is only one weekly activity. While I was there, we went to the same restaurant every time, there should be more variation. There was very little information about other activities. When I asked my teacher, they were not interested in helping and I had to go to the tourist information.