I’ve been doing the SSiW course for about 3-4 months now and am on Level 17.
I’m finding it excellent and really enjoyable (although at times I feel like my brain is actually melting) and to be fair a lot of it is sticking so I feel I’m doing ok, although I’m yet to try and speak with someone else.
The other day I looked on the London Welsh Centre website and saw that they have classes starting in September and I was just wondering if anyone else has been on their courses… and if so what were they like?
I thought it might broaden my horizons and actually get me speaking to other people in Welsh.
Maybe it would be a waste of time and learning via this site is more effective?
Sorry if this subject has been raised before but I’m new to the forum and haven’t seen it mentioned so thought someone might have some knowledge on the subject.
There are a few of us here who use the courses and others I’ve met in evening classes who also use SSIW. I think they woit rk well in combination, you don’t need an evening class, but the main focus has been on practicing conversation, and for level 3 and 4 at least it was easy just to jump in, there was no particular syllabus that we followed. I’m going back to level 4 for the second year in September, and the main reason for me is that it gets me to the centre speaking Welsh in the real world each week. But you can do that anyway as the cylch siarad meets every Thursday in the bar.
I did 2 levels of SSIW and a bootcamp and quite a fair bit of extra reading and listening, and had no problem joining level 3. From what I’ve read here a common experience with those who learn the SSIW way is that they are much more willing to jump in with conversation, so early classes are frustrating. If you wanted to try a class drop them an email and they were happy to let me try a class before commiting.
The 6 month course wasn’t available when I was learning 2 years ago, but it sounds like you probalby don’t really need that either, as you follow the same lessons, it just provides a structure and practice online, which you can find without the course if you are motivated. But I know it’s been helpful to lots of people.
Either way, come along one Thursday to say hello once term starts again, and would be great to see you at a Llon-dain meetup tpo!
Diolch yn fawr for answering!
Everything you said makes perfect sense… I think I’m ok just ploughing away with the lessons and don’t need evening classes although I may just join the course anyway (Level 2 probably) as I’d have nothing to lose and all practise is going to be helpful… and it’s a nice chance to meet new people face to face.
I must admit though that I just really want to speak with other people now as I feel I’m all theory and no practice at the moment and although I’ve been doing the lessons I hadn’t really looked at this forum much at all until the last couple of days so had no idea about Slack etc but will be getting involved on there very soon definitely… I’m still nervous about speaking for the first time though!
You will certainly be seeing me on one of the Llon-dain meet ups in the near future.
