If you were a Martian teaching another Martian Spanish, how would you do it?

May 20, 2009 9:51 PM

Do you have any good resources/tips for a beginning free-lance Spanish tutor?

I'm a native English speaker, but I started learning Spanish as a child and continued all throughout college. I'm planning on giving some Spanish lessons over the summer to earn some cash and keep my language skills sharp.

While some of my prospective students (all previous acquaintances) have at least some passing knowledge with the language, others have never learned a language before.

In the past, my tutoring was basically helping students with homework that had been assigned to them in other classes, but now I'm making my own curriculum.

Where's the best place to start? Alphabet? Numbers? Colors? Phrases?

Are there things that I might overlook or take for granted that may confuse a new language learner?

posted by chara to education (4 comments total)

Think about how your lessons started (if you can remember).

I think its different for each person, but for me I found just learning words helped. Mesa, silla, pollo, puerta, coche etc etc etc. Flash cards really helped me with this. Along with this, I learnt stock phrases ... "Hola, como estas?" without really knowing about the verb conjugation behind it.

Once I had a few words then learning some of the joining words, like how to say "the plate is on the table"

Then came the joys of verb conjugation.

Hope thats helpful, I'm sure others with more experience here can chime in!
posted by Admira at 10:47 PM on May 20

I would take a look at a spanish book (old one from school or something) and see where they start and how they progress. There is usually a reason for the organization and progression of those books and, while you don't need to specifically use it in your classes, it might help you figure out how to advance and build off the previous lessons in your planning.

I would personally begin with names, introductions, spelling then numbers, then start with the most principle verbs, et...

depending on how you learned spanish, you might take for granted how easy it is to confuse two things that come to you naturally. (ex: how to decide between ser/estar, por/para) prepare explanations for them before you get to each class. in fact, predict any questions and create your responses for them before.

Regarding logistics- my best advice would be to create your own little mini-contract or policy sheet, even though they are your friends, that talks about issues such as cancellation and pay.
posted by nzydarkxj at 11:33 PM on May 20

Have a mini-review at the start of each lesson where you test your students on what they've learnt previously. If they're anything like me, they won't do their homework unless you put them on the spot. (Assign homework, too... well you probably know this, but I'm just sayin' cause you said you used to help people with homework assigned by others.)
posted by Xany at 1:52 AM on May 21

I'm going to approach this from a different perspective for materials that could be included in your class --

When I was learning French (and also talking to people who learned other languages), what really helped was material that naturally incorporated vocubulary and pushed it even a bit beyond that.

Some examples:
-A song (you may be able to find a youtube video with the lyrics)
-Report of the news
-Comic book or children bok
-Story from the radio in the language
-TV show(s) - Sesame Street in Spanish?

I found it highly motivating and relevant. I think people of all ages would respond to this. Anyway, 2 cent opinion for the day, over and out.
posted by Wolfster at 4:54 AM on May 21