Pura Buena Onda Blog

Make Spanish class count!

Pura Buena Onda is excited to be back after the holiday break!  

We would like to extend a huge welcome to our new students and to our amazing returning students!  

We are so happy to have you with us :)

 

Every week I like to share a brief blog post with you, to help you in some way, on your Spanish language learning journey.  

 

Today I would like to stress the importance of making your class time count.

What do I mean by that you might be asking yourself?  This is what I am referring to…

  • Be present, this is the time you set aside for Spanish, nothing else
  • Be a good active listener, meaning that when someone else is sharing you are listening, not formulating your next sentence
  • Participate, share, ask questions of the other students, interact
  • Repeat corrections so that you can learn from your mistakes; your goal is to improve your Spanish, right?
  • Take notes so that you can review them later

 

We do recommend doing the “optional homework” every week.  

We do recommend attending our social club events.  

We do recommend coming to our workshops.  

We recommend a lot of things, but if none of those work for you, you can at least make the time in class really count.

 

Besitos a todos,
Caro

Conversation Topics for 2018

¡Buenos días estudiantes de Pura Buena Onda!

Please take a moment to tell us what conversation topics you would like to talk about in 2018.

Please remember that these are topic of conversation, not lessons.  In other words, “medical terminology” is not a conversation topic, it is a lesson, however, a conversation topic related to medical terminology might be “diseases that run in your family.”

Conversation Topics Survey

Besos,
Caro

What is your attitude towards learning Spanish?

What is your attitude towards learning Spanish?

¿Qué tal chicos?  ¿Listos para el fin de semana?

This week I want to talk about the role that attitude plays in learning a language.

 

The reality is that attitude plays a huge part in everything that we do.

If you walk into a situation with a bad attitude, you probably won’t be surprised when everything turns out crappy.

When you go into a situation with a positive attitude, you will most likely feel thankful afterwards that everything went so well.

This is how it plays out in life, and this is how it plays out with language learning.

 

So here are a few alternatives for those days when you are feeling negative about the language learning journey:

 

Instead of: The conjugations are so hard in Spanish!  I’m never going to learn them!

How about: There are so many conjugations in Spanish that I’m going to focus on learning one at a time.

 

Instead of:  I’m never going to understand native Spanish speakers, they talk way too fast!

How about:  My goal is to someday understand native Spanish speakers, so I’m going to dedicate 5 minutes to comprehension practice every day.

 

Instead of:  My pronunciation in Spanish sucks!  I can’t make those sounds!

How about:  I’m going to work on my pronunciation by reading out loud, listening to native Spanish speakers, trying to mimic sounds, by looking in a mirror at the positioning of my tongue when I speak, etc..  I’m bound to get better!

 

Instead of:  I feel like I don’t know anything!  I’m never going to be fluent in Spanish!

How about:  I can’t believe how much Spanish I have learned already!  X years/months ago I couldn’t even X and now I can X!  

 

So the moral of the story is that attitude counts.  Learning a language is a lifelong process, and having a bad attitude is just going to make everything take longer, seem worse than it is, and take away the joy of learning. What is your attitude towards the language learning process?

 

Besitos,
Caro

La tarea opcional para 12/11 a 12/16/17

La tarea opcional para 12/11 a 12/16/17

La tarea opcional de la semana es traer una lista de 5 palabras compuestas que serán útiles en tu vida.  Quizás te guste el vino y un sacacorchos sería una palabra compuesta útil para ti, o quizás te gusta pintarte las uñas y el quitaesmaltes sea una palabra útil para ti.  Busquen una lista, escojan 5 y traíganlas a clase por fa :)

***La tarea extra de la semana * para los que quieran más tarea * es terminar el capítulo 8, Reflexive verbs, en la tercera edición de “Complete Spanish Grammar” de McGraw Hill, de la serie Practice Makes Perfect.  Les recomendamos leer las páginas 94 a 97  y hacer los ejercicios 8.13 y 8.16.

 

Besos

Squeezing in some Spanish over the holidays!

Squeezing in some Spanish over the holidays

I know, I know, I know, you are very busy right now and the last thing you need to think about is how you are going to practice your Spanish over the holidays!
But, I am a firm believer that anyone can find five minutes in their day for a little practice. And those five minutes will help you to not come back to class in January feeling like a total dumbass, so I highly recommend it!

Here are a few recommendations:

Things that you can easily do for five minutes:
Talk to yourself
Participate in La conversación del Día on PBO’s Facebook page
Journal about your day (on your phone if necessary)
Do DuoLingo or better yet, Busuu
Listen to Spanish radio, a podcast, music, and audiobook, whatever…
Listen to music in Spanish
Read a paragraph or two or three of a book/magazine, whatever you can squeeze into five minutes
Hear someone speaking Spanish? Strike up a conversation!

When to squeeze in these five minutes:
While you are getting ready
While you are having breakfast
While you are waiting in a horribly long line somewhere
You can use it as an excuse to get away from your crazy family for five minutes
While you are driving
While you are at an airport somewhere
While you’re cleaning

So, as you can see, you can always find 5 minutes to practice your español :) How will you practice over the holidays?

Besos,
Caro

La tarea opcional para 12/4 a 12/9/17

La tarea opcional para 12/4 a 12/9/17

La tarea opcional de la semana es escuchar una entrevista con una persona de habla hispana, en inglés.  Es decir, la persona debe ser hispanohablante, pero la entrevista debe ser en inglés.  Mientras escuchen la entrevista anoten 5 errores cometidos por esa persona en inglés y traíganlos a clase la semana que viene.  Suena un poco rara la tarea, pero la próxima semana tendrá sentido.

***La tarea extra de la semana * para los que quieran más tarea * es seguir con el capítulo 8, Reflexive verbs, en la tercera edición de “Complete Spanish Grammar” de McGraw Hill, de la serie Practice Makes Perfect.  Les recomendamos leer las páginas 91 a 94  y hacer los ejercicios 8.9 y 8.12.

Spanish tip: Diccionario vs Dictionary

Spanish tip: Diccionario vs Dictionary

Hola chicos,
¿Qué tal la semana?

As you probably all know by now, immersion is the best way to learn a language.  Yet most of the time, when we are studying Spanish, we look up a word in the dictionary with the English definition. Why do we do this?  Because it’s faster & much easier I would think.

This week our tip to you is to look up words in a Spanish dictionary. Most of the time we can understand the meaning when it is explained in Spanish and this allows us to stay in our target language, which in the long run is a much more effective learning strategy. If it’s still not clear, you can always look it up in English, but try Spanish first.

What is a new word for you this week and what is the definition that you found in the dictionary in Spanish?  Give us the definition, but not the word…let’s see if we can guess!

Besos,
Caro

 

My favorite dictionaries:

Real Academia Española

Word Reference

La tarea opcional para 11/27 a 12/2/17

La tarea opcional para 11/27 a 12/2/17

 

Para el lunes y martes 11/27 & 11/28

La tarea opcional de la semana es traer 3 temas de conversación para la clase que viene, cada una con 3 preguntas.  Por ejemplo:

El tema: El español

Preguntas: 1: ¿Por qué quieres aprender español?  –  2: ¿Por cuánto tiempo lo has estudiado?  –  3: ¿Qué parte del idioma es la más fácil para ti y que parte es la más difícil?  

Les vamos a pedir que escriban sus temas y preguntas en un papelito que puedan dejar con el profe después de clase.

***La tarea extra de la semana * para los que quieran más tarea * es seguir con el capítulo 8, Reflexive verbs, en la tercera edición de “Complete Spanish Grammar” de McGraw Hill, de la serie Practice Makes Perfect.  Les recomendamos leer las páginas 88 a 91  y hacer los ejercicios 8.6 y 8.8.

Para el miércoles a sábado 11/29 a 12/2

La tarea opcional de la semana es hacer una lista de 10 cosas por las cuáles están agradecidos y traerla a su próxima clase.  Les recomiendo ser un poco más creativos que “Le doy gracias a la vida/a Dios por mi familia, mi trabajo, etc.”  En vez de eso podrían decir algo como “Le doy gracias a la vida por tener una familia que me apoya en todo” o “Le doy gracias a la vida por tener 2 padres vivos y en buen estado físico.”  ¿Tiene sentido?

***La tarea extra de la semana * para los que quieran más tarea * es seguir con el capítulo 8, Reflexive verbs, en la tercera edición de “Complete Spanish Grammar” de McGraw Hill, de la serie Practice Makes Perfect.  Les recomendamos leer las páginas 86 a 88  y hacer los ejercicios 8.3 y 8.5.

La tarea opcional para 11/20-11/21 y 11/29-12/2/17

La tarea opcional de la semana es hacer una lista de 10 cosas por las cuáles están agradecidos y traerla a su próxima clase.  Les recomiendo ser un poco más creativos que “Le doy gracias a la vida/a Dios por mi familia, mi trabajo, etc.”  En vez de eso podrían decir algo como “Le doy gracias a la vida por tener una familia que me apoya en todo” o “Le doy gracias a la vida por tener 2 padres vivos y en buen estado físico.”  ¿Tiene sentido?

 

***La tarea extra de la semana * para los que quieran más tarea * es seguir con el capítulo 8, Reflexive verbs, en la tercera edición de “Complete Spanish Grammar” de McGraw Hill, de la serie Practice Makes Perfect.  Les recomendamos leer las páginas 86 a 88  y hacer los ejercicios 8.3 y 8.5.

Besos

Weekly Tip 11/16/17:  Take notes in Spanish class!

Take notes in Spanish class!

 

Pura Buena Onda’s Spanish classes are all about oral communication, but make no mistake, we still recommend that you take notes in class!

 

We learn more effectively when we write things down, as the actual act of writing it helps to lock it into our brain.  

 

We don’t suggest that you write down every word by any means, but write down corrections, write down words that may be useful to you, write down new vocabulary.

 

Outside of class a wonderful exercise that you can do is to listen to the radio, a tv show, a podcast, whatever, and write down everything that you hear.  Dictation will not only help you improve your listening skills, but will also help you expand your vocabulary and actually help you remember it!

 

Do you take notes in class?
Do you take the time to write in Spanish?

 

Besos,
Caro