Kieran Ball
The way I wrote 3 Minute Spanish was to assume that the learner has zero knowledge of the Spanish language, and zero knowledge of confusing grammatical terms. Everything is introduced in a simple and easy-to-understand way, and the student learns lots of useful words and phrases that they can put together to form their own sentences.
Jennifer Corralizza
The structure of this conversational Spanish course is specifically tailored to accommodate complete beginners in learning Spanish. The course is centered around the top 100 most frequently used words in Spanish, allowing beginners to develop a strong foundation for effective communication.
To offer a comprehensive learning journey, I weave these essential words into a diverse range of interactive practice tasks encompassing all three communication modes. Additionally, this course integrates music-based activities that play a vital role in enhancing students’ listening comprehension abilities.
These activities not only expose learners to the rhythm and cadence of the language but also provide the necessary repetition for the vocabulary to firmly anchor itself in their long-term memory, facilitating effective acquisition. Furthermore, these musical elements help students forge a cultural connection to the language, fostering a deeper appreciation for its cultural context.
The course is structured into meticulously designed units, each strategically developed to cultivate learners’ confidence in a step-by-step manner. Commencing with the acquisition of vocabulary and honing listening comprehension, students begin to feel a sense of empowerment as their listening comprehension improves and they can understand word meanings. As students become more acquainted and at ease with the vocabulary, our curriculum transitions its emphasis towards acquiring indispensable phrases and constructing fundamental sentences. Integral to the course are practical, real-life communication exercises that take the language beyond the classroom. These activities enable learners to apply the language in authentic scenarios, preparing them for effective interactions.
Once students have acquired sufficient practice in constructing simple sentences, the next phase involves teaching them to create more complex sentences by introducing extension words. This step-by-step scaffolding ensures that learners develop a strong linguistic foundation and gradually progress towards expressing themselves fluently and naturally in Spanish.
Octavio Olenik Giaccaglia
Whenever I teach an absolute beginner, I make sure to start by the fundamental basis of every language: its sounds. Then, I always continue with cognates and audio comprehension. I’ve always thought it makes little to no sense to start learning a language by studying how to say “thank you”, for instance. Of course one needs to learn it eventually, sooner than later, but doing so doesn’t attack the main issue: the fact the student won’t even be able to properly pronounce those newly-acquired words. If a complete beginner wants to properly learn a language, my method has proven to be the one that properly cements the language learning process.