I took 2 weeks of Spanish classes at Expanish in Jan 2011 and also had a terrible experience. The teachers are poorly qualified and often share their complaints about the school owners with the students. I talked to a number of students at the school and they all felt disappointed with the classes.

Hi Dylan and Den,

Thanks for your comments. It's great that you are both being so vigilent about Expanish related posts. Our 95% satisfaction rating is taken from our post course evaluation that every student completes (as we referred to in our previous post), as a result we can prove our figures.

Anyone who has been to our school will know that our teachers at Expanish are all experienced and well qualified. As always our door is always open to discuss any negative experiences that 'real' students have had, so please feel free to get in contact with us at info@expanish.com

Thanks again for your comments Dylan and Den

Hi 'Inquiring'

Thanks for you comment. As we have said twice in this comment string. We have a 95% satisfaction rating from the students who fill out our end of course survey. We can of course prove this as we hold the surveys at the school and do a monthly audit. Our aim is to continue our reputation as one of the most well respected schools in Buenos Aires and aim to be totally transparent, so 'Inquiring' if you want to come and take a look at our surveys, our doors our always open. Or you can contact us directly at info@expanish.com.

If not, you can take a look at a number of the online review pages where we have many very positive reviews from our ex-students. Just to stress again, we are extremely sorry if anyone has had a negative experience at the school, unfortunately things can go wrong due to unfortunate circumstances. Our main priority is to make sure complaints are dealt with properly. I urge any one of you 'individual posters...'Inquiring, Dylan and Den' to contact us directly to discuss any issues you may have.

Thanks again. Expanish

Hola Estudiante,

Again, thank you for voicing your concerns, and we would really love to hear from you directly about any problems that you had with your program so that we can continue to improve the level of service we provide to our students. We wanted to go over your comments, as well, since we just now are seeing your post from October 2011. We would like to briefly respond to each of your concerns separately to make the answers as clear as possible.

1. Housing With Expanish

We do offering an optional housing service to our students where then can choose from a variety of student apartments and homestays. We do our best to keep our prices as low as possible while still maintaining quality. Keep in mind that we offer short-term, fully furnished and equipped housing options without a deposit and that every single option has been checked for quality, cleanliness and safety by a staff member. We also assign you your housing within our network of options according to your preferences. This is the housing service we provide, which is completely optional and not necessary for studying at our school, and students can always come and speak to our housing coordinator about any questions, issues or complaints that might come up during their stay.

For students who are looking to find housing on their own we can also recommend hostels, hotels and even rental agencies that rent private apartments.

We do have students who find housing on their own through different means and it is possible to find something cheaper. By finding housing on your own, Expanish cannot be responsible for any problems that occur. For example, if apartment owner does not return a deposit at the end of the stay or if something breaks like a water or gas pipe. We always want our students to keep this in mind and to take precautions when dealing with people or organizations that are not accountable to a trusted source.

2. Volunteering in Buenos Aires through Expanish

This is a similar issue to housing in that our volunteer program has a infrastructure that allows those who have never been to the city before to work in NGOs with support from both our staff and their direct supervisor. Again one can possibly find volunteer opportunities on your own, but doing an official Expanish placement you are assured of a quality working atmosphere with locals and 15 hours of work each week. It can be quite difficult to find volunteer opportunities on your own in the city as many organizations do not have the resources to manage inquiries from individuals who want to do short-term volunteer work. Our placement fee is a one-time payment that only covers the support services we will provide you, meaning that no matter how long you would like to volunteer, the price will be the same.


3. Being Sure About Your Program

Here at Expanish we always want our students to be sure of the program that they sign up for as once it is booked and paid for the dates are set for both classes and housing. We understand that plans can change after arrival and we try to be as flexible as possible in this sense, but we do have an administrative fee to change classes or housing after arrival. This is to make sure that students are 100% sure of any changes as it means reorganzing classes and housing. Also, keep in mind that once you have confirmed the program we have scheduled a professor for your class and if you make changes last-minute then that professor may be left without a class to teach after turning down other lessons knowing that yours was confirmed. All of this is in our terms and conditions that each student agrees and states that they understand when the fill out a registration form. Do you know if you read through this document when you filled out your form?

Whenever a student is unsure of their dates or what they are looking to do, we always recommend that they book a shorter program to try it out first as they can always extend it after arrival. They just have to keep in mind that we cannot save their spot in classes or housing, so it is best to let us know as early on as possible if they want to extend.

Again, we encourage anyone who has a complaint about Expanish to contact us directly so that we properly can address their concerns. We want to hear from students about their experience, especially about how we can improve the services that we provide in any way. This is why we hand out evaluation forms during every student's stay, but we would still like to hear from anyone even if they are no longer with the school.

Expanish
info@expanish.com

I've studied Spanish in Buenos Aires and the best advice I can give is DON'T GO TO EXPANISH OR ECELA. They're horrible people that don't give a [redacted] about you the minute after you pay. Try to go to a smaller school, they're cozier and as they don't have a million students per hour, they care about students being happy.

Hi, I just stumbled upon this thread and was surprised by what I read, and felt compelled to respond to it.

I went to Expanish last February and I had an amazing time there, and I know for a fact that EVERY one of the other students in my class felt the same way. I originally booked 2 weeks, and loved it so much I extended it and ended up spending my entire 4 weeks in Argentina at the school. Several others also ended up staying on for longer than they originally planned. The teachers were fantastic, the coordinator Fernando was great and even tried to contact me one day when I didn't go, just to check that nothing bad had happened to me. Everything about the school was done very professionally.
I was staying in the school accommodation in Palermo which was also great (if a little pricey).

I probably should say that I found this thread because I was searching for a school in Peru, as I am planning on going there next, and I was searching for top school lists that also had Expanish in their lists of south american schools, because I knew that as a reference point for what I wanted in another school.

Awesome school, awesome staff and a fantastic atmosphere. I have every intention of returning some time down the road.

Regards,
J