It's actually suprisingly fun! I learned German at GCSE and I've attempted to learn French at few times but always fell out with it. I find I'm not minding the Spanish though.
The fun involved in learning a foreign language is immense. At first you have loads of laughs when talking to native speakers as you get most things wrong and on occasions say embarrassing double meanings or whatever. After a while, as you progress, you can start to enjoy meaningful conversations with locals and it makes things like overseas trips, holidays etc much more fulfilling. The only problem I had (German) is that when you become fluent people stop making allowances for you, and you feel like you've gone backwards. You work through it though. And remember. Alcohol contains (amongst other ingredients) human brain cells which are programmed with all possible foreign languages. That's why we all speak more fluently when we're drunk. I have a friend who can speak fluent Arabic when drunk, but not a single word of it when sober. Well, it sounds like Arabic anyway. Good luck.
I'm going to enrol at Leeds Met on a beginners course in October when it starts up I think. I'm just using a video course type thing on the BBC website. I think it's that which is making me enjoy it, as it's one of those things where it's so bad it's good.
For spoken Castillian Spanish, I would recommend the Michel Thomas course. I found it excellent in every respect.
I recommend a very attractive French speaking teacher like we have at our school - highlight of my week
Unfortunately, we have to teach it ourself and have been offered no training whatsoever. I think I am expected to suddenly wake up speaking Spanish on the 1st September.
Are you seriously saying that you have to learn Spanish, in your own time and at your own expense, in 6 weeks, then teach it to your kids? If it's for a bit of fun that's fine but it doesn't seem quite right to me.
I am expected to teach Spanish in 6 weeks time, yes. I have not been asked to learn it in my own time but if I don't I fail to see how I will be able to teach it. We have been giving no planning, training or guidance whatsoever other than being instructed to teach two 30 minute sessions a week from September. I also have a Spanish child in my class who at the moment doesn't speak any English, which may turn out to be a blessing or a cause of embarrassment for me.
Don't forget to put 'o' at the end of every word as well (Which I now know denotes a masculine word - with words ending in 'a' generally being feminine. Some exceptions aside of course).
Difficult for me to comment further, knowing nothing about the system, but it does seem rather harsh on you. Anyway, good luck with it, I'm sure you'll find it fun on a personal level regardless of what happens at school in September.