Except for siesta and free time, we would always have to sit in pairs - an Anglo and a Spaniard. They would come to be known as the 50-minute one-to-one sessions.

My first conversation was with a tall young Spanish boy called Francisco. He was so nervous and pale I felt immediately sorry for him. He looked like a rabbit caught in headlights.

After a slow start, we spent the next three hours discussing work, family and general interests. Francisco was a mathematician who was between jobs and wanted to improve his English skills. He was polite, earnest and a pleasure to talk to. The thing that impressed me most was how good his English was.

And this was a theme repeated throughout the programme. A group of students Jorge, Angel and Isobel had only been learning English for six months, and their grasp of the language was truly remarkable. The three were studying law and had various career ambitions. I on the other hand had been doing six months of Spanish lessons and while I can order a glass of wine, say hello and ask for directions, I could not hold a one-hour conversation in a foreign tongue covering topics from science, books, sport, nursing and law to the best way to by and sell products on EBay...

While the programme was intense and hardwork, there was however entertainment and light relief. Each day was structured around one-to-one classes, where conversations had to include explaining phrases like "the apple of my eye" and "look what the cat dragged in", the programme also included some light entertainment, including a karaoke night, a pub quiz, some hilarious skits, and some team bonding exercises - which I'm not usually a huge fan of, but for some reason they kind of worked.

My favourite was probably the “get to know you bingo” - where each participant is given various sheets of paper with squares and statements like "this person has a cat" or "this person has a tattoo" or "this person can play guitar" and the object of the game was to go around and get every square signed by a different person. It was great because again it showed who was talking and revealing the most about themselves, and also armed us with more fodder for our one-to-one conversations for the remainder of the week.

Another fun exercise was the phone sessions. Apparently talking English on the telephone is considered an even more dreadful prospect to a one-on-one session as far as the Spaniards are concerned. The scenarios ranged from a Spaniard using the phone to ask about a property to rent to the Anglo playing a reporter for a national newspaper who as ringing a lawyer who had just married his famous client.

For this exercise I was matched up with Carlos. Carlos was a lawyer in real life, who during our breakfast, lunch and dinner conversations became obsessed with trying to pronounce the phrase "World War Two". It was a random thing to want to pronounce, and I never really thought to ask why he wanted to say it. But Carlos was a persistent man and while the alliteration and the W's had him tongue-tied for a while, after day three we managed a breakthrough!

Anyway, I digress - Carlos in his "imaginary lawyer scenario" had just married Nicole Kidman and I, as the journalist, was to ask him all about the wedding and how they met. But Carlos being the shrewd "real-life lawyer" managed to avoid most of my questions, denied Nicole had ever adopted a child, had ever married Tom Cruise, avoided all questions on scientology and then tried to strike up a magazine-style deal to sell me photos of the honeymoon. It seems business in any language is business.

Another hilarious Spanish participant was Pepe. Pepe was some sort of oil baron who uses Vaughantown as a holiday and a way of keeping up his English. He was thoroughly entertaining and peppered his one-on-one sessions with trips into town by showing the Anglos a bit of Spanish culture. He also took the cake for having the most hilarious presentation of the course.

At Vaughtown, the Spanish participants, whose companies or as individuals pay for the course, have to prepare an individual presentation at least five minutes long and present it to the Anglos.

Some chose topics such as how to make the perfect Spanish omelette; Daniel, a flight attendant, explained the difference between low-budget airlines and regular airlines and that you do really get what you pay for; Eduardo, an executive with Vodafone, made a last minute change to his presentation - which was going to be on observations of what people do when they first enter a hotel room, and instead gave us an interesting presentation on importing and exporting Spanish ham.

While they were all excellent - Pepe showed pure brilliance in his observational presentation of explaining the Spanish version of "a complete wanker". It involved chunky jewellery; open necked shirts with the chest hair brushed up and had many of us in tears. Again it showed that despite us coming from completely different backgrounds and lifestyles, that there were so many things that were internationally recognised.

While it was voluntary and paid no financial rewards, I left with some new found Spanish and English friends, some greater understanding of Spanish people and culture and one hell of an adventure.

Vaughtown is regularly looking for volunteers to take part in the programme. They also have a special programme for 18-24 year-olds called the young Adults programme.

For more information, check out www.vaughantown.com or contact Cory McCollough, corymc@vaughantown.com. You can apply directly through the webpage. Since this program is not remunerated, no work permit of any kind is required.

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