Spanish In The City

I took a course with Spanish in the City this summer after purchasing a groupon/​living social deal.
My biggest issue with this company is the disorganization. I don’t know if they’re understaffed or lazy or what, but I didn’t even find out which class I was placed in until less than a week before. Since they don’t have a place to hold classes, classes are held in different locations, but the location for most of my classes was only emailed to me a few hours before, which really isn’t ok. Not everyone works/​lives/​spends time in downtown or midtown, so you really need to give more notice than just a few hours.
My other issue was with Maria, the teacher and I believe the owner as well. I wasn’t able to make the first class because like I said before, the notification was last minute, and I was in the middle of moving. The second class was being held outdoors at the Highline park. I didn’t know who/​what to look for since I had never met any of the classmates or the teacher before. I called the number on the website, which is apparently Maria’s cell phone number, and finally found them. When talking about why I couldn’t find them, Maria’s response was «well that’s why it’s important to show up to the first class.»
I think it was very rude and unprofessional of her to say that to me. It’s not my fault that they decide to hold classes in public, crowded areas, not giving students a way to find the teacher. Not to mention the fact that she didn’t know why I wasn’t able to miss the first class, so the attitude was really inappropriate.
In any case, there are plenty of other conversation based Spanish classes to choose from. Don’t go with this one.

This is one of the WORST classes I have ever taken! A waste of time and money, even with the 65% Groupon discount.
The six 90-​minute lessons are held at a variety of public settings throughout the city. Although this sounds like a good idea, in reality the locations are too noisy to hear the teacher, too distracting to concentrate on forming sentences, and too awkward to take/​refer to notes.
Each lesson is supposed to be emailed to the students a week in advance. This is to give the student ample time to prepare for class. However, this happened ONCE in 6 weeks! The other 5 times, the lesson was sent as late as the day of the class! When we complained about this, we were told we could buy a complete set of the lessons in booklet form — for $ 25! Hmmmm…
The only positive part of this fiasco was the the written lesson. It was very well composed and instructive. Too bad the teacher didn’t spend more time reviewing the material in class.
This was a very frustrating and disappointing experience.

I am currently in a conversation course with Maria. She is definitely a talented and dedicated teacher. Her language is beautiful. I am especially impressed with how she handled an awkward situation. Because classes meet at different venues, do be sure to tell her if there is a particular situation that may make you feel uncomfortable when you first sign up. Overall, highly recommended as an alternative to traditional classroom language learning.

I took a Spanish class through a similar program with a teacher in this program, Maria. Maria is a wonderful, patient, fun and responsive teacher, who was able to start us conversing in a very short time. She is dedicated and sweet, a total pleasure. Also enjoyed taking each class in a different venue. I definitely remembered certain vocabulary associated with those places. Highly recommend the teacher, and I assume the program will be good as well (that’s why 4 stars, not 5).