Celebrating the 40 years, we have Liliana Pereyra who is the Director of Studies and Berta Sarralde who is the Spanish coordinator have seen a lot of positive changes over the many years (over 20 years) mentioned the technology, the variety of students that have been through the doors, the differences in courses and the methodology. They both agreed that they are dedicated to improving themselves and learn from their mistakes in their field of work.
They could both write a book about the experiences they have had but here is only a couple of anecdotes that they discussed:
On the 1st day of class, an adorable blonde student came in and tried to tell Berta where he was from. He stuttered Swa, Swa, Swa – and she told him ‘Sweden’ a month into the course the student informed Berta that he was actually from a small African country called Swaziland – He had been named Joseph the Sweed.
Liliana spoke about two of her Chinese students who wanted to visit the beach and wanted to know where to go. Liliana told them to go to Valencia for the weekend. A few days passed and Liliana asked them about their trip. The two students explained that they got to the hotel, rested a little and got everything prepared to go out onto the street and find the beach. When the students asked around to get to the beach – the locals there were puzzled and told them that there was no beach – they were in Palencia.
What they hope to see in the future of IH is the happiness, to continue loving their jobs as much as they do now and the different types of people that are in the world as Liliana mentioned because they learn from their students as well as teach them the Spanish language.
Here’s the full interview with Liliana and Berta:
