© Emily Ding - Central Park, Antigua, where the volcanoes are omnipresent

The small colonial town of Antigua, Guatemala, is the mecca of the package Spanish school, combining both study and travel and so-called immersion social activities and accommodation with a Guatemalan host family. However, having studied at Ixchel School for a week I can tell you that you won’t get much of a genuine immersion experience in Antigua - at least, not for the short term.

The immersion factor is supposedly proffered by the option to live with a host family rather than a hostel or student accommodation. But to be honest, although you may be staying with a Guatemalan family, the experience might be more like living in a guesthouse, especially since there are usually several students allocated to each host family. I’m sure the more gregarious or long-term students/volunteers may be able to penetrate the barrier to full immersion, but personally, I found it difficult. My host family was run more like a business, which is understandable, considering that hosting foreign students is one of the main ways of making a living in Antigua. My family was hospitable enough, but the other two foreign students and I didn’t really spend much time with them. I didn’t eat with them, for one thing, although my host mother normally makes the effort to sit and chat with us while we have our meals, which is included in the cost of $USD 70 a week (that’s just for accommodation). We didn’t spend much time with the kids, and I only saw my host father once. Not all families are like that - I’ve heard of experiences very different to mine, but I guess my family was more practical, and more protective of their children, which is entirely understandable. Imagine a never-ending queue of people coming and going, the detriment that could be to children, who attach themselves easily even to strangers. Perhaps if you were a long-term student, say three months or more, you might build closer ties with your host family and live a semblance of their life (they would also be more willing to let you), but the thing is, a lot of people study only for the short term, usually a month or less, just to get comfortable enough with Spanish to be able to travel in Latin America.

The other thing is: it’s so easy to live life as you normally do because Antigua is perfectly catered for foreigners. There are foreign faces everywhere and you are never forced to have to speak Spanish. It’s a little tourist bubble. Infrastructure has been built to cater to foreign travelers and there are pubs and bars and cafes with WiFi everywhere (my favourite spot was Bagel Barn) reminiscent of places in London or other big cities, and there are places showing films every night (Cafe 2000 is the most popular) and most of these places - they’re all frequented by foreign faces, hardly any Guatemalans at all, except for the employees.

Having said all that however, Antigua is a beautiful little town, every building hand-painted a different colour with architecture leftover by the Spanish conquest. Thus it’s not surprising that Antigua feels more European than other places in Guatemala. And it’s a damn sight safer than Guatemala City, though that can’t be taken for granted at night as I’ve still heard stories of people robbed at gunpoint. Go to Antigua if you want to learn Spanish but at the same time don’t want to feel like you’re away from home. For genuine Latin American immersion however, you’re better off getting off the tourist trail altogether, meaning: stay clear of Antigua.

However, if you still want to study in Antigua, note that you don’t have to have it arranged before you arrive. Because there are a plethora of schools in Antigua, you might actually want to take a look at some of the schools before making a decision to start, which may be a good way to go about it because after a while, it’s hard to differentiate each school through their websites. I left Guatemala City for Antigua not knowing if I really wanted to spend time there studying or if I wanted to just pop in for a little visit, but when I got there I decided I quite liked the vibe so I popped into Ixchel School, asked if I could start that afternoon for a week or two… and well, I did. Everything, including accommodation with a host family, was arranged within 15 minutes. There are so many schools in Antigua that want to make your bucks, so you’re likely to be guaranteed a place even at the last minute.

Some tips for studying Spanish at Ixchel:

Cost:

• $75 per week for stay with a host family. You get a single room with shared bathroom and three meals a day. See price list.
• $110 for 4 hours of 1-on-1 Spanish lessons, five days a week.

Classes normally start at 8 a.m. The school offers a discount of $15 for afternoon classes, but it is recommended that you take morning lessons because that leaves your afternoons and evenings free for the various day trips and activities organized by the school, such as salsa classes, eco-tours and cooking classes. Also, it’s busier in the mornings; in the afternoons there is likely to be nobody at the school except you and your teacher. If you prefer to study in silence, then the afternoons might be a better option. In the mornings it’s quite noisy as all the students and teachers are huddled in the same outdoor compound, working up quite a chatter.

On the nights that the school holds activities such as barbecues, your host family is relieved of its obligation to provide you meals. So you either attend the dinners, or go out on the town to sample its culinary delights - there is quite a wide range in Antigua. I’d say go for these school-organized gatherings. You’ll end up dancing and singing and drinking rum with your teachers and have the advantage of being able to say “Aha!” to them as they try to fight the effects of a hangover the next morning

It might also be a good idea to ask for a rotation of teachers to find whose style of teaching suits you best before settling. I went through 3 teachers and they all had very different ways of teaching - and varying levels of English, if that’s a concern for you.

You might be able to loan a dictionary from the school’s small library from time to time but it’s best to bring your own before entering the country. Book prices are inflated in Guatemala due to the import tax, so it costs a good $3 or $4 more than the original price. If you really have to buy one in Guatemala though, there are quite a few bookshops in Antigua, which the school will refer you to if you ask.

I also recommend buying a pocket grammar handbook especially for bilingual learners. The school professes to provide you materials, but this will only be the form of sporadic photocopies and memory cards. And you will be taking down some notes during the class while you converse with your teacher, but as most things will be explained in Spanish it might be useful to have an English explanation at hand. I’ve realised it’s more effective consolidating your grammatical knowledge with a bilingual handbook.