6 weeks of Spanish classes at Habla Ya Panama - Boquete

My family and I attended Habla Ya Panama in Boquete for six weeks, in anticipation of a move to Chile for a year. The experience was great.

First, a word about Boquete and surrounding Chiriqui. We visited in July and early August, which is the rainy season, and the weather was great for us. It was never hot, and there was usually a strong cool breeze, just perfect summer weather. In the afternoons, at least in July/August, it often rains, so you might schedule classes for the afternoon. We stayed at Isla Verde, a series of bungalows with kitchenettes about a 3-4 minute walk from the school. They were surrounded by lush gardens, and I was very happy with our stay there. The restaurant at Isla Verde, Colibri, was our favorite in Boquete, but mostly we ate at the inexpensive local restaurants, Sabrason, Amarillas, and Orchiadas. The main part of the town, Boquete Centro, is fairly small, and has a mix of supermarkets, stores, and restaurants catering to locals, as well as more tourist oriented restaurants. Boquete some great coffee and chocolate shops (this is the source for some of the best coffee in the world). The town is surrounded by verdant hills, which is lovely, and you can buy pineapples and other vegetables on the street and in the fruit and vegetable market for inexpensive prices, so it’s nice to have a place to stay with a kitchen. There are fresh fruits everywhere, a few of which I’d never seen before, and many restaurants have batidas (fruit shakes) and fresas con crema (strawberries and cream). Boquete positions itself as an adventure town, and there is a lot to do outside the town, including hikes, coffee, honey, and chocolate farms, Volcan Baru (which I didn’t visit), and ziplining and other trips. For the hikes, you can just take a taxi to a trailhead, and then catch a minibus back to town. My favorite out of town adventures were a rafting trip and two visits to the Mini Canyons, where you can swim and picnic with the locals in lovely warm water. In town, we had an amazing cooking class experience at Colibri, and a chocolate making experience at A Perfect Pair, which we loved as well.

I came to Habla Ya with no Spanish language experience, and after six weeks I can communicate fairly well, having a conversation with anyone. I’m very happy with the progress I was able to make. My vocabulary is still fairly small, and when native speakers talk with me rapid-fire, I often need to ask them to slow down. For the first three weeks, I worked out of their first workbook, which gave me all of the foundations for the language. It was well organized, and I learned basic past, present, and future tenses, how to conjugate verbs, and a lot of other language structure. The next three weeks I worked out of a second book that added additional tenses, and other concepts. I think the school is very language structure oriented, which worked well for me. For these two books they were essentially laying the foundations for me so that I could add vocabulary later and conceptually know how to use it. The classes we took were from 1-5pm, with a 20 minute break in the middle. I had about 15-20 minutes of homework at night, but then I would generally spend another 40 minutes or so reviewing the day’s work, which was a big help in cementing my learning. Because I was there in the off-season, I had essentially about 3 weeks of private lessons (since there was no one else at my level at that moment), and three weeks with 2-3 other students in the class, who were coming from the US, Germany, and France.

I had two professors:
My professor, Pedro Abrego, was great. He’s a quiet person, and fairly reserved, and conveys both humility and an unflaggingly positive attitude. He’s extremely knowledgeable and dedicated to teaching. He keeps the class moving at a quick pace, although he’s happy to work through a concept until you understand it. He will not speak English, which in some cases might have saved some time (it can take me a long time to ask a question in Spanish), but I think that is part of the professors’ training. His explanations were clear, and I couldn’t believe how much I knew by the end. He was a good fit for me, and he pushed me far in Spanish. I appreciated the chance to learn with Pedro.

My professor, Erian Marin, was wonderful. At different times, he taught both me and my kids, and was equally adept at both. He has a great sense of humor, and makes classes fun to attend. At the same time he helped me move quickly through the lessons, he was attuned to the students who might need extra support, and kept us all on the same page. In the case of my kids, he understood how to balance learning with fun and games. My younger son was not as excited about the material as his older sister, and Erian worked hard to keep them both engaged (including the occasional soccer game). I was so impressed with Erian’s teaching skill and charm, and I routinely looked forward to my classes with him.