FAQs

After you arrive in Spain, we will have a short orientation trip to Jaca in the Pyrenees to get to know each other better. You will then take a bus to meet your host family who will be in touch with you about 2 weeks prior to your arrival. On school days, more than half of the students will walk to school, the rest take a direct bus or tramway and SYA will provide bus passes for you.

You will be taking two major classes: Spanish Language (oral and written expression and comprehension, with a section of Phonetics) (different levels including the option to be placed in Preparation to AP Spanish Language & Culture), and Spanish Society and Culture. The language class is 100 minutes long. The other class runs for 50 minutes and sometimes with a complementary cultural field trip.

When you arrive in Zaragoza you will sign a language and rules pledge; at school and during the activities outdoors, you are required to speak in Spanish.

Sunday - Thursday you are expected home at 8:45 pm. Friday and Saturday the curfew will be 10:00-10:45 pm, depending on your host family, as weekends are closed and spent with your Spanish host family.

At the beginning of June you will receive a letter with your host family info so you can start contacting them in advance of your arrival. Just a few of the host families speak English but we ask them to refrain from speaking English to you! So get ready for a full linguistic immersion! About a quarter are families from the year-long program and the rest are not. Almost all host families will have teenagers in the home but it does change from year to year.

You will have a private bedroom, but bathrooms are shared with host siblings or other family members.

You will be provided a phone in your 'welcome package' with enough money to make a phone call to your parents upon arrival. We do encourage you to communicate with your family via Skype from your host family's computer or your personal cell phone. There is no limit on email/messaging/calls to your family and friends back at home but we encourage you to limit the amount of time you spend contacting home, so that you can be fully immersed in your summer experience abroad.

We discourage parents to visit from the U.S. while the program is in session. We want to maintain a Spanish-speaking environment and we also want you to take advantage of the few weeks that you get to spend with your host family. Some parents, however, chose to come at the end of the program to travel to Spain and/or in Europe, and this seems the best option for visiting.