Posts

Halloween vocabulary in Spanish

otoño Autumn / Fall
el 31 octubre 31st October
el día de todos los Santos All Saints Day
Halloween Halloween
la calabaza Pumpkin
la bruja Witch
la escoba Broom
el cementerio Cemetery
la vela Candle
el disfraz Disguise / Costume
el esqueleto Skeleton
el gato negro Black cat
el murciélago Bat
la araña Spider
el espantapájaros Scarecrow
el vampiro Vampire
el duende Goblin
la momia Mummy
el monstruo Monster
el diablo Devil
los caramelos Sweets / Candy

Spanish Introductions: Help Your Child Introduce Himself

It is increasingly common for children to mix with different nationalities at school, opening their eyes to many different languages and cultures. Some of these children may speak English whilst others might only just be learning their new language; whatever level they are at, being able to say a few words in their native language is a great way to make the child feel welcome and for your child to practise the language with a native speaker.

Below are some expressions that your child can use to strike up a conversation with a Spanish class-mate. In future the children could even start an ‘intercambio’, whereby two children of different nationalities spend 15 or 30 minutes talking in one language before switching to the other – a great opportunity to immerse themselves briefly yet completely in the other language.

With children picking up languages more quickly and easily than adults, any opportunity like this should be embraced – your child will be left with the gift of a second language, an awareness of other cultures and of course potential new friends!

¡Buena suerte!

Spanish Introductions

Spanish Expression English Meaning 
Hola, me llamo ______ Hello, my name is ______
¿De dónde eres? Where are you from?
Soy de Londres / Nueva York I am from London / New York
Hablo un poco de español I speak a little Spanish
Tengo siete / ocho / nueve / diez años I am 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 years old
Vivo con mis padres y mi hermano/a I live with my parents and my brother/sister
Tengo una mascota I have a pet
Me gusta jugar al fútbol / andar en bicicleta I like to play football / ride my bike
¿Quieres jugar conmigo / con nosotros? Do you want to play with me / us?
¿Quieres venir a mi fiesta de cumpleaños? Do you want to come to my birthday party?

 Cactus runs after-school Spanish courses for children aged 7-15 years in London and Brighton. Spanish evening courses for adults are also available in 19 locations across the UK. At beginner level, all courses will cover Spanish introductions as well as practical conversational skills.

If you have a language learning or language teaching query that you can’t find the answer to, please get in contact with us either by Facebook or by Twitter, or contact us here.

Cactus Language Newsletter – July 2015

Welcome to the Cactus Summer newsletter!

Our new quarterly newsletter brings you top tips and ideas for the coming months, as well as some offers and incentives to learn a language while the sun’s shining…

1. Junior language camps – a wise choice for the summer

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The summer holidays may be upon us, but it’s not too late to book a holiday of a lifetime for your children. Our junior language camps for 5-18 year olds are fun-packed, educational and confidence-boosting!

2. 10 top locations to learn Spanish this summer

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Tropical beaches, magnificent colonial cities, superb water sports, Mayan ruins, sumptuous food, wine tasting and nightlife…whatever you want from your holiday, you can find it with a Spanish course!

3. Sneak Preview! Ollie Phillips in Spain

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Cactus Ambassador Ollie Phillips has recently jetted off to Spain with Cactus, to practise his Spanish in Seville and catch some waves surfing in Cadiz. We asked you what you wanted to see Ollie do in Spain and you voted flamenco…so see Ollie dancing flamenco and look out for the upcoming video of his trip!

4. Join Cactus at the Language Show and The Expat Show – Autumn 2015

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Whether you’re learning a language for relocation, work, love or brain power, join us at these two fantastic shows where you can try a language class for free, win a language course and claim your free language learning voucher.

5. NEW Corporate Language Training Website

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June 2015 marked the launch of our new Cactus Language Training website, your new platform for private and corporate language training worldwide. To celebrate we are offering a £50 voucher off your next course!

Have a great summer and we’ll see you in September!

The Cactus Team

The verdict – can Ollie surf?

We did it! We promised that Cactus Ambassador Ollie Phillips would try surfing in Spain, and here is the proof!

A welcome visit to the beach after 40°+ temperatures in Seville (more on that later) saw Ollie swap rugby boots for surfboard and take a few lessons with Escuela de Surf Cadiz (Cadiz Surf School).

The lessons took place on Playa de la Cortadura, one of Cadiz city’s beautiful blue flag beaches. Known for its small waves and warm water, Playa de la Cortadura is perfect for learning to surf – and water lovers can also try paddle boarding and body boarding through the surf school.

So how did Ollie fair? For his first time surfing, and with lessons in both Spanish and English, we were impressed!

Ollie-surfing-youtube-videoOllie managed to get to his feet and catch a few waves with expert guidance from his surf instructor…before taking a dip in the sea!

Check out the video of Ollie surfing on YouTube

 

Ollie-surfingWell done Ollie! Keep posted for our next instalment of what it’s like to learn Spanish in Seville.

And while you’re waiting, why not check out his flamenco moves

¡Hasta luego!

Cactus offers Spanish and surf courses in Cadiz through CLIC, and Ollie also brushed up his Spanish in Seville at their excellent school in central Seville.

 

 

 

 

So you want to see Ollie dancing flamenco?

Last week we asked you what you wanted to see Cactus Ambassador Ollie Phillips doing in Spain…and the overwhelming response was to see Ollie Phillips dancing flamenco!

We listened to your feedback and whilst Ollie was in Spain earlier this week he not only danced flamenco, but he did so at the highly prestigious Museo del Baile Flamenco in Seville.

museodelbaileflamencoThis 18th century Museum of Flamenco Dance, founded by respected flamenco dancer Cristina Hoyos, is a flamenco dance institution housed in a traditional Andalucian palace. Cristina is one of the most important flamenco dancers in Spain and she has worked with the legends of flamenco, many of whom are honoured in the museum. For those interested in learning about flamenco’s roots and appreciating the beauty of the art of flamenco, this is the place to come.

And so to Ollie.

Ollie was invited to join dancers on stage at one of their evening performances, in front of an audience of some 100 flamenco fans. Undeterred by no previous dance experience – and no doubt helped by the natural agility that comes with being a professional sportsman – Ollie gallantly copied the experts and proceeded to dance flamenco to everyone’s delight.

So here we are folks – the proof:

ollie-phillips-flamenco

Keep posted for the complete video of Ollie’s trip to Seville and Cadiz which will be released shortly – including footage of him dancing flamenco on stage!

clic_logoOllie travelled to Spain to study Spanish with Cactus partner CLIC in Seville. Cactus offers Spanish courses in Seville and in many locations across Spain and Latin America.

 

 

Spanish course Barcelona – a first-hand review

Spanish Course Barcelona: Creative Web Manager John Biddulph takes a break from PHP and Javascript to learn a different language – Spanish in Barcelona

I took a Spanish beginner course in Barcelona last October, and my first day was very organised and welcoming. I met five other students in my group of different nationalities and ages.

The times of my classes were just great, starting at 2pm in a spacious air conditioned classroom. There was one day when I was unwell and was unable to go in, so I contacted Cactus who were very helpful and contacted the school for me.

My teacher, Isobel, was lovely. She was very helpful and we all had fun reading and acting from our activity book and also had time for a few language games.

Being a complete beginner to Spanish, I would advise taking a short evening course beforehand to learn the very basics. This means that you can learn some proper Spanish on your course and practise using it out and about in the city.

Barcelona is an amazing city – there are plenty of nice places to go sightseeing and some great tapas bars and cafes for food and drink. It’s easy to get to and it was a great starting point for me learning Spanish. I can’t wait to go back again!

Cactus offers Spanish courses in Barcelona and in many locations across Spain and Latin America.

Learn some Spanish before you go with our Spanish evening courses in London, Brighton, Manchester and other major locations across the UK. Courses start in January, April, July and September in over 20 languages and at many levels.

CELTA Galapagos: Qualify to teach English and volunteer

Would you like to qualify to be a teacher and make a difference to a precious community?

If you want to do something different, memorable and truly rewarding, Cactus has two new programmes in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Galapagos Islands that will change both your life and that of the locals.

Located off the coast of Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands form a biological marine reserve that is known the world over for its unique flora and fauna – famous examples being the giant tortoise, the marine iguana and the blue-footed booby.

People have visited the Galapagos for many years to enjoy its stunning and remote natural environment. Few, however, have the opportunity to give something back to this protected archipelago of volcanic islands – the so-called ‘land of craters’ as it was described by the naturalist Charles Darwin. This is where our two fabulous courses on Isla Santa Cruz change things.

Course Options:

1. 4-week CELTA course

For the first time in the Galapagos, teacher trainees can gain their prestigious CELTA (Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults) certificate and, if they wish, go on to participate in important sustainable development and environmental protection projects.

Cost = USD $1,700 (currently £1,133)

2. 4-week CELTA course + 4 weeks volunteering

A set programme combining the 4-week CELTA course and a 4-week volunteer project. This is a fantastic opportunity to gain first-hand teaching experience directly after completing your course. The price includes the 4-week CELTA course, a 4-week volunteering programme and acccommodation for the whole duration.

Cost = USD $1,980 (currently £1,320)

How can you help?

Helping to educate the local population is an integral part of the CELTA course, and our new CELTA & Volunteering programme is a unique opportunity to volunteer on the islands once your course is complete. Much of the population of the Galapagos is Spanish speaking, so recently-qualified teachers can offer valuable assistance in teaching English to the locals. At present there are about 25 teachers, only one of whom meets the required level of English to do the CELTA. They really need qualified volunteers to stay on after the course and help educate the local community, whose main source of income is the tourism industry.

The municipal authorities in the Galapagos are particularly keen to help with this project as they see it as a win-win situation for both the volunteer teachers and the native population. It is a chance to spend time in this precious environment as much more than a tourist and do something truly rewarding and memorable.

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The CELTA course

The Cambridge CELTA, along with the Trinity CertTESOL, is the most respected English language teaching qualification worldwide. CELTA Galapagos is a specific project under the broader training structure. As a Cambridge English Language Authorised Centre, it is their mission to provide you, the students, with the highest quality teacher training that will give you the experience and confidence you need to teach English anywhere in the world to non-native speakers.

The CELTA Galapagos staff are passionate professionals from the UK, Ecuador, Australia and Canada, who have come together to design this CELTA course to address the specific needs of their candidates in one of the most exotic locations on Earth.

Apply to CELTA Galapagos now or contact Cactus TEFL at info@cactustefl.com / 0845 130 4775 for more information. Good luck, and enjoy!

Ollie Phillips in Spain – Sneak Preview

Cactus Ambassador Ollie Phillips is all set to go to Spain to make us want to learn Spanish…

You’ve seen Ollie tell us why he learnt French in France as a player for Parisian team Stade Français – now he’s learning Spanish and is all set to go to Spain to get the rest of us in the mood, too!

Next month Ollie will jet off to Seville with Cactus – a vibrant city of flamenco, tapas and fiestas – before heading to the coast to try Spanish & Surfing in Cadiz. We’ll be making a video to show what this beautiful part of Spain has to offer and to highlight the many benefits of learning Spanish in a country where it’s spoken.

About Ollie

ollie_phillipsA professional sportman who has travelled the world playing rugby, sailing in the Clipper Round The Wave Race, commentating for Eurosport and Sky (in French) and delivering workshops to global brands, Ollie has first-hand experience of the importance of language in international communication and understanding.

He has come on board as Cactus Ambassador as he is passionate about sharing his experience to inspire Britain’s younger learners in particular to learn a second language – opening the door to infinite career and other opportunities.

Cactus runs language courses in over 120 destinations abroad, as well as private and corporate language training, evening courses in the UK and TEFL courses worldwide.

 

What is doing a TESOL/CELTA course really like? An Insider’s Perspective

Cactus Managing Director Fay Drewry gives us a first-hand account of life as a TEFL trainee in Barcelona

Having decided I wanted to do my TEFL course in Barcelona and try living and working there for a year – hopefully to improve my Spanish – I set about trying to work out which course I should do and at which school. I had never been to Barcelona but I knew instinctively that it would be a city I would love…a city with a beach, and sun, and Gaudi, and chicos guapos…what more could I want?  I spent quite a bit of time trawling through various websites trying to compare TEFL courses and locations and prices, until I came across CactusTEFL.com. Finally a website that explained everything I needed to know, allowed me to compare courses and start dates, plus they were on the end of the phone to help me with my application – great! So I applied, did the pre-interview task, had a Skype interview with the school, and before I knew it I was accepted onto the course. So far so good, and I even managed to book myself onto a part-time Spanish language course, just to make sure I wasn’t just speaking English all the time!

My course expectations

Having always been fairly academic (good A level results, good degree) I didn’t think that doing a 4 week teaching course to become an English language teacher would cause me too many problems. This was not entirely the case. Initially I questioned if I really needed to spend a significant amount of money on learning how to teach a language I already spoke fluently. How hard could it be? A lot harder than I thought, as it turned out.

So I arrived in Barcelona courtesy of Easyjet, and for the duration of the 4 week course I stayed with a family in a nice part of the city. They were lovely. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to spend much time with them. Mainly because I spent the majority of my ‘free’ time holed up in my room frantically trying to work out the stages of lesson planning, creating materials with no idea of whether they would actually work in class, and writing assignments that at 4am in the morning didn’t make a lot of sense to me either.  This was essentially, the beginning, middle and end of the course. A learning curve like no other I had ever experienced. It wasn’t that the information was complicated or intellectualised – most of it, in fact, was common sense. There was just A LOT of it.

In at the deep end – the course in detail

There were 18 people on my course, but there were 2 courses running simultaneously, so there were about 35 of us all together. English, Scottish, American, Irish, Canadian, and Dutch. A great mix of people from 18 to 55, with a range of motivations, backgrounds and reasons for doing the course.  Teaching in front of my other 17 classmates started on the second day of the course. Not embarrassing at all.  We had to teach our fellow trainees for 5 minutes about something we knew or were good at – having just left PwC as a trainee accountant (the most boring year of my life) I decided to teach everyone how to complete a balance sheet. Not that this had a lot to do with teaching English but it did get us up, writing on the board, in front of a group of people.  From there on in the rest of the course flew by – everyday filled with so much information to take on board, so many different things to think about, so much to understand. Classroom management, lesson planning, setting of lesson aims, achieving lesson aims, checking meaning of target language, ensuring free practice of target language, error correction, varying interaction patterns, catering for different learner styles – not to mention making the materials for all the activities from scratch. It was a surprise that all 35 of us made it through to the end of the course without having a nervous breakdown (only joking – ish).

Throughout the course everyone teaches for a total of 6 hours. Each time was a pretty nerve racking experience – but with each teaching practice the feedback from the tutor helped me to identify which areas I was getting right and which points I needed to work on. This made me feel like I was actually progressing and improving, and allowed me to focus on just a couple of things at a time – rather than trying to get everything right, which was basically impossible. We all had mid-course and end of course tutorials with our tutors, which made us aware of exactly how we were getting on and if we were on track to pass the course. This was an extremely positive aspect of the course – as there were no nasty surprises at the end with someone thinking they were doing great when actually they were going to fail.

So, I got to the end of the course in one piece and passed! What a relief. The lessons learnt were invaluable and there is no way, after having done the TESOL, that I would ever want to stand in front of anyone and try and teach them English without having done the course.

14 years after doing my Trinity TESOL I’m now the Managing Director of CactusTEFL…but that’s another story…

Cactus TEFL is an admissions and advice service for quality teacher training courses worldwide. Cactus works with the majority of well-known course providers to offer CELTA, Trinity CertTESOL, equivalent and online courses in over 90 locations across 36 countries. Cactus TEFL also offers free post-course careers advice and support, as well as access to our very own TEFL jobs board and job alerts.

Cactus Language is a leading provider of language courses in over 120 locations abroad.

10 top locations to learn Spanish this summer

If you want a little more from your holiday this summer, a language course is the perfect option. Not only can it be booked last minute, but you can get all the sand, sea, culture and history that you’d expect from a regular holiday. Spanish is our most popular language and with Spanish courses in Spain and across Latin America, there is a language course for every taste!

We’ve asked our language holiday advisors for their recommendations as to the best places to go this summer in Spain and Latin America. And who better to ask – they are the ones who have visited and taken courses in our many destinations.

It’s not too late to book – just take your pick, and get it in the diary!

Location Why Go?
1. Bocas del Toro, Panama Caribbean beaches and islands; excellent diving and surfing; laid-back, rustic vibe; close to the Costa Rican border; on the backpacker trail but still relatively unknown
2. Cartagena, Colombia Magnificent colonial city; Caribbean charm; friendly, warm locals; Colombian Spanish has a reputation for being particularly clear
3. Ibiza, Spain Exhilarating nightlife; spectacular natural scenery and beaches; ancient hill towns; mild climate year-round
4. Jaco Beach, Costa Rica Laid-back surfing and beach culture; relaxed but lively nightlife; courses include Spanish & surfing
5. Playa del Carmen, Mexico Beautiful beach; choice of watersports; lively nightlife; proximity to ancient Maya & Aztec sites
6. San Sebastián, Spain Golden beaches & excellent surfing; famous for its delicious pintxos (tapas); popular summer teen & children’s programmes
7. Santiago de Chile, Chile Southern Hemisphere skiing; vineyards and wine tasting; European in feel; leafy parks
8. Santiago de Compostela, Spain Off the beaten track; classic walking trails; history & culture; traditional bars and excellent tapas
9. Sosúa, Dominican Republic Watersports, especially diving & kitesurfing; attractive climate; cheap destination once there; whale watching in winter
10. Valencia, Spain Vibrant summer location; beaches and watersports including Spanish & kite surfing, impressive City of Arts and Sciences; the place to eat paella

More about Spanish courses in Spain

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Cactus offers Spanish courses in 12 countries worldwide. Courses are available from one week upwards, for all ages and levels, and can be combined with a range of activities from sport and cookery to music and art.