When in Spain!

Seville Exchange 2014

We took 13 Lower Fifth Spanish students to San Francisco de Paula, our partner school situated right in the heart of old Seville. Our students stayed with families and had to try their best to communicate with everyone in Spanish, testing their language skills to the hilt. They had conversation classes at school in the morning and spent the rest of the weekdays visiting places of interest in the city centre, such as the Giralda and the bullfighting museum, but also had plenty of time to stroll around the city centre and the shops. After a day of rain, the weather returned to normal, and temperatures for the last five days we were there soared to over 30C. In the evenings, students went home, met up in other students’ houses, or played football in the parks. Over the weekend, some stayed in Seville, and some were taken by their host families to Cadiz, Cordoba, Portugal, or to the beach. It was gratifying to see so many of our students approaching such a daunting challenge with an entirely positive frame of mind, trying new dishes and making a real effort to enter into the spirit of life in a different culture. The Spanish students will be coming back to us over the last week of the summer term, and will show us just how advantageous it can be to start learning languages at the age of 3 instead of 13.