Learn Spanish in Lake Atitlan
By far the best way to learn a language is to study in a country where the language is spoken, especially because in San Pedro, our pronunciation is clearer and we speak slower in comparison to other Spanish speaking regions, making language learning easier.
Guatemaya Spanish Academy provides a comfortable, unique, and distraction-free learning environment. All of our classes are one-on-one and take place at our hillside, open-air classrooms surrounded by nature and overlooking Lake Atitlan.
Guatemaya is the only Spanish School located within a few minutes’ walk of San Pedro’s town center and central park, and 5 minutes from the lakeside tourist area where most hotels are located. Its central location means that our students can experience both the tourist attractions and the local culture.
Our team of enthusiastic and devoted Spanish teachers are constantly working together to be the best that we can be so that we can provide our students with an unforgettable experience.
Our Spanish teachers are constantly evaluated and trained in grammar, teaching methodologies, English, and topics of universal interest to ensure the best learning experience for our students.
Our Team
What makes Guatemaya Spanish School the best Spanish school in Lake Atitlan? What would you say is the most important factor? Chances are you’ll say the teachers.
Our experienced and fully-qualified native teachers will help you learn Spanish so that you can practice what you learn when exploring the beautiful Lake Atitlan or enjoying time with your host family.
All of our teachers are certified and have many years of experience, which makes learning more effective and easier.
Our team of teachers has been carefully selected to ensure good connections with students, patience, a sense of humor, knowledge and passion for teaching.
All of our teachers are young, local residents of San Pedro, and of Mayan Tz’utujil descent. Our instructors have a good level of English, which allows them to properly teach Spanish to beginners and advanced students.
All classes are taught one-on-one providing students with our full attention and allows us to tailor classes to each student’s individual needs.
Our method
Whether you are an advanced Spanish speaker or are completely new to the language, we have a curriculum suited for you. You will get a chance to practice your Spanish with our teachers, other students and your host family through a variety of activities and exercises.
Throughout our years of experience, we have developed, analysed, and structured 5 levels in line with the curriculum plan of the Common European Framework (CEFR) that will quickly help you develop your skills in the Spanish language, improve your communication, fluency, and accuracy, which we are constantly revising and improving.
In your first day of classes, your teacher will determine your level of Spanish, testing the four language skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening, with a focus on your speaking and listening abilities. If you have studied Spanish before or have previous knowledge, we will quickly determine your level and immediate language needs from different exercises and tests, from which your teacher will create a study plan for you.
Our Spanish course are structured in 6 main teaching levels, in line with the curriculum plan of the European Common Framework from beginners level A1 up to the highest level C2.
This Spanish course is designed for beginners and provides an introduction to the basic elements of the Spanish language so that students can navigate current or future situations. To develop this level, our teachers use communicative exercises, games, mime, common expressions with clear and not too fast pronunciation, allowing students to learn in an interactive and quick way the fundamental situations.
We review the topics learned during the first level and begin to consolidate a foundation for our students, including their daily activities, general opinions about life, culture, education, among other topics. By using authentic material, conversations, practices,and the exchange of experiences and culture, this will increase the student’s confidence and fluency.
A student at this level can understand indicative tenses and could start an introduction to the world of the subjunctive. The development of conversation and comprehension skills is of particular importance in this Spanish course. At this level, we begin to associate topics of culture, history, our societies, politics, daily life, songs, literature, etc.
The knowledge and use of grammar at this level are relatively good, and the student communicates with some fluency and spontaneity, using the indicative and subjunctive modes when needed. This makes interaction with native speakers more comfortable.
At this level, the student uses Spanish flexibly and effectively in social, academic, and professional contexts. Usual errors in fluency and accuracy are analyzed and corrected, as well as verbal periphrases. The student gains immense confidence and will be able to discuss topics of greater personal interest with the teacher.
Here’s what you can expect to learn and for sure our personalized workbooks for each level based on 13 years of experience. We don’t simply hand out photocopies of worksheets, rather we give our students customized coursework
- Mini dialogues
- Common expressions
- The alphabet
- Prepositions
- Masculine/feminine articles
- Hay / there are or there is
- Vocabulary – fruits and vegetables
- Numbers
- Ask and answer prices in Spanish
- The time
- Colours
- Days of the week
- Months of the year
- Seasons
- Question words: what, who, when, where, why, how
- Impersonal expressions + infinitive: it’s important to eat.
- Personal pronouns
- Common verbs + infinitive verbs that are affirmative, negative or interrogative: to go to, to be able to/can, to need, to want, to like, to have, to be, to do/make.
- This content usually takes about 1-2 weeks depending on the individual.
- Recap
- Possessive adjectives + to be: it’s my house
- Demonstrative adjectives: this, that, those, these
- Phonetics (pronunciation and accents)
- Present tense and frecuency adverbs (usually, generally, never, always)
- Reflexive verbs
- Classification of irregular verbs of the three verb groups
- Second group of the most common verbs (to be, to know, to think, to believe, to say, to feel, to put, to give, to go to, to come, to be able to
- Professions/job
- Expressions: wherever, however, whenever, etc…
- Uses of Por y para in Spanish
- Prepositions
- Difference between “Bien” y “Bueno”
- Muy vs mucho (very vs a lot of)
- Mal vs malo (Bad vs wrong)
- Classification of the adverbs
- Introduction to indirect and direct objects
- Imperative form – Come here, go there
- Simple past tense
- Recap of indirect and direct objects
- Past imperfect tense
- This content usually takes about 2-3 weeks depending on the individual.
- Recap
- Present perfect tense
- Comparative forms (more than, less than, older than, younger than)
- Combining direct and indirect objects
- Pluperfect tense
- Future imperfect tense
- Future perfect tense
- Conditional imperfect tense
- Conditional perfect tense
- Introduction to Sociolingüistics
- This content usually takes about 4-6 weeks depending on the individual.
- Recap
- Present subjunctive tense
- Imperative form
- Imperfect subjunctive tense
- Perfect subjunctive tense
- Pluperfect subjunctive
- Verbs of change
- Active and passive voice
- Impersonal and personal form of the verb “haber” (All perfect tenses)
- Normative grammar
- Descriptive grammar
- Functional grammar
- Cognitive grammar
- Pragmatism in the Spanish language
- This content usually takes about 6-11 weeks depending on the individual.
As an academy, we like to share the phrase: “practice makes perfect,” because over the years we have continuously developed and improved our curriculum based on the student experience. This allows them to learn more easily and enjoy each lesson, regardless of whether they have no language skills or are highly advanced.
During our years of experience, we are very proud to have helped improve the Spanish language skills of children, young people, university students, primary school teachers from the United States, backpackers, and all kinds of professionals visiting Lake Atitlán. We encourage you to take on this challenge; it will be a pleasure for us to have you as part of this incredible experience.