Students' comments
As a Community College Counselor working in San Diego and needing to improve my Spanish Language Skills in order to better communicate with my students I enrolled at the Spanish Language School "La Casa En el Arbol" a took private classes for two weeks. I found the instructors to be excellent at diagnosing my strengths and weakness and providing the exercises and conversation that has improved my language skills. The teachers were excellent, and the school provided interesting cultural activities in enchanting San Cristobal de Las Casas. My homestay was a highlight of my experience and I strongly recommend this option as a unique experience to live in a typical Chiapaneca home. A wonderful experience for educators and students alike!!!
Sylvia Felan-Gonzales, M.S.
Counselor,
Southwestern Community College Chula Vista, CA
In September and October of 2007, our program, the Southern Mexico Program of the State University of New York, Plattsburgh, contracted with La Casa en el Arbol for 6 weeks of intensive, small-group instruction of our students in Spanish. Through this contract, we were able to provide the students with 6 State University of New York credits for course work in Spanish at the upper-intermediate level. I was the Faculty-in-Residence for this program and had almost daily contact with La Casa en el Arbol and la Directora, Nadia Victoria Chichiarelli.
In every sense, this was a highly satisfactory relationship. The classroom facilities including the garden area at La Casa en el Arbol were comfortable and allowed small groups to meet in distinct and separate areas. A small library with books and videos was available to our students. They felt comfortable in returning to the school in the afternoons to access the Wi-Fi system of internet connections for their academic work and to keep in contact with home. La Casa provided a detailed evaluation of the progress of our students along with multiple measures of conversational and reading ability in Spanish.
The proof of the pudding was that our students improved a great deal in their Spanish language ability. Plattsburgh’s program requires that students plan and carry out an independent research project in the last seven weeks of the semester in San Cristóbal that entails interviewing, reading academic articles, and writing in Spanish. Based on their instruction at La Casa en el Arbol and previous grounding in classroom courses in Spanish at SUNY Plattsburgh, our students were able to complete their academic research in Spanish in Chiapas with distinction.
I’d particularly like to thank Directora Nadia Chichiarelli for helping to arrange the home-stay placements that made our students’ stay in Chiapas memorable and which were an additional, if informal, support for their Spanish language acquisition.
Sincerely,
Dr. Charles R. Simpson
Professor of Sociology and Latin American Studies
Director, Southern Mexico Program, SUNY Plattsburgh
