This study examines traditional teaching methods of Spanish complementation (e.g., infinitival complements, sentential complements) presented in college Spanish textbooks and proposes alternative active learning methods that can be used in a study abroad setting. Verbs taking infinitival complements are commonly found in mandate, volition, and emotion verbs, both for Spanish and English. However, while some English verbs take gerunds (María avoids eating/*to eat meat), in Spanish a gerund never functions as the complement of a verb (María evita comer/*comiendo carne).  Because of these differences, English learners of Spanish often have difficulty acquiring infinitival complement constructions in Spanish. Specifically, they may employ English-like complement structures, producing such ungrammatical utterances as *Odio comiendo tacos ‘I hate eating tacos’. Furthermore, many Spanish textbooks do not emphasize the usages of infinitival complements and, when explanations are provided, they are often vague and insufficient. To many instructors and students, learning grammar in a traditional classroom setting often means understanding the textbook explanations and memorizing the rules presented in them in order to produce grammatically correct sentences. In this study, alternative learning methods are proposed as a replacement for students participating in a study abroad program, which can also be applied to traditional classroom settings. Instead of memorizing and applying the grammar rules presented in textbooks, students will learn the complementation structure of Spanish through active learning such as interviews, blogs, and collaborative work. A pilot study of college students participating in a four-week study abroad program in Costa Rica will be presented.