I have been receiving your emails about your new Welsh 6 month speaker course and obviously there isn’t a course for Spanish.
So I came to look around the Spanish part of your website and it appears that not much has changed in a while… it’s a shame to read that you are struggling with funding for the Spanish side of things…as I really enjoyed using your materials.
Since level 3 is still not really immenint (which is not what I was hoping to read here ) and so a 6 month Spanish speaker course is probably even further away.
Sorry rambling…I do actually have a question. If I wanted to apply some of the ideas from your 3 part email series (sentence building, intensive listening, etc) and create myself a framework of weekly activities, how would I do this?
You have obviously built a framework for the 6 month Welsh speaker course…could this same framework be applied to Spanish?
I love the intensity you encourage in your learners and obviously you have way more experience than I so any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Basically what do I do after level 2? I would even be happy to try to apply the 6 month welsh course to my Spanish learning…do you think that would be possible?
Yes, I’m certain it could - and hoping very much to do exactly that before the end of the summer…
I think it would, but you’d lose out on a lot of the connections to other learners, and practice partners, that it’s designed in part to trigger.
I feel bad that we haven’t been able to push on as we’d hoped with the Spanish - but the response to the 6 month Welsh course so far is so hugely encouraging, I think there’s a very good chance indeed that it’s going to help us grow a few decent sized steps, and that in turn should get us to being able to get things rolling again with the Spanish…
But my central question for you - what is the longest Spanish conversation you’ve had?
My longest (stumbling/terrible) conversation has been 30 minutes but that does not help me to continue forward with my learning.
Where do I go from here? You have so much knowledge from the courses you have taught in Welsh… I am just hankering for some of that to be transferred over here…
We’ll definitely be porting these frameworks over… but I’ve got something for you right now…
You’ve done Level 1 and 2. There are just two things you need to do now.
One - get the listening exercises happening. 5 minutes a day as a minimum, 10 or 15 even better.
Two - get a conversation partner - by hook or by crook - and have a day when you ONLY talk Spanish.
I know you think you’re not ready for that. But you ARE. And pushing on through the pain barrier will completely change the way you feel about what you’ve already achieved…
Hi Clare,
I’m learning Spanish (and Welsh). Last year I found a conversational partner using italki. My Spanish was basic. My partner wanted to be an English teacher so we had a fair exchange. It took a lot of nerve, guts and determination for me to do this. I went through all those standard feelings of not being good enough; why would someone want to chat with me; what would I talk about, do I really want to put myself in this uncomfortable position so far away from my comfort zone, etc etc. I can definitely say it was one of the best things I ever did. She lacked confidence same as I did. We helped each other and spoke on Skype a couple of times a week. I think we kept it up for about 3 months until other commitments for her got in the way. As Aran says, speak Spanish and your confidence will improve.
Gulp, tomorrow I have my first spanish session on skype through italki. I recognise all those feelings right now! But I really need to practice my speaking because I can read spanish quite well but speaking and listening are way behind. So here goes!
Jumping in at the deep end is exactly the right thing to do - just don’t beat yourself up about the bits you don’t get (and expect that to be the majority of it to begin with!)…
Well it went fine! My exchange partner was really good at speaking slowly enough for me to keep up with her and was very patient with me. Her English was way better than my Spanish but I still think that the bit we did for her in English was probably useful for her, mainly because she had prepared really well and had some sentences in English that she wanted to talk about and understand the grammar of. We are set to do it again and I am sure it will help me. So if anyone is hesitating, I would say absolutely, go for it!
) and so a 6 month Spanish speaker course is probably even further away.
