My name is Lauren Scheerer and I studied abroad at the University of Valladolid for about a month while in Spain. Before leaving for the trip we took a placement test to see which level (classes) we would be placed in upon arriving to the University. When we got to the University, we had an orientation about our classes and then a tour around the city to get to know it a little bit better. In each class there is a combination of students from different Universities in the US or sometimes different countries. For example, in my culture class, there was students from California, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and then there was also students from Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea. In my language class, there was about the same diversity of students from different colleges in the US but there was also a girl from England as well! It was super cool to get to know them! The first day of classes was like any other typical first day of classes, getting to know each other a little bit better and then we went right into learning. We all had two different classes for about 2 hours long each. One of them was Culture, and the other one was Language (grammar). A typical school day was going to your first class from 9:30AM to 11:30AM then we had a break for about a half hour and then go to your second class from 12PM-2PM. The days go by really fast especially with how much information, and fun activities you do in each class.
I really liked both classes but my favorite class had to be the language class mainly because of the professor. My professor’s name was Raquel and the reason I enjoyed that class so much was because of how she
taught grammar. She is very animated when she teaches and keeps your attention with the level of her voice or with her examples in class. If I had a video for you, it would be a lot easier to understand what I mean but for example, as she is explaining something she will use expressions, animal sounds, or she will whisper for half of a sentence and then her voice will get louder. It keeps your attention and helps you remember important things when speaking or writing in spanish. In my culture class, we learned about euros, different traditional celebrations in Spain, the different regions in Spain and how each region has different culture/music/food to it, the political history of Spain, and the current political system of Spain. A lot of fun, interesting stuff we learned in that class as well!
In addition to the classes we had at Uva, we had another “class” called conversation partners which was usually about twice a week in the evenings for an hour. What was really cool about this was that we would be paired up with a native speaker (usually a student teacher) and we would just have a conversation for an hour about a variety of topics to help us practice our spanish. I think this helped me a lot with my speaking and getting over some fears of speaking my spanish to native speakers because all we did was practice and it was okay if we messed up.
At the end of the program, we had a ceremony where each student was called up and received a certificate of completion of the program and then we had a beautiful reception afterward. My experience with the classes at Valladolid was unforgettable and I feel like I learned a lot from them. Some people think that because we are in Spain that the classes will be easy and fine to blow off, but it is actually taken seriously in a fun way while learning a
ton of cool stuff at the same time and at the end of the program you feel really accomplished. I will never forget the people I met, and the things I learned while at the University of Valladolid…it was so much fun!
