In July I will be taking Spanish courses at Havana
University. I have been to Cuba three times and totally
loved it, but I am a young blond girl traveling by myself.
I was woundering if anybody took the say calsses as Havana
or they could give me advice. I would really appricate it!
thanks Oh, by the way, what does a tourist card do for
you? I have many Cuban friends that I would like to visit
but it is illegal for them to be seen with me outside of a
hotel with me. PLEASE HELP!
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Jennifer, I'm sorry I can't answer your question, but
instead have a question for you. I would like also to study
at Havana University but am not sure how to contact them
directly. I know there are US organizations that send
groups to Havana but I would prefer to do it on my own.
PLEASE let me know how you arranged it. Thanks for any help
you can give.
Kevin
If you are going with the program trough Tulaine University,
your Spanish language classes will be "okay". If you
are going on your own, you may be dissapointed. Basicaly,
Cubans do no have a great experience in teaching foreigners,
and they still have the old and outdated grammar translation
books, and almost no audiovisual and internet lab support.
My advice is, if you can get a good grasp on Spanish grammar
in US, get at least to the advanced intermediate level, and
only then. It is at the high intermediate or advanced levels
when you mostly profit from traveling abroad. If all you had
is two or three years in high school or a couple of
semesters at the University level, you will not profit as
much.
Literature classes at the Havana Unviersity are all tought
form the point of view of Marxist ideology, and rarely are
anything more than recitation of the materials easely found
in the state approuved textbooks.
Finally, Cuban sistema does not cater to students.
Professors do not have student evaluations or any other
"client-response" countrol, which makes their classes
generally speaking of low quality by U.S standarts.
Of course, if you have some money to spend and want some
excitments, by all means go, you always learn something by
being in a target lenguage environment.
...judging from all those mistakes in my English, I could
use another English as a second language course! It is all
"Samuel Adams'" fault! Cheers.
Your mistakes in grammar and your errors in spelling can be
easily overlooked, Ricardo. They are far outweighed by your
good insight and your knowledge of the methodology of
teaching in Cuba.
In answer to Jennifer's question about the tourist card, the
tourist card allows you to enter Cuba. You will need your
passport as well as your tourist card or visa. Unless I am
mistaken, they are one and the same.
You mention the program at Tulane University, Ricardo. Could
you tell us more about it? I was a graduate student at
Tulane a few years back.
Spanish courses are organized by Cubamar,easy to find with
your search engine.
The courses are delivered at Habana University and starts
the first Monday of every month.
As per the content of the courses,I do not know but Lonely
Planet Guide to Cuba,claims they are very interesting.
I would probably say that introductory second language
pedagogs (sp?) are at a premium everywhere. I went to a
very highly ranked liberal arts school, and half of the
Spanish profs weren't very good. My experience is that
being around the spoken language is more than half the
battle. One of my Spanish profs said he learned a lot of
his basic Spanish hanging around Spanish speakers in the
States.
íSuerte!