About CatchtheLingo

In a nutshell... Much like an ice cold smoothie on a hot summers day; that first swig of beer after a hellish week or a post-session Sunday morning lie-in, CatchtheLingo makes life (and travel) that bit easier. With this website you can compare and book Spanish courses and TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign language) courses in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru*. Booking is simple and straightforward and you don´t have to risk paying out all your cash/cheddar/hard-earned pennies up-front, as you only pay a 10-15% booking deposit to reserve your place. The remainder you pay when you arrive at the school. Importantly, the overall price quoted on CatchtheLingo is always exactly the same price as what a school would charge you if you turned up at their door.

*And soon to include Uruguay

In addition to Spanish schools and TEFL training centres we provide independent and objective information on free and low cost volunteering opportunities here in South America. All of this is complemented by our destination guide (written by travel journalists and fellow travellers) and a well resourced community section. 

Plus we don’t forget about you after you’ve made your booking. Your experience is our priority, that’s why we offer email and telephone support to anyone who makes a booking through our site.

Ultimately the best thing about CatchtheLingo is that it is a website built for you, by people like you, that is completely free for you to use. Free information, free booking facility and of course free support.

In something more than a nutshell...

The concept of CatchtheLingo was born from the experiences of her founding member, Eamonn, who travelled from Mexico to Panama in 2008. While based in Nicaragua he volunteered in a local primary school and taught children computer skills while learning Spanish. It was an great experience for him and he thought more people should have the opportunity to follow in his footsteps. As he travelled through Central America, Eamonn met dozens of people who complained of how difficult it was to find reliable independent information on Spanish courses and volunteering opportunities. They spoke of how booking a course with a school was a painful and expensive process (often requiring the wiring of funds through Western union for instance) and of how finding the right Spanish course for them was a difficult process. 

Also particularly challenging was trying to sort the good from the greedy when it came to volunteering. Many travellers claimed that majority of the opportunities encountered over the internet seemed to be driven more by the volunteering organisation's\agency's appetite for profit than for actually assisting development in Latin America. It was from all this feedback that the first real community site for immersion travel in South America was born.

In terms of our core offerings:

*Spanish Schools - Because we give schools the ability to market themselves abroad in a form that is cheap and accessible and because we are in this for the long term, we have the support of both national associations of Spanish Schools in Argentina, SEA and AACELE. We offer you the ability to book (without fee or extra charge) courses with more Spanish schools in Argentina and Chile than any other provider on the internet today. All without fees, extra charges on any additional cost to you. 

*TEFL training institutes - For those of you who would like to train as an English teacher while in South America you should consider the TEFL training institutes that we host. We understand that taking a TEFL course is a sizeable investment which is why you will be assured that we have met and thoroughly verified every TEFL training centre on CatchtheLingo.

Because our website is a community model and is based on volume we are able to charge schools a very low commission to be hosted on this site. This super low commission then translates into a best price guarantee for you the community. Any course booked through us will not be found cheaper directly from that school. If the school offers a promotion that same promotion will be found on our site. After all schools are as much part of our community as you are.

**Free and low cost Volunteering -  The information we provide on volunteering projects is offered completely free to the volunteering organisation and we earn no commission from this work. We will never promote overpriced volunteering agencies because frankly, a.) we think you are old and independent enough not to need a faceless corporate facilitator telling you what to do and b.) you know why you are volunteering - you don't need the glossy marketing to persuade you.  

A warning note: Often on the internet (even with Spanish courses) we can all be misled by agents or intermediaries who appear to be offering their own Spanish courses. Unfortunately in reality they're actually just a middle man selling a course for 30-60% commission.  At CatchtheLingo we never list agents or intermediaries. In any case, lets face it, with the power of the internet, the agency model is dead (would you book a flight or a hotel through an agency today...)

Through catchthelingo you can access all the information an agent would offer you but you can book with a best price guarantee and its costs you nothing to use our service! You simply pay a small booking payment to reserve your place at a school. This booking payment is then subtracted from the course fee you pay the school on arrival. It's that easy. So all in all you pay nothing to use our service.

Curious as to who are behind this project..?