Welcome to our new blog from the Academia Pradoventura.
We are José Luis Garrido Rodríguez and Anja Dibbert, the founders of this international language school.
It’s the first post of this blog, so we’ll answer some of the questions our students always ask us.
For how long have you been here?
We’ve been here since 2004.
Why are you in Prado del Rey (and not in one oft the more famous cities)?
First, because this is the home of José Luis‘ parents. That’s why we came here on vacation shortly after we had met at the language school of a friend of ours in Frankfurt (Germany). Anja loved the town since the very first moment. The greatest surprise for her was the native’s close and lovely way of interacting and the authentic atmosphere of Prado del Rey in comparison to other, more touristic places in Spain she visited before.
During these four weeks José Luis discovered a lot of new places he had never seen before as a kid during the summer vacations he’d spent with his parents. We went back to Frankfurt with the desire to return and to introduce the flair and atmosphere of Prado del Rey to more people interested in the way of living, the culture and the countryside of Andalusia.
One year later, again on vacation in Prado del Rey, we had the idea of founding a language school like the one our friend in Frankfurt had. A school that not only teaches the language, but a school that oranizes activities to teach the cultural, natural, historical and culinary values.
We presented our idea to Francisco and in general he liked it, but he reminded us that the town is very unknown and every other language school is in a well-known place. So we visited a few schools we were able to contact thanks to Francisco. José Luis worked as an intern to get to know the new kind of work. During these stays in the cities we noticed the influence of mass tourism on the city and how the students had a distorted image of Spain, e.j. where the waiter speaks English and that’s why the students were not able to establish ties with the locals.
These observations reinforced our decision to found the school in Prado del Rey, to be able to offer something different and more authentic. It took us 3 years until in 2004 we welcomed our first students.
Do you teach other languages apart from Spanish?
Yes, we offer English and German lessons to the Spanish, on the one hand all year for the people of Prado del Rey and on the other hand as an intensive course during the summer vacation in an attractive environment for people interested in learning or improving the language without having to leave Spain.
The exchange between Spaniards and foreigners and their conversations where everybody practices their foreign language are of great value for everyone, very interesting and always a lot of fun.