Idlewild’s language courses are both practical and fun, and were recently included in the "Best of New York 2012" issue of New York Magazine.

The classes are taught in our beautiful bookstore, not a stuffy classroom, and are limited to 14 students.

Our Spanish for Advanced Beginners classes are taught by Juan Vallejo, a native of Colombia, or Susana Benitez, from Mexico. (Juan teaches the Tuesday class, Susana teaches on Saturday.) Both have several years' experience teaching Spanish, including privately and in language schools, and use a dynamic, participatory method that gets students talking from the very first class.

Is this class for you?

This course is for people who have either completed our Spanish for Beginners course or already have a rudimentary knowledge of Spanish (including formation and use of the simple present tense and other basic grammar). Our Advanced Beginner class focuses on more advanced grammar and building conversation skills, and includes presentation and practice of the following situations and grammar topics:

• using reflexive verbs and reflexive object pronouns to talk about daily activities
• conjugating irregular verbs in the present and past tenses
• traveling by bus or train (making reservations, buying tickets, asking about arrival and departure times, etc)
• double object pronouns and relative pronouns
• making requests and polite commands
• affirmative and negative expressions
• review and further study of the past tense
• renting a car or an apartment
• at the doctor, dentist, or pharmacy
• imperative and simple future tenses
• ordinal numbers
• shopping

Each of the ten lessons includes teacher presentation and student participation, including pair or group work. Each student will also be expected to give a two-minute presentation in Spanish, on a topic of their choosing, toward the end of the course.

About our classes

• This course is 10 weeks long and will meet for 75 minutes per weekly session.
• Class size is limited to 14 people.
• The beginner, advanced beginner and intermediate courses follow a text (not included in the course price but available to students for the discounted price of around $18 including tax).
• There are no make-up classes. On the first day of class, each student will receive a syllabus that lists the weekly assignments so you can keep up with your studies if you have to miss a class.

If you wish to cancel your registration, you must contact Idlewild by telephone or email at least seven days before the start date of your class to receive a refund.