LANGUAGE STUDY TIPS: FOR LEARNING SPANISH
AND OTHER LANGUAGES
PREPARING FOR YOUR IN-COUNTRY
SPANISH LANGUAGE IMMERSION SCHOOL EXPERIENCE
~Charley Hodson, Director, Aventuras Languages
At AVENTURAS LANGUAGES,
we receive dozens of calls and emails every year from students
who have studied a language in high school or at the university level that
complain that although they understand the structure of the language, they
cannot speak it very well. Most of the time, this is because they were
not encouraged nor given opportunities to speak! Here we offer some tips
of things that have been useful to us in improving our Spanish skills!
Many Spanish language schools will try to attract
you to their schools by stating that you can learn in one week with them
what you can learn at other language schools in 6. Some note a guarantee.
Other schools try to entice you by noting that they use the natural
approach or communicative method and don't emphasize grammar. We like the
natural approach and the communicative methods, but even these teach you
grammar. You do need to know how to structure a sentence and conjugate a
verb to speak a language! As language immersion students ourselves, we suggest
that you stay away from hype like this. Learning a language is fun and it
is hard work requiring commitment and adjunctive means of study to integrate
the language. You don't learn the guitar by letting it sit in the corner
of your room. La practica hace el maestro! Practice makes the teacher! So
you need to find a number of different ways to help you along your learning
adventure. Studying in-country is both fun and potentially tax deductible.
There are also other adjuncts to help you learn Spanish or another language.
We have listed some tips below for you.
Regardless of your level of Spanish, there
are many things that you can do in 2-4 hours per week to help you begin to
ramp-up and prepare right now for your in-country language immersion
studies. Listed in this article are tips for beginning students with
little or no knowledge of Spanish or your chosen language to study. Some
of these tips are also great for intermediate and advanced students. These
are also good ideas after your in-country studies to maintain gains and continue
to improve your skills. The more of these ideas you commit yourself to, the
quicker you will begin speaking!
You will need an introductory Spanish text book:
You can pick-up a cheap or inexpensive Spanish book online. Focus on initially
understanding basic sentence structure and verb conjugation. Choose 10-15
high use verbs: Go, work, eat, travel, drink, talk, listen, study, buy, sell,
make, use, live, and a few others. Then learn to construct one simple sentence,
the same one, in basic present tense conjugations (Voy a Mexico=I am going
to Mexico), preterite tense conjugations (Fuí a México=I went
to Mexico), and simple future tense conjugations (Voy a ir a México=I
am going to go to Mexico). This will build your ability to make sentences
and allow you to quickly be able to speak in the most common present, past
and future verb forms.
Pick-up a verb conjugation book: To begin with
something like the series 201 Spanish Verbs, 201 Italian Verbs or the language
of your choice. You won't yet need the
501
Spanish Verbs version! Keep it simple. 201 SPANISH VERBS
201
Spanish Verbs
Consider buying a Spanish language software program:
There are several excellent ones available online. We like
Visual Link Spanish
software. You can try out a several of Visual Link's free online lessons
at this link: Visual
Link Software Free Online Lessons. We like this software because it helps
students quickly understand verb conjugation and sentence structure as well
as allowing you to hear the Latin American accent. We also think that it
is excellent for building quick conversational fluency.
Listening to Spanish and Latin Music: Now find
some Latin music that you like and purchase a couple of CDs or simply turn
on your car or home stereo and tune in a Spanish languages radio station.
These days Spanish language radio stations are available in most locations.
Search around to find one with music you enjoy. You can begin with just listening
to 10-20 minutes a couple of times a day. This helps you to build a listening
ear for both the accent, rythm and speed of the language. I like to practice
words that I hear to build practice actually speaking. In the car or at home
alone is a great place to do this.
Study online with a professional language immersion
teacher or tutor: There are many online learning formats for learning a language
most using live voice/video/email methods. It is important when searching
for live online Spanish teachers, instructors or tutors, to evaluate your
potential instructor. A native speaker is worth the investment. I recently
viewed a site for a Spanish tutor online who is a recent college graduate
from England who offers live online classes. Consider the difference in learning
from this native tutor from the UK who has had to work to develop an accent
and is just beginning to teach versus another Spanish tutor online with live
classes who is a native Mexican instructor with 25 years of experience teaching
Spanish in an in-country language format and who has his Diplomate in Teaching
Spanish as a Second Language. There is another website offering Spanish lessons
online from native Guatemalan instructors. The price is right, but I don't
see where they have either a lot of experience in teaching nor the advanced
training in teaching Spanish as a second language. The other thing to note
here is what kind of accent and dialect of Spanish do you want to learn.
Those in Europe may want to consider a native Spanish teacher with years
of experience from Spain. However, someone in the United States or Canada
would generally prefer someone from Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America
as folks that they will come in contact with at home in their employment
or elsewhere in their communities will likely use Latin America
styles of speaking and accents will be more similar. Spanish spoken in Spain
uses verb forms and an accent with a lisp not used in Latin American countries.
Viewing Movies and CDs in Spanish: This is fun,
helps develop your ear and is also very challenging! It helps to begin with
movies that you may have seen before in English. It also helps to view the
movie more than once. Sometimes it is helpful to view the movie in bite size
chunks! Watch for 15-20 minutes, then return later for another bite.
Hire a Local Spanish Tutor: Consider hiring a
local tutor, perhaps a local community college or university student that
is a native speaker and well versed in English. When doing this or any other
adjunct to study it is important to consider repetition and consistency.
This means that it is better to set up 2-3 study blocks with your tutor of
1-2 hours per week versus one longer block of 3-4 hours per week. You will
get better integration and retention with smaller blocks and higher frequency
of classes. Building spontaneous speech is so important. Structure your tutoring
with input and consultation from your tutor, but be certain that they understand
that you need to be actually speaking for a large part of the class.
Many teachers will talk on and on giving instruction. What we have learned
from the communicative method of language learning is that opportunities
for the students to speak are vital in building conversational fluency.
Use It or Lose It! Upon return from in-country
immersion studies: Once you return from in-country immersion studies
it is vital that you make a plan to integrate at least 2-3 of the above
recommendations. You must continue using what you have learned or you
will begin to lose what you have spent considerable time, money
and energy in acquiring. Return trips for additional immersion are
recommended unless you have studied abroad for 4 months or more.
Limitations of local Conversational Spanish classes
at community colleges and universities: While taking a class like this can
be fun and certainly won't hurt (or will it?!), there are far more effective
methods of study to integrate language acquisition. The major problem with
conversational Spanish classes, although well intentioned, is that students
never really get much time to actually speak. Usually, this is what they
were looking for! When they do, it is usually in small breakout groups that
are minimally supervised by instructors or class tutors. The reason for this
is obviously cost. If conversational Spanish classes actually had an instructor
or class aide or tutor in each of these breakout groups then I would think
differently about this as an adjunct to your studies. So what happens in
these classes is that while students get more of an opportunity to speak,
they are unsupervised most of the time. This simply reinforces incorrect
patterns of speech and pronunciation.
If you have come up with other helpful tips, please
send them to us and we will consider them for inclusion in this article.
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