Being Successful in Spanish--
Often students ask me how they can do well in my Spanish courses. My response is always usually the same. "It's not hard. You just have to be willing to do the work". And that's true. If you are merely planning on getting an 'A'. If you want to learn Spanish and eventually progress toward fluency in the language you'll want to do more than simply complete all of the assignments required in this course. Along the way, you may very well earn an 'A' in the course, but if you truly try to achieve fluency in the course, you will gain much more. So, here's a short list, broken down, of ways to become a great Spanish learner.
Complete all of the assignments--Like I mentioned, one of the best ways to get a great grade and learn Spanish at the same time is to complete all of the assignments. My grades are weighted, so each assignment can be important to your overall grade. In addition, each assignment is designed to encourage you to use as much Spanish as possible. One assignment set that is easy to overlook is the homework in my courses. The online workbook is only worth ten percent of your overall grade and it's a lot of work; however, it's great practice and worthwhile study time, every time you open your Spanish workbook. Students that do the best in my courses, year after year, are those who consistently complete the online Spanish workbook.
Study--There are a lot of exams in my courses and they are always weighted the most heavily. So doing poorly on the exams will result in a poor grade for the course. Students that do the best in my class find themselves studying daily to achieve the grade they want. A general rule for any course that you take in college is this: dedicate double the amount of time you spend inside of class to outside of class work, especially to study and homework time. Since you spend, typically four hours a week with me in class, you should spend about eight hours per week outside of class working out practice Spanish sentences or workbook problems or studying or listening/viewing Spanish content.
Immerse Yourself--I have created a link on this website called "Xtra SPA Content". This page links to thousands and thousands of other Spanish websites that will give you the chance to immerse yourself in the Spanish language and culture. Take advantage of every opportunity to converse in Spanish. In the grocery store, at a movie, there are always Spanish speakers around, living in the Southwestern U.S., practice on everyone you can. Go into a Mexican market and buy something inexpensive, but conduct the transaction in Spanish, and come back every week. There are plenty of opportunities to practice, if you open your eyes and look.
Participate in Class--I give you lots of chances to speak Spanish in class with your conversational partners. When I give you a Spanish speaking assignment you will have a huge tendency to use English as a crutch. Don't do it. Push yourself to use Spanish as much as possible in class and encourage your partners to do the same. I have seen students who do this make huge gains in just one semester in their use of the Spanish language. It can happen to you! When you force yourself to use Spanish, even if you are not fully comfortable speaking, as yet, in the language, you learn about your own flaws or weak points. When you notice your weaknesses, make notes of them. Jot down instructions to yourself regarding the aspects of the language in which you are lacking and resolve to improve.
Get Help--If you are struggling in the course, don't suffer in silence. Come to me for assistance. Either come to my office hours, send me an email or communicate with me in some other way. I want to help you. My goal is that you learn the material and feel confident and comfortable. Ask questions in class too. I believe myself to be a patient person and I love to help students on a one to one basis.
Use Available Resources--I spent hours compiling and creating accessible online supplementary resources to help you learn. Please utilize them. For example, I have created online grammar video lectures for nearly everything that I cover in class. You can access those lectures on this website. If you didn't understand everything that I explained in class in Spanish, please, use the online video lectures as supplemental help and support. In these videos, you can pause me, slow me down, speed me up and rewatch me over and over again. The best students read the chapter and watch the grammar videos that we will be covering in class the night before, in order to be completely prepared for what I will be presenting that day. This is a great idea and the students that do this are always the most successful.
Don't Freak Out--Anxiety plays an important role in language learning. Not enough of it and you get bored, but too much of it and worse things happen. If you get too nervous in class about understanding me (I speak mostly Spanish in class) or about producing Spanish yourself, odds are, you will be too freaked out to learn anything. Too much anxiety and the human brain shuts down and you go into a kind of "fight or flight" mode and none of my instruction will have chance to fit inside your brain. Realize now, you will not understand every word I say to you in class. Truth is, we still are not sure exactly how human brains deal with another language, or how we are able to learn them, but one thing is clear, the more you hear a second language and the more you use it, the better you'll do as a language student and the closer you will come to proficiency. With this in mind, I speak as much as I can to you in class in Spanish. You will not understand everything. But, as time goes on, you will pick out words and phrases and more importantly, you will train your mind to parse up words from frases and frases from sentences and eventually you will be able to pick out the language, especially the words and phrases that are most familiar to you. The only thing we know for sure is that it takes a lot of time and a lot of practice.
Open Your Mouth--You have to make millions of mistakes to learn a language. You might as well get started now. Extroverted people (outgoing people) are better at learning language, well, they learn quicker at least. If you are not extroverted naturally, at least in Spanish class, it would help you to push yourself to be more talkative than usual. Your participation grade, in part, hinges upon your willingness to speak with your peers and the whole class in Spanish.
Have Fun--My classes, you will soon see, are not very conventional. I try to present things in interesting and fun ways. We play lots of games to get you moving and get you talking. You might not always understand the method behind my locura, but, believe me, there is a point, and it's all about you using the Spanishg language as much as possible.
Students that follow these suggestions are invariably my best students and those who make the greatest language gains throughout the course of the semester. Seize the day and make yourself into the best Spanish students you can be by following the above suggestions. You probably have to take the course, so you might as well get something out of it, and who knows, soon, you might be Speaking spanish with the best of them. Remember, language study is a lifelong experience. I still learn new things every week. You won't become fluent simply by taking Spanish 101, but a journey of a thousand leagues begins with one simple paso. Paso por paso se llega lejos. Vamos amigos. Let's study juntos!