Victoria Sanahuja Gimeno founded Hispania Spanish school in Valencia twelve years ago at just 22. Now CEO and Marketing and Educational Manager of one of the country’s top Spanish language schools, she speaks to The PIE News about her vision to share Spanish with the world.
The PIE: Tell me a bit about Hispania.
“We opened the school with no students, and nowadays we are the most popular school in the city”
VSG: We’re a Spanish language school that has its own methodology that we created. We don’t have even low or high seasons; business is all the time very stable with many students. When we opened the school in 2002 it was quite innovative, because there weren’t many Spanish language schools. We opened the school with no students, and nowadays we are the most popular school in the city, and we are invited by the University of Valencia to attend conferences and different forums.
The PIE: Where do most of your students come from?
VSG: We teach literally students from all continents of the world, which is great and so, so interesting. Our biggest markets nowadays are Germany, Italy, Russia, China and Netherlands, but of course we receive students from many other countries as well.
The PIE: And you were very young when you founded the school, is that right?
VSG: We were 22, myself and Juan José Ruiz. We started from nothing; we had to do absolutely everything. We started in a very, very tiny school of only two classrooms and I used to teach more than 12 hours per day. I used to start at eight o’clock in the morning and finish at 10 o’clock or maybe half past 10 at night – sometimes without stopping – so the beginning was hard.
But the way we take care of students – we always think it’s so important to take care of everybody as you take care of yourself, people you love. That atmosphere is very unique. I think when students start coming to our school they love this atmosphere, and I think as a foreigner you need to feel like you are important for other people. They think of Hispania as their home. We always say this, but in our case, we are what we say we are.
The PIE: How long was it before you could start to expand?
VSG: Suddenly it became very popular and we started growing and after three years we made the school bigger. It wasn’t very difficult because it was only two classrooms! So then we had four, and the following year five, and now we are in another building which is beautiful, beautiful, with two terraces. We have 11 classrooms, and in June we are going to open another building with seven more. And probably next year we’ll be opening another one because it’s growing rapidly.
The PIE: What made you, as a 22 year old, want to set up language school?
“It was a romantic idea of bringing the whole world to us and teaching what I love”
VSG: It was a romantic idea. I love linguistics, and whenever I had time I used to study, analysing the language and everything. I came to England and Ireland when I was a teenager many times, and I saw this idea of bringing the whole world to one place. And I said, when I was more or less 20 years old, why not to Spain? It was a romantic idea of bringing the whole world to us and teaching what I love.
The PIE: How did you fund it?
VSG: Our families helped us at the start, because we had to apply for a mortgage. They gave us some money for rebuilding the school we bought – we didn’t rent it. It was crazy. And we started from nothing and I thought, how can I find students here? I used to do everything: I used to teach, I was on the front desk, everything. And during the weekends we used to be on the street giving out leaflets. And when I had time I would go to the school just to see if somebody was calling us.
But after one year, we could give back the money to our families. And from the second year, it was completely our own business.
The PIE: That’s very impressive! And that’s because Spanish is growing more popular, do you think?
VSG: I don’t know, because I was told other Spanish language schools don’t have many students in winter, but we do. So I think it’s a combination of both things: Spanish is growing so fast, and the way we try to create this atmosphere of learning the language and culture. We are told it’s very unique. So it’s a combination of both things.
The PIE: Can you tell me any more about your methodology?
“In university, my teacher told me that Spanish is going to be the second most studied language in the world soon. I said ‘I like that idea!'”
VSG: We’re publishing a book about it next year. Basically, it’s focusing on the student more than the teacher, and it’s focused more on the interests of the student than the interests of the teacher. And that’s making the school very popular, because it’s making students feel that they’re very important. You need to observe your students – you need to listen a lot, observing, analysing, and then converting all these into material.
We were asked what our unique selling point is and we said our method, and that we are a very flexible school. We’ve created software which means students can book lessons like a hotel, so students can book this day or another day or if they want to cancel lessons, so this is making us a very special school as well.
The PIE: Is it all in class teaching?
VSG: We plan to do online lessons as well, but right now it’s all in class.
The PIE: Why do you think Spanish is growing more popular?
VSG: Well I studied English and Spanish philology at university and in my first year, my teacher told me that Spanish – it wasn’t popular, Spanish, at that time – is going to be the second most studied language in the world soon. So I said ‘I like that idea!’
It’s popular in Latin America, which is doing very good business with many states from Asia, so many people need Spanish for work. And now there is a big, big Spanish speaking society in the United States. And they have good jobs; it’s not like in the past, when it was only not very well paid jobs.
“You have to think of each language like a culture”
And it’s something very romantic as well. When you ask people why they want to learn Spanish, they say: ‘because it’s a very passionate language and very romantic and Spanish people, Latin American people know how to enjoy life and we want to get that through language and culture’. So I think these two factors are important.
The PIE: So where do you go from here?
VSG: Our objective… through our school, we would love to give the Spanish language the recognition it has to have, and we would love to expand our methodology to other schools. That’s our mission. We would love to show the world another way of teaching Spanish, because I’m sure it doesn’t work for English or for other languages; you have to think of each language like a culture, and you cannot put every culture in the same place.
