Why only advanced students?
From September 2008 to some yet undefined period in the future, I will be living part of the time in Estepona and part of the time in Extremadura, spending a few weeks in one place and a few weeks in the other.
Beginning and intermediate language students need constancy in order to learn. For example, in all the years I've been teaching, I've never accepted lower-level students for once-a-week classes since experience has shown me that students in this situation do not progress while those coming to class at least twice a week do make progress. Having several week gaps between classes will not further the learning process at all.
Advanced students (see below) are another story. Having some classes on a non-regular basis will still give good results partly because although there's still room to learn, it's not necessary to drill in the basics over and over again.
Am I an advanced student?
I'll know that after a 5 or 10 minute chat in Spanish. But before we get to that, here are some pointers that may possibly characterise an advanced level:
- First of all, your Spanish is not perfect. "Advanced" does not mean "perfect". If it did, you wouldn't be thinking about lessons, would you?
- Grammar: You've studied most of the grammar at least once sometime. You may still be unsure of a lot of things, but you've seen most of it. You've seen "the subjunctive" although it still may be largely a mystery to you. You may still feel unsure about which past tense to use when speaking about the past, but you at least recognize that a past tense is required.
- Speaking and listening: You can say most of what you want to say in Spanish (correctly or otherwise), but you may still have problems understanding what's being said to you. You may be able to follow a conversation - not necessarily understanding every word - with one single person but may get lost in a group of native Spanish speakers.
- Reading: If you do read, you probably understand the idea of what you read although you don't know every word. You may have the feeling that your reading ability is far above your ability to speak.
- Writing: this depends on each individual. Some people have learned to write and others haven't had the need or the opportunity. It's not a factor in these classes since our goal is to become fluent in conversational Spanish.
If you are still interested in classes after reading this, please send me an email and I'll get back to you. Please don't call the number listed on the main page because that's my Estepona number and I may not be there to answer.