Cactus Language

The only thing you will learn from a class here is that you wasted two hundred bucks. Buy Rosetta Stone instead.

I had initially signed up to take class in the summer however the minimum number of students required to start the class was not reached so my starting date was pushed to the fall. I was contacted by Cactus’ customer service rep Eva, who let me know the summer class was canceled and was beyond helpful in explaining what my options were. Not only did she place me in a new class but she actually took the time to follow up and find out if i was happy with my placement. In this day and age where customer service is pretty much non-​existent I was pleasantly surprised by the level of service I received. Eva definitely made my experience more pleasant and I certainly will be taking other classes at Cactus.

I wish I could, in Italian, tell you how excited I was about taking classes here. I entered every class time into my calendar months ahead of time. I scheduled everything around these dates. 5 days before my class was to begin, I sent an email, wondering what i should do to be prepared for the class. Later that day, I received a generated email telling me the class was canceled. I didn’t get a call, letting me know of other possibilities (there are two other sites with classes!). When I contacted them, their voicemail stated that the call was past business hours, although the email I received clearly stated I had 2 hours remaining to reach someone. Eventually, I spoke with someone, but since I can’t take a class before my trip to Italy, I just got a refund. Ok – so as I read this again, I KNOW I’m just whining, but if you’re looking to plan ahead with languages, this is NOT the place to do it. If I find a place to do it, I will let you know.

I took 2 Italian courses there. I want to be fair so I’ll share first some positive things:
— The book was pretty good and in line with the communicative approach
— The classes are very clean, comfortable, nice school in general with a cafeteria, a small library and, if memory serves, a room to just hang out and read some magazines.
— They give you the opportunity to give like a mid-​point feedback on-​line, which I think is great.
— I think the head teacher is ready to listen to the students if something needs to be said.
Why one star then?
Well, the first teacher I had was nice and always on time, but she was clearly lacking training. She did not know how to use the book, so we basically skipped many exercises (almost all the audios) and the group dynamics was always the same. Never, ever, corrected any written assignment, and she was not very patient with slower students. The second teacher just ruined the whole learning experience. She was the rudest person I’ve ever meet in a classroom. She was friendly, talkative and charming at first, but she would scold you (yeap, literally) if she thinks your questions are not relevant or if you make a mistake she thinks you shouldn’t have made. She did that to me and it was just humiliating. When I politely told her that I didn’t feel comfortable with the way she was addressing the class, she burst into tears and started telling me about her personal life and accused me of being a bad student (not sure what the definition of bad is for her). So, so, unprofessional that she just killed my motivation and I decided not to attend anymore after the second class (out of a total of 12, if I m not mistaken). Thank God my classmates, at least, were very supportive and encourage me to let the director know… I shared this experience with the head teacher and although she was nice and open to listen, she did not offer a refund when I said I didn’t want to continue attending (she offered to try another teacher next term). I mean, when one of your teachers shows such a poor and embarrassing behavior, I think you should offer an apology and a refund.
BUT, this is MY experience and I’m talking about 2 teachers. The other ones might be good, who knows.

I bought a coupon on Rue LaLa for a 10 week beginner level language course, I took Italian here at Cactus. The location was very convenient for me and there are a lot of students who take classes at this location. My instructor was Paola and she was very nice, a native Italian speaker. She always had a lot of enthusiasm and a great sense of humor. She made the class extremely enjoyable. She did a great job teaching the class, I learned a lot and was surprised by the end of the 10 week course how much I had learned. They emphasize conversational language skills and we did drills in conversing with each other in Italian, listening exercises where we would listen to dialogue (I was very pleasantly surprised at how quickly I was able to learn enough to pick up a lot of dialogue), reading and writing exercises. If you need to learn another language for work or travel, I highly recommend taking one of their classes.

I fell in love with the French language when I took it for a few semesters in college. When I graduated, I was saddened that I would never find such a passionate teacher. Lifebooker (
) to the rescue!!! Like every other young professional in NYC, I decided to save a few shekels and try it out. I got a great deal for French lessons at Cactus — $ 150, 10 weeks, 20 hours, learning materials included — who can beat that? My teacher, Christelle, was absolutely amazing!!! It’s evident that she loves what she does and I can say with confidence that after taking the French Level 2 class, I am able to converse semi-​fluently! I already signed up for French Level 3 class with Cactus and I can’t wait!

The school is located right next to the Empire State Building with very clean and professional facilities. The staff is very friendly and helpful as well.

I took French 1 at Cactus using a bloomspot deal (50% off), so my class was $ 150 instead of the original $ 300. Classes were small which is great for a language class and my professor Paul was amazing and very attentive. He was very knowledgeable and particular about our pronunciation. Although it was hard at the beginning, I really appreciate his consistency with correcting everyone’s pronunciation. The book also helped as a supplement to the class, but really I learned everything in class. I’ll definitely be taking French 2 and possibly another language with Cactus.