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Silvina is
a very special find - patient, fun,
generous, creative and committed, we
highly recommend her classes. We studied
with Silvina for about six weeks and in
short order we went from not being
comfortable saying a word to being able to
get around the city
and be understood. |
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It was
exciting to have such positive results in
such a short period of time.
With her wonderful insight into local
culture and comfortable study environment,
(complete with tea, cofee and cookies)
lessons frequently felt a lot more like a
visit with a very cool friend.
Thank you for everything silvina, you've
inspired us to keep studying Spanish and
we hope to be back soon to see you again!
Best wishes!
Gabby and Charles
San Francisco
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I received three months of top quality
Spanish instruction from Silvina in 2009.
I had previously studied Spanish off and
on for years through a variety of teachers
and courses. |
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Never had I improved as quickly as when I
was studying with Silvina.
She was very perceptive to my strengths,
weaknesses, and learning
style and she went out of her way to
customize each class to my needs.
Her mastery of Spanish grammar was very
impressive and she was able to
explain the most complex concepts in ways
in which I could quickly
understand.
Silvina is intelligent, kind, patient, and
a great teacher. I would
not hesitate to recommend her excellent,
personalized Spanish
instruction to anyone.
Cody Fauser
CTO - Shopify
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Spanish
Classes by Silvina Gruppo... actually, a
very efficient but also pleasant way to
learn or improve spanish in Buenos Aires! |
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I had 2
weeks of holidays in Buenos Aires and I
wanted to take benefit of them to improve
my knowledge of spanish. With only one
hour of discussion Silvina had assessed my
level and built up a course plan adapted
to my needs and wishes.
She is
really fantastically skilled at answering
your answers, about grammar, conjugation,
or whatever, and she does it with passion
for teaching her language. Actually it
seems to me that her skills come from the
quality of her university career and from
her experience in teaching to foreigners
with distinct levels. Moreover, she has
summed up such a lot of materials that she
will propose you excercises and texts
really adapted to your needs.
She is
available and kind, and as an Argentinian
she will receive you with generosity, warm
and smile and you will also learn about
culture with her!
In few
words, Silvina is an experienced teacher
with high professional skills for teaching
to foreigners. Learning with her is a very
efficient way of learning spanish.
Thanks a
lot for your course Silvina!
Laurent
Carette
France
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Silvina is a wonderfully effective teacher.
Her warm manner puts you at ease
immediately and allows you to gain
confidence quickly.
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Her approach is thorough yet flexible -
she tailored our lessons to suit our
individual needs, allowing us to rapidly
improve our speaking skills.
Conversations with Silvina are
interesting, fun and educational - a rare
combination. She is truly interested in
you as a person therefore discussions
revolve around your interests. This
means you come away with the confidence
to engage in meaningful conversations
with Spanish speakers. We found every
lesson to be challenging and thoroughly
enjoyable.
Silvina
made our stay in Buenos Aires an
absolute pleasure. We strongly recommend
her to anyone interested in improving
their Spanish.
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Silvina is
a great teacher. When I arrived in BA, I
didn't know where to go to study. When you
arrive in Silvina's appartment you know
you're at the right place.
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I took
three days of classes of two hours a
week and this for three months. I
really learned a lot there. Silvina
loves her language so much that she
can explain it with so much energy
that you suddenly get interested in
subjuntivo and preterito perfecto and
so on. I'm normally pretty shy to
speak another language but with
Silvina I really felt comfortable, so
we spoke about everything and
discovered we share some interests,
like poetical stories, but also shoes
and jewellery and good food,...
That is also something very nice about
the classes of Silvina. She really
looks for the best way for you. She
concentrates on your problems but she
also looks for your interests. I am an
interior architect, so the second
class I got Spanish magazines about
interior.
I have the feeling that she goes
further than being a teacher.
I am in Belgium again. I had to say
goodbye to a good teacher, but also to
a friend. When I think of BA, I think
of my classes with Silvina.
If you want to contact me, you can
send me an email:
kellyvanderpoorten@hotmail.com |
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Silvina is
a fantastic teacher! In fact, after having
such a positive experience with her two
years ago, I managed to take a month's
break from work and come back down to
Buenos Aires, expressly to take spanish
classes with her again. |
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And irregardless of the fact that I
had an intensive schedule with her,
she was always enthusiastic, attentive
and patient. Silvina is excellent at
explaining all of the grammer,
correcting mistakes and giving more
homework if needed! But much more than
this, she is an excellent conversation
partner - well-read and funny. My
spanish classes became wide-reaching
conversations about politics, culture
and art... and about the city itself.
Silvina is a gifted teacher and I
recommend her wholeheartedly.
Jaspreet Birk
United
States, Washington
(Formerly:
Toronto, Canada)
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I
arranged private Spanish lessons
with Silvina on the glowing
recommendation of a friend. I was
in Buenos Aires for 7 weeks and knew
no Spanish. My goal was to be able
to communicate with locals and
especially with my tango teachers
who spoke little English.
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I expected
that learning Spanish would be hard going
but what a pleasant surprise! Silvina
structured the 2 hour lessons to suit my
own style of learning and they were always
fun. The lessons became lively
discussions which integrated the Spanish
language and its relevance to life in
Buenos Aires. The 2 hours really flew and
I was disappointed when each lesson came
to and end.
As I
learned more about the language, Silvina
taught me lots about Buenos Aires and
Argentina – the people, history, culture,
social conventions, places to go and the
language of tango. My expanding local
knowledge and insights into life in this
amazing city motivated me to further
improve my Spanish.
Silvina
radiates enthusiasm and professionalism.
She has a keen appreciation of how people
learn and she manages to achieve much
progress in a short time. Her excellent
teaching and communications skills and her
energy make learning a real pleasure.
She is totally dedicated to achieving
the best results for her students. I
recommend Silvina most highly and will ask
her for further lessons when I return to
BsAs in spring!!!
Hasta
pronto
Tony Pepper
Western
Australia |
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I came to Silvina with a small
foundation of Spanish, only about a
semester's worth. I left her
confident in conversation and with a
functional vocabulary and good
memories of Buenos Aires. |
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As a teacher, she is fantastic.
Silvina is methodical in her approach,
teaches to her student's level (she
evaluated my abilities before we
started class) and is responsive to
her students' needs (she taught me
legal vocabulary). She uses the right
mixture of conversation and
instruction time, which guarantees
that I don't just know all the tenses,
for example, but could also use them
in day-to-day life.
As a person, she's an interesting and
fun. Please don't under estimate the
importance of learning español
from someone who isn't rara.
In short, the learning environment is
pleasant and professional, the
cookies, coffee, and tea are
delicious, and the class is entirely
worthwhile. If you have more specific
questions, you can email me at
bldougherty@gmail.com.
¡Thanks Silvina!
Brian Dougherty- Chicago
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My husband and I
landed in Buenos Aires in December
2006 with a plan to live for 3
months as Porteños.
Having briefly visited the city
twice before, this time we intended
to really immerse ourselves in the
culture. We rented a flat, joined a
gym, found a great local butcher,
fishmonger and produce markets, rode
colectivos everywhere, and talked to
everyone we met along the way. |
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By “talking” I mean
we stumbled around with the bad
Spanish we remembered from ancient
classes in high school and other
journeys in Latin America. People
were gracious, even amused by our
efforts, but we weren’t going to make
friends with such limited skills.
Porteño
Spanish, like the city it reflects, is
idiosyncratic and passionate, and we
wanted to speak like locals.
We met Silvina
after looking at her website, and
agreed to a three month, four day a
week intensive study plan. Like a good
teacher, she was always well prepared
and clear about the rules and
structure of the language. But like a
good friend, she openly and
enthusiastically expressed her ideas,
sharing the subtle nuances of her
language and culture. Classes
“unfolded” and no two sessions were
alike. Grammar became absorbed into
the fabric of a conversation. As we
talked-- always in Spanish--the more
confident I became about how the
language worked. So, out in the “real
world” of the street, I became
increasingly confident to speak Porteño
Spanish.
Leaving Buenos
Aires was difficult. We fell
completely in love with the city—its
parks, grand, tree-lined boulevards,
fabulously crumbling
turn-of-the-century French and Spanish
architecture, beef and Malbec –a match
made in heaven-- but it was the spirit
of the effusive, passionate, generous
Porteños
that was so hard to leave behind.
Silvina lives and
reflects that Porteña
spirit. She is an extraordinarily
gifted teacher and I cannot more
highly recommend a decision to study
with her. Not only will you learn
Spanish, but you’ll gain an insight
into the soul of Buenos Aires from a
woman who cares deeply, and
critically, about her roots.
Pamela
& Graham
Canada
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Dear
future alumno!
Learning a new language is as
frustrating as it is fun. To extend
my knowledge of the Spanish language
was not only fun to do but also
necessary for me. Because I am doing
interviews in Spanish for my
fieldwork I had to improve my
language skills a lot and I had to
do it quick.
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Mainly
because of Silvina’s teaching skills I
succeeded in doing both; In a
relatively short period of time my
Spanish has improved to a level that
provides me with the possibility to do
interviews and actually understand
what the interviewee is saying. An
important reason for this great
progress was that Silvina adjusted the
classes to my individual needs. That
way I was able to learn exactly what I
wanted to learn. Furthermore, not only
were her classes very effective
because of Silvina’s teaching
experience and great knowledge of the
language but also because they were
great fun. I really enjoyed going to
class because Silvina is not only an
energetic and dedicated teacher, but
also a warm interesting and
intelligent woman. This way I was
learning Spanish and having
interesting conversations and
discussions at the same time.
Silvina
I want to thank you for all the
interesting meetings we had, for all
your help outside class, for all the
fun we had and for all your
interesting insights on Argentinean
society, politics and cartoneros in
particular.
Besos,
Bas
The
Netherlands
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Silvina was recommended to us by
some friends of ours, and we
thoroughly enjoyed our classes with
her. We felt we really benefitted
from private lessons and have learnt
much more than we would have had we
joined a class at a language school.
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Silvina was
professional but also made us feel at
ease when we were learning and making
mistakes. Our lessons were tailored to
our needs and we were able to really
work on our conversational spanish,
something which we really benefitted
from when travelling in South America.
We would recommend Silvina in the
future to anyone in Buenos Aires who
wants to learn Spanish with a great
teacher.
Chau y muchas
gracias,
Siana and Ros
England
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Hello,
To anybody
reading this letter, the first thing
I can tell you is
that I
sincerely envy you. For having the
opportunity to do something amazing,
study a new language, and do it in
an environment that is really also a
great cultural experience.
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I reached BsAs as a humble
'mochilero'
backpacker, having a few Argentinean
friends I met while traveling, and had
the luck to find a wonderful teacher
to help me out with my Spanish.
I really liked and
even fell in love a little with the
Argentinean way of life, culture and
of course the way Rioplatenese Spanish
sounds different from other forms of
'catellano',
music to the ears :-)
In really the
simplest way, I can tell you that
Silvina is a very good smart
professional teacher and apart than
that a truly wonderful person.
On the personal
side, I always felt very comfortable
and easy coming to study. I felt that
I always was receiving the best of
teaching and effort and that Silvina
always was teaching out of fun and
sincerely caring and wanting to give
the best to her students.
On the
professional side, I learned quicker
than I could imagine because my
teacher always knew what I already was
doing well, what previous knowledge I
have and what I need to improve and
how to do it.
The lessons are
always interesting, I got much more
than one way to study, in class, by
myself, listening to recordings,
reading interesting things, walking
around the city, anything.
Also I got
something that I feel is very special.
A way to get closer to Argentinean
culture, be it drinking mate, walking
around the city and getting informed
of the latest happenings or talking
about Argentinean literature and
writers and the latest cultural
happenings in the city.
I could go on
for much more about how happy I am
that I did something in BsAs that I
regard as a gift and I will remember.
But in order to
be short, you have found a fun
intelligent interesting good hearted
person that is also very good and
professional in what she does, so look
no more :-)
Thank you,
Erez Levinberg
Israel |
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We
had a really great time learning
Spanish with Silvina. As we were
begginers, her teaching was efective
and fun, particularly because we
were able to chat in Spanish during
the lessons rather than purely
learning theory.
Jez
and Alison
England |
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