Here’s how one previously abandoned village in Spain managed to reinvent itself by making English its official language.
Many small villages in Spain are suffering from depopulation as younger people move away to the bigger cities for jobs and other opportunities.
According to Spain’s Ministry for Territorial Policy, 90 percent of the country’s population lives in just 1,500 towns and cities, occupying 30 percent of the land.
The other 10 percent of Spain’s population is distributed across the remaining 70 percent of the territory, much of which has come to be known as ‘Empty Spain’ or La España Vaciada.
This has created a swathe of abandoned villages across the country, particularly in regions such as Castilla y León, Aragón, Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura, as well as some places in the north of the country.
Various projects have been created to try and repopulate these areas, from giving grants to attract new residents, to putting entire villages up for sale and promotion to foreigners.
One of these villages has successfully managed to completely reinvent itself through a unique linguistic experiment and make English its official language instead of Spanish.
Valdelavilla is located in the province of Soria in Castilla y León and lay abandoned since the 1960s until in 2001, it was rehabilitated and transformed into a rural tourism centre.
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The initiative was led by Richard Vaughan, a pioneering English teacher, who had the idea to create a total immersive language course in this village, where students could only speak in English.
Vaughan was the founder of Grupo Vaughan – a language school network specialising in intensive, oral-focused English lessons, with nearly 50 years of experience, primarily in Spain.
For several days, adults and young people live together in the village, take English lessons and participate in various activities. Every interaction, every activity, and every conversation takes place exclusively in English.
Over the years, it became so successful that managers, civil service executives, and university students all came to live in Valdelavilla temporarily in order to improve their English.
READ ALSO: Foreigners give ‘Empty Spain’ a new lease of life
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Later on, Valdelavilla gained popularity as the setting for the hit series ‘El Pueblo‘ up until 2023, broadcast by Spanish TV channel Telecinco and attracted local tourists from around the country who came to view its film sets.
Today, the village still hosts English immersion programmes where walks, excursions and workshops are exclusively conducted in the English language.
This model has been very successful though and has even been implemented in other parts of the country, such as Salamanca and Alicante.
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The village of La Alberca, also in Castilla y León, has taken this idea and turned it into Pueblo Español, where those learning Spanish can have a similar experience.
If you’ve ever felt frustrated in larger Spanish cities such as Barcelona, Valencia or Málaga because locals answer you in English, rather than helping you with Spanish or even Catalan, then it may be a good idea.
At Pueblo Español, they gather groups of Spanish native speakers with different accents and from different regions of the country to live and speak with you in Spanish. You’ll be 100 percent immersed during the entire day.
There are many abandoned villages up for sale across Spain, providing a myriad of business opportunities from language immersion courses like in Valdelavilla and La Alberca to rural or eco-tourism or rustic, boutique accommodation.
