Scott Christofferson

Scott’s primary motivation for studying Spanish was his love of the language and travel, although the encouragement of his Spanish-speaking friends and the hope that it might open up greater opportunities on the job were also factors. He had taken an intensive Spanish program at Yale while studying law but recognizes that “you have to maintain your skills.” After taking the bar exam he had some time off before returning to consulting work at McKinsey so he started looking on-line for an immersion program abroad.

Scott reviewed language school websites, then narrowed the decision to several schools. “Your website is in a league of its own, but even better, it was backed up by a very responsive registrar. I asked a lot of questions and would often get an answer the same day. Once I asked about the student composition at ILISA and I got an Excel spreadsheet back with graphs and everything. Pretty cool.” Since Scott was an advanced student, he was concerned that the program might not offer classes for higher levels. “I checked out your reference list and the feedback of former students helped me make my final decision for ILISA.

Scott continues, “I really enjoyed the study program. I had previously seen almost all the grammar stuff, so my main goal was to improve my fluency and build my vocabulary, especially in the area of business, management and finance. I took the Group-4 plus program and my afternoon teachers would bring articles and stories about topics of my area interest and skillfully, almost playfully, create a very effective learning process. For homework, I would read the newspaper business section and bring my own articles to class. Time flew by!”

“Of course, I also learned new grammar structures like the imperfect subjunctive but the real improvement is my enhanced fluency and vocabulary: Before, I could watch a TV program in Spanish and understand only snippets. Now I can really follow them. I think that’s a very good result for 4 weeks of study.”