True to King’s Academy’s commitment to providing crucial learning through endeavors outside of the classroom and the formal curriculum, 16 Middle Schoolers travelled to Spain during the Eid al Fitr break. Led by class dean and science teacher Lana AbuKhader and Spanish teacher Linda Bonagura, the group experienced a week-long immersion in Spanish language, culture and history.

According to Bonagura, “we wanted the students to experience as much of Spain as possible — and to expand their command of Spanish at the same time.” Bonagura adds, “We insisted that the students speak only Spanish with one another and with everyone else they encountered. All guided tours were conducted in Spanish, and they spoke only Spanish in hotels, restaurants and with their homestay families.”

Students maintained an extremely full schedule facilitated by the Centro Mundo Lingua, a language school headquartered in Seville. “This was not a leisurely sightseeing and shopping trip,” according to AbuKhader. “We tried to spend each day as productively as we could.

The group arrived in Madrid on the morning of April 10, where after a quick lunch they visited the Santiago Bernabeau Stadium before boarding the speed train for the trip to Malaga. Highlights of the Malaga stay were visits to the Picasso museum, Gibralfaro Castle, and Alcazaba. On the morning of April 12, the group travelled by bus to Granada where they spent a day visiting the Alhambra fortress and gardens, one of the “wonders of the Muslim world.”

Ali Abudawwas ’28, an eighth grader from Amman, speaks for many of the students when he describes the Alhambra visit as “the highlight of the trip.” He explains, “it was so powerful to be in a place where the religion I practice today was practiced six hundred years ago.”

On the morning of April 13, the group travelled to Seville, arriving just in time for the Seville feria, the largest city-wide fair in Spain. Upon arriving for their three-day stay, students were introduced to their homestay families, with three students assigned to each family. They ate the morning meal with their hosts, as well as the evening meal if they were not on the road. These three days were full of sightseeing, experiencing the pageantry of the fair, and exploring the city and the countryside.

The many highlights of Seville included cooking lessons from a professional chef and then cooking their own Spanish dinner, visiting the flamenco museum for a performance, and taking flamenco lessons at a local dance academy. In addition, they learned to kayak on the Guadalquivir River, they visited an olive oil farm, and they enjoyed a scavenger hunt riding four-person bicycle carts in the Plaza de Espana. Needless to say, they were exhausted and exhilarated when they boarded the plane for their return to Amman.

The students on the trip speak glowingly of their experience. Karam Mustafa ’28, an eighth grader also from Amman, echoes Abudawwas’ thought about the impact of the Alhambra: “Seeing my culture in Spain was amazing.” He does say that walking an average of 22 km each day — he measured and kept track! — proved to be a challenge, but that it was well worth the effort. Mustafa says that his comprehension of spoken Spanish improved dramatically and that his confidence in his skills is much greater. Abudawwas will never forget the bonds he forged with his classmates. He says, “You really get to know someone when you travel with them, and we really had to get along with and rely on one another.”

Ultimately, this trip was about more than visiting another country, it was about personal growth.  AbuKhader points out that the students became both self-reliant and responsible to the group: many of them were travelling abroad without their families for the first time, and the challenges of navigating busy airports and train stations and adhering to strict schedules were new to them. She says, “They learned a lot about teamwork and personal responsibility because they had to work closely with one another.”

Moreover, Bonagura reports that “it was inspiring to see the students interact in Spanish during the trip, and they all have shown significant improvement in the classroom since our return.”