When we decided that we wanted to spend some months living in Panama City, Panama, we knew that we wanted to study Spanish. After a quick Google search, we decided that Casco Antiguo Spanish School was the place! Here are 5 things we love about Casco Antiguo Spanish School:
- The Variety of Packages & Levels
One thing that we love about Casco Antiguo Spanish School is that we were able to customize our package! We were able to book private lessons for just the 2 of us and we were able to choose what days of the week and how many hours we wanted to learn. As Spanish second-language speakers who learned mostly from talking to locals on the streets, it was amazing to be able to work with a teacher in a 2-on-1 fashion to be able to focus on exactly what we needed.
Similarly, if you are a solo traveler, you can get your level of Spanish assessed and then get placed in a group where you are guaranteed to make new friends! That brings us to the second reason that we love Casco Antiguo Spanish School.
2. The Activities
Every day there is a different scheduled activity at 5pm! When we were there we often went to Tuesday evening happy hour drinks and the Thursday evening sunset bike ride! When you’re in a foreign country where you know no one, it’s awesome to have the opportunity to meet other like-minded travelers, and to practice Spanish in a new context. It also doesn’t hurt that the school is located in one of Panama City’s coolest neighborhoods, Casco Viejo, and you can get a taste for the city and the culture, while practicing Spanish and hanging out with awesome people!
3. The People
From the first email that we sent to inquire about classes, we felt welcomed into the Casco Antiguo Spanish School community and that continued when we arrived on our first day of classes! The space is cozy and everyone from the staff, the teachers, and the other students are always very welcoming and friendly. The owner, David, was once a foreigner to Panama himself, and he has done an amazing job to make everyone feel at home at Casco Antiguo Spanish School. Honestly, you would have to try not to make friends while learning there, and we have made life-long friends through our time studying there!
4. The Quality of Teaching
Since beginning our studies at the school, we have had the chance to work with 2 different language teachers. One is from Venezuela and calls Panama home now, and the other is Panamanian. Both teachers are skilled language teachers that challenged us to learn new concepts and practice them in ways that are fun! Neither of us enjoys learning from textbooks, and we have received the hands-on and practical learning that suits us best from both of our teachers.
All of the other things we mentioned above are aspects that make Casco Antiguo Spanish School awesome, but the quality teaching is something that really sets this language school apart from others we’ve been to! It’s one thing to learn a language, and it’s another to enjoy learning a language, and we have really enjoyed learning Spanish at the school.
5. You Can Study Online!
Due to COVID-19, Casco Antiguo Spanish School currently has it’s doors closed to the public, but they are offering classes online! Since we decided to return home to Canada in March, this was great news for us because it meant that we could continue learning Spanish every week with our favorite Spanish school and the teacher we had been previously working with!
Now, we do our lessons over Zoom every week, and other than missing the activities, the other students, and getting to spend time in Casco Viejo, our lessons have felt almost the same. Since no one can travel right now, this is a great time to learn a new skill, like speaking Spanish. Despite the fact that we are back home in Canada, speaking almost primarily English, we continue to see improvements in our Spanish because of our weekly lessons!
If you’d like to try an online class, you can do your first lesson for free by emailing info@cascospanish.com. All the money from the online classes goes directly towards the teacher’s salaries! And once borders open up again, we highly recommend a trip to Panama and some time spent studying Spanish in Casco Viejo with Casco Antiguo Spanish School.
You can also check out the episode that we did with David Gold, who is the founder of Casco Antiguo Spanish School here.
