ASdTorrevieja Information - tourist guide: Learning Spanish in English – for any nationality!

Learning Spanish in English – for any nationality!
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Redaccion on 03 September, 2009 06:02:00

Maybritt and Roar Gaustad are from the south of Stockholm in Sweden and moved to
Spain four years ago at the age of 68.

Maybritt was a musical director whilst Roar was an engineer working for Swedish
Television.  Both had learnt languages at school and thought that Spanish would
be easy for them.  As Maybritt said optimistically to her husband:  “Just give
us two year in a proper language school and we will manage quite well.”   But
it was not that easy!
They made several attempts with various schools and teachers.  “One teacher
was very nice but wanted to chat to us in Swedish, leaving us with most of the
lesson to do for homework.  We learnt many lists of new words.  I remember I
could say nearly every part of the human body by heart, but as I only use a few
of them daily the rest are at the back of my mind again.”
After two years they could understand a newspaper, follow the TV news and
understand most of it
when a Spanish neighbour spoke to them with a tongue as rapid as a castanet! 
But they could not communicate back.  “The words were not there when we needed
them!” said Maybritt.  “We started to wonder if there was something wrong
with the two of us.  Are we too old to learn? Why is it so impossible?”
We were nearly going to give up when we heard from our English neighbours about
Jane Cronin who was teaching 200 people at the same time in the Music Palace in
Torrevieja.   We were curious about Jane Cronin’s "magic" way of teaching. 
How on earth could she manage to bring knowledge to 200 people at the same
time?”
Maybritt was so anxious to get two places on Jane’s course that they went to
sign on at 6 o’clock in the morning with a beach chair and a blanket.  By the
time the office opened there was a huge queue around the corner.   Today it is
all much easier as Jane’s lessons are in Los Arcos Restaurant, Torrevieja and
you can go there to enroll and pay.
Maybritt remembers:  “What an experience!   From the first moment in the room
we felt so relaxed.  Jane Cronin was already there on stage preparing the
equipment and chatting to us at the same time.
We expected the first lesson to be far below our level – but it was exactly
what we had missed before! Basic things - properly explained and repeated - a
warm and humorous voice treating us all with respect, whatever country we came
from, whatever knowledge we had or didn’t have before.”
After attending Jane’s courses our self-esteem is now so much better and we
have enough confidence to go out and speak!   When my husband had an appointment
for his car in the Spanish garage for the first time he managed to tell them
what was wrong with our car and he also understood their reply!
We think that many Scandinavians and other nationalities are struggling like we
did.  We would like to encourage you not to hesitate just because the courses
are taught using the English language.  Jane Cronin does not have a difficult
accent or dialect, and her marvellous body language will help you - she
not only "speaks" the lessons, she "acts" them.
“As a teacher myself I am interested in the learning process and I am often
very critical but Jane Cronin is one of the best educators I have ever met”.