<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I would like to send my son away to take Spanish at a university. He has taken 1 & 2 so far. Ideally he would stay on campus while there. Does anyone know of a university (here or abroad) that is affordable?</p>
<p>Thanks,
Jennet</p>
<p>My daughter went to Valencia, Spain to study. Her program was through UVa. It was a great experience for her, where she lived with a family there in Valencia, and experienced all of the culture, food and language. There are several universities associated with this program.
[Fall/Spring</a> Semesters, Hispanic Studies in Spain, U.Va.](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/valencia/spring.html]Fall/Spring”>http://www.virginia.edu/valencia/spring.html)</p>
<p>Is he in college now? If so, he should speak with the semester abroad office there and find out where they have exchanges already set up. </p>
<p>If he is in high school, you could investigate programs that are designed for students that age such as [AFS</a> Intercultural Programs | Connecting Lives, Sharing Cultures](<a href=“http://www.afs.org%5DAFS”>http://www.afs.org) and [Youth</a> For Understanding - Youth for Understanding](<a href=“http://www.yfu.org%5DYouth”>http://www.yfu.org)</p>
<p>Check out Middlebury’s or Penn State’s Summer Intensive Programs. If he’s in high school and under 16, he’d have a ball at the Concordia Village Language Camps (no English spoken!)</p>
<p>Barcelona? Madrid?</p>
<p>Typically, EU education is cheaper than in the USA.</p>
<p>Barcelona is great, but in general the language of instruction will be Catalan, not Spanish. There are so many immigrants from Latin America and Andalucia, as well as foreigners who know Spanish but not Catalan, that I think more Spanish is spoken in Barcelona now than at any previous time in history, including when Catalan was effectively illegal in the 1950s. But the University of Barcelona is probably not the best environment for Spanish immersion for a student not already fluent in Spanish.</p>
<p>Also, from the standpoint of expense, I suspect Latin America will be cheaper than Spain.</p>
<p>What you are probably looking for, though, is a stand-alone language immersion program geared to Americans and Brits, rather than normal university courses taught in Spanish. For the most part, people in Spanish-speaking countries don’t study “Spanish” at all. A few of them study Spanish or Latin American literature or philology, and if that’s what your son wants to do, great. But most of them will be studying biology, or engineering, or math, or economics, or anatomy, just like here, except in Spanish. Taking a biology lecture course with 1,000 students in Spanish, or taking an engineering course in Spanish that would be daunting in one’s native tongue – those are big challenges, great if you succeed (especially if you want to learn the specialized vocabulary in a technical field) but easy to fail.</p>
<p>JHS has made excellent points. After the equivalent of only two years of HS Spanish your son is still ill equipped to handle the language. Four HS years (college semesters) are the usual to learn the grammar and a vocabulary, beyond that it is becoming more fluent and learning more culture. Throwing him into a Spanish speaking college would not teach him the language, he needs a firm foundation to build on. Google summer language programs for several in the US offered by reputable schools. One of them is the Carleton College Language Villages- in Minnesota.</p>
<p>I am a Spanish teacher and I totally agree with much of what’s said above. My recommendation would be either Middlebury or Concordia Language Villages in Minnesota. Concordia is wonderful! It’s summer camp in other languages, so it’s fun and full of real activities with native and near-native speakers. Middlebury will be more academic, but also fun, for the motivated student. In Concordia, high school students can get HS credit for what they do there, with their home schools’ approval.</p>
<p>BTW-- Concordia College is involved with the Concordia Language Villages, not Carleton College ;)</p>
<p>Oops- close but no cigar…</p>