Washington Academy of Languages

I really, really enjoy my French class here. It is the first level of French, so very basic. My instructor is incredibly pleasant and fluent! I was surprised that this was the first class that she taught. She answers every question and double-​checks with us to ensure we understand the content. Everyone who is in the class really wants to learn which is refreshing. Oh, and no grades, so everyone just is there out of pure motivation.
My only complaint is the wacky book that WAL gave her to use. It drops us into the middle of French without going over the alphabet, pronunciations, verbs, nouns… to be fair, about 10 pages in is the alphabet… I’m not sure who was intoxicated when they wrote and edited this book, but I am pretty sure someone wrote it who was completely unfamiliar with people who don’t speak French. It wins the Worst Textbook to Learn French Award.
I found the class tuition to be reasonable and somewhat cheap for the level of instruction. My class isn’t huge, maybe eight students, so you get lots of attention, and a lot of time to speak in class. She makes it incredibly comfortable to practice French out loud with one’s peers.
Having previously studied French in high school and college, it is wonderful to have a learning environment that doesn’t give me nightmares when learning a new language.

I took Korean here last year and the instructor was excellent. She provided exercises and homework that greatly helped with our pronunciation and understanding, and would bring in extra cultural lessons that were based around what the class itself was interested in. The classes were also really small from 3 to 6-​they do go bigger up to 12 I believe, and we each got individual attention and correction. I am now often complimented by any native speakers that I meet, who say that my pronunciation is perfect and I barely give off an accent.
I got the opportunity to go to Korea shortly after completing the courses and I had no problem communicating. I still have a lot to learn and will continue to study but when I get lost in a foreign country and am able to find my way back without calling my friends to translate, I’d say that my goal in taking the classes here were well met.
Also as a side-​note the location for WAL has changed it is now hosted by City U, so I think they now have larger rooms and a better facility in general from what I hear.

I really love this place, the quality of the education, the enthusiasm of the students, and the superb charisma/​skill of the teachers.

I have studied both Spanish (private lessons) and Japanese (group lessons) at WAL. I think the small class size and the focus on communication and comprehensible input (lots of talking in the target language) really helped me learn and was so much better than other language classes I’ve taken where the teacher doesn’t speak much in the target language and does a lot of explaining in English. I intend to take more classes at WAL in the future.

I started a Span level 2 conversation class with only 4 in the class and had a huge amount of enthusiasm but was hugely disappointed. The time was spent talking in pairs to the same person, students who do not know more than I do… so we practiced bad spanish for 1 ½ hours, tried to speak when we didn’t know the words. The teacher did not have us practice any expressions that might be helpful with the correct pronounciation. There was no homework., no outline of the 6 classes and no sign that things would change. Hopefully things will improve.

The instruction I received here was spot-​on. Couldn’t ask for better quality from the teachers. They are all native speakers and many, if not all, are or were professors. The classes are small — no more than 9 per class — so instruction is well-​tailored for you.
The office staff is a joke. They are incompetent and always seem like they are somewhere else. They very obviously hate their job and it shows in the service you get.

The school is a non-​profit institution, so every cent here counts. I took all my French courses with one teacher who wanted to see her students succeed in speaking the language. You should go to a school for the dedication in your education. Look at me thinking I’m a copywriter!
The rooms lack proper acoustics, it wasn’t unusual to hear the traffic outside or the occasional crazy person screaming aloud. Sometimes you hear the outside world more than your teacher, which I often complained about when we completed our evaluations at the end of every course.
The school staff are friendly and always ready to answer questions.
Women, take note: classes are held in the evening. A former classmate was mistaken for a prostitute late one night, and she was more offended at the offered rate than the mistaken identity.