Weekly Tip 9/7/17: Improve your Spanish comprehension!

Weekly Tip 9/7/17: Improve your Spanish comprehension!

 

Are you a student that struggles with understanding native speakers?  If so, this is the blog post for you!

The approach that many students take is to try and understand every word.  Sometimes students watch a TV show or a movie or listen to a podcast and sit down and write down all the words that they don’t know.  While this is fantastic for vocabulary building, it does not help to improve your comprehension skills.  

To improve your comprehension you need to do exactly the opposite.  You need to listen for words that are already familiar to you as well as cognates (words that are similar to your native language – for example: aniversario/anniversary or plástico/plastic).  As you tune your ear to the words that you already know and the ones that you can make out, you will start to understand the context.  Maybe when you first start doing this you only understand 5 to 10%, but as you keep doing it little by little, you start to understand more and more.  

Sitting down with a pen and paper and writing down every word that you don’t know and looking it up may help you understand when you’re reading an article and have the time to do that, but it will not help you improve your comprehension skills when someone is speaking.

So next time that you want to work on your comprehension skills, remember to listen for the words you already know rather than the ones that you do not know.  

If this works for me with Italian, it will work for you with Spanish!

Besos,
Caro

La tarea opcional para 9/6 a 9/8 y 9/11 a 9/12/17

La tarea opcional de esta semana es escoger una emoción o un sentimiento fuerte que has sentido últimamente y escribir un párrafo acerca de la experiencia.  Por favor, describan la experiencia en detalle para practicar la expresión de emociones y sentimientos fuertes.

La tarea extra de la semana * para los que quieran más tarea * es empezar el capítulo 18, Adjectives, en la tercera edición de “Complete Spanish Grammar” de McGraw Hill, de la serie Practice Makes Perfect.  Les recomendamos leer las páginas 221 y 224  y hacer los ejercicios 18.1 y 18.4.

Besos

Weekly Tip 9/1/17 – Private vs. Semi-private vs. Group Language Classes

Weekly Tip 9/1/17 – Private vs. Semi-private vs. Group Language Classes

 

¡Buenas tardes estudiantes de español!  Espero que todos hayan tenido una linda semana :)

The topic for today is private vs group Spanish classes, as I am often asked which is better.
The truth is that both are great, and as with everything else in life, they have their pros and cons.

 

Private Spanish classes

Pros:

  • The entire time is devoted to you, therefore your speaking abilities advance at a faster pace.
  • The schedule is very flexible.  
  • You can have the classes adapted to your preferences, ability and learning needs.

Cons:

  • They’re more expensive.  
  • If you’re having back & forth conversations (with your teacher doing 30-50% of the talking), that is fantastic, but if YOU are doing 95% of the talking, you will not develop your listening skills at the same rate as your speaking skills.

 

Group Spanish classes

Pros:

  • They are more affordable.
  • You have the opportunity to learn new vocabulary from other students.
  • You have the opportunity to meet other people with a common interest.
  • You can play some fun games when other students are involved.

Cons:

  • The speaking time is divided among all the students, therefore you won’t have as much time to speak as you would in a private class.

I wish I could tell you that one is better than the other, but that is simply not the case (at least not at Pura Buena Onda, since our group classes are so small).  The best of both worlds is when you’re able to do both :)  But if that is not possible, one fantastic option is to go back and forth – private classes for a few months, then group, then private, etc.  

What is your preference and why?

Besos,
Caro