Tripatini contributor writes:

"On a week of intensive Spanish classes at the Samara Language School (Instituto de Idiomas Intercultural) on the beach in Playa Samara. I’d forgotten much of the semester’s Spanish I’d taken in college, and I was looking forward to a quick refresher course. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get there in time for the first class, and I was anxious about starting behind, even in a class for complete beginners, given that they employ the immersion method: each day’s 4-hour class was conducted completely in Spanish. 

On the day I missed, the class had begun with such basics as conversations to introduce themselves—and not merely their name but where they were from, their ages, their professions--and had been given an assignment to write about their friends and family describing their appearance (eyes, hair, height), ages, professions, and more. And not long into my first session, they proceeded to read aloud the mini-essays they’d been assigned as homework overnight."

Read more in his post Hola! Intensive Spanish Classes at Costa Rica´s Samara Language School.