Document 6496469

IN YOUR STUDY.
HOW TO STUDY SPANISH
SO IT WON’T BE GREEK TO
YOU...
Top Ten Tips for Studying at Home
Foreign language is a skill that requires constant drill and practice both in
the classroom and at home. Plan on spending one half hour each night on your Spanish.
If you’ve finished your written work, put into action some of the tips cited below.
They will help you to reinforce what you are learning. Remember that waiting until the
night before a test to study is simply not effective. As William Moulton once said:
“Cramming for a foreign language test is about as sensible as cramming for a swimming
test.”
list of vocabulary words you need to memorize:
a. Make a second list with the translations of the vocabulary words. Cover
the translations and test yourself to see if you can correctly define each word. Put a
dot beside those words you can’t remember. Make a second list in which you narrow
down the vocabulary. These are the words you need to spend more time with.
b. Try making a list of all the words you can remember for a certain
category such as family members or clothing. Review your list against the required
vocabulary and fill in those words you forgot to mention.
2. STUDY OUT LOUD.
8. USE MNEMONIC DEVICES TO IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY.
You double your efficiency when you study out loud.
a. In a first year language class, recite new vocabulary out loud. Also, read
out loud the dialogs. Hearing yourself speak will help you remember new vocabulary
and grammatical structures.
b. Record your work. If you have a cassette player, record the vocabulary,
dialogs, and comprehension questions. (Better still, have someone who is proficient in
the language do this for you.) When you record, leave pauses after each word or
question. You can use these pauses to test yourself later.
3. LISTEN TO THE TARGET LANGUAGE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.
The rule of thumb for effective foreign language study is to use as many
senses as possible. How can you listen to the foreign language at home? Play back
your recording of new vocabulary and visualize the meaning of each word when you
come to a pause. Play back the dialog and comprehension questions then fill in the
pauses with the correct answer to the question. If you have trouble, go back to the
dialog in print and review it by reading it one more time.
4. WRITE OUT THE MATERIAL THAT YOU NEED TO LEARN.
Writing out the material that you need to study helps to engrave the
information in your mind so that you can retrieve it later. Write out the vocabulary,
making sure to include the definite article with nouns.
5. STUDY WITH A FRIEND OR MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY.
One of the best ways to study a foreign language is to study with someone
else who has had experience with the language. If there are oral questions you need
to drill, have that other person read them to you so that you can answer them orally.
If there is a situational dialog you need to rehearse, have the other person take a
part so that you can role-play together.
6. DIVIDE YOUR STUDY INTO SMALL UNITS.
Both your attention span and memory begin to decrease after one halfhour. For this reason, it is better to study in small units rather than in one lengthy
time block. In studying for the mid-term exam, for example, two hours divided into
half-hour sessions will produce far better results than 120 minutes of intense
studying.
1. STUDY ON A REGULAR BASIS AND ALWAYS INCLUDE REVIEW
7. TEST YOURSELF. FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF WHAT YOU DON’T
KNOW.
It is to your advantage to find out what you don’t know. Let’s say there is a
Mnemonic devices are simple ways that you can improve your recall of
information. The Greeks and Romans taught mnemonics to their students over 2,000
years ago. One example is:
Acrostics: Let’s say that you have to learn the five major rivers of Spain,
El Ebro, El Duero, El Tajo, El Guadiana, and El Gualalquivir. To start, simply memorize
the first letter of each river and then make up a sentence. For example...
EDTGG.......Every Day Trees Grow Greener
(You may recall learning the colors of the spectrum with “Roy G. Biv” or the music
scale with “Every Good Boy Does Fine”...)
9. LEARN GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT AND, WHEN POSSIBLE, LEARN
A FORMULA.
Thinking about the rule for a grammatical structure is simply not enough.
As with learning vocabulary, it is important to use it actively. Review those exercises
in which you are required to use the structures. Again, do them out loud. There are
other things you can do:
a. Try memorizing one sentence for each grammatical structure you’re
learning. If you are learning the immediate future, memorize a sentence like “Yo voy a
visitar Puerto Rico en el verano.” Try to recall this sentence when on the test/exam
you are asked to convert sentences to the immediate future.
b. When possible, reduce the grammatical structure to a formula to help
you learn. For the same immediate future tense, memorize the following:
FORM OF ir + a + INFINITIVE... When you get a test, write these down
immediately so you can refer to them later in the test.
10. BE CREATIVE.
Put your imagination and artistic talents to good use. For example:
a. Make labels. If you are studying vocabulary for the house, make signs
for things around your room so you can read them on a daily basis before a test/quiz.
b. Make flash cards. Put the vocabulary word on one side and draw a
picture on the other. If you can’t draw, cut out pictures from a magazine or use
computer clip art. Drill yourself or have someone else at home help you drill the
words. Show these to your teacher; she may even want to use these in class. In
short, don’t be afraid to be creative in your studying.
tO tHe PaReNt:
Our new textbook, BRAVO, is based on the Natural Approach to learning a
foreign language. It is student-centered and communication-oriented. The following
guidelines for the Natural Approach will be used to encourage students to learn a
second language.
1. The teacher will provide comprehensible input. Students take part in
dialogs and interviews, listen to and read stories and articles, give and receive
instructions, describe situations and feelings, and participate in games and other
activities.
2. Comprehension will precede production. Students’ ability to use Spanish is
directly related to the time and opportunities they have had to listen to and read
Spanish in meaningful contexts. Their passive skills (listening and reading) will develop
more quickly than their active skills (speaking and writing).
3. Speech will emerge in stages. The three stages are: comprehension
(students show they have understood what was said), early speech (students respond
with single words or phrases), and speech emergence (students understand and
produce more).
4. Speech emergence is characterized by grammatical errors. It is
normal for students to make errors when speaking a foreign language. Instead of
overtly correcting the error, the teacher will rephrase the student’s response and
expand on it so the whole class will hear it correctly.
5. Students will be studying in a low-anxiety environment. Your child will
be more motivated to speak out in the second language if he/she feels a mutual trust
and respect among everyone in the class. Being in a relaxed academic environment will
require that each student do his/her best to behave in a responsible manner.
6. Interaction will be encouraged and group work will create
a sense of community. In the large classes we have today, more students have
opportunities to speak the language as they work in pairs or small groups.
7. Grammar plays a supplemental role. Simply knowing about grammar and
talking about grammar rules will not contribute to language fluency. However,
grammar may help students learn the language by organizing the material so that the
student can understand it more readily.
8. The goal of the Natural Approach is proficiency in communication
skills. The more students experience Spanish--listen to it, read it, speak it, and
write it-- the more they will acquire.
Types of materials available:
You may want to buy or borrow some of the following materials to aid in your child’s
language study:
books
stories
rhymes and songs
information books
dictionaries (also, picture dictionaries)
dual-language and bilingual books
audiocassettes*
video cassettes*
CD-ROM*
Games*
*When shopping for technology that may be of use to your child, be careful about
buying materials that are too advanced for your child at this beginning language level.
Translation programs have not been found to be helpful to students at this level of
second language acquisition. When purchasing audio/video tapes or computer
software, look for sound effects, native-speakers’ voices, interaction (where the
student can provide his/her own voice to be analyzed), and animation. You may wish to
purchase the CD-ROM that accompanies our textbook ¡BRAVO! so that your child can
practice at home with the same technology he/she uses at school.
Culture: Through activities we aim to:
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encourage curiosity
develop empathy for other peoples
respect other ways of doing things
look for similarities as well as differences
understand that the value of words may differ between cultures
develop awareness of his/her own culture
Realia: Encourage your child to collect realia, though it’s not necessary to buy
things. Many things relating to the language and its culture are free. The following
are some suggestions you may want to consider:
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some catalogs for toys, food and furniture are now bilingual
travel brochures contain photos of food, towns, trains, etc.
maps and timetables
foreign magazines
foreign language newspapers
special promotions of food, etc. for pictures, flags, etc.
food products with labels in two or three languages
chain supermarkets with trilingual labels on food and clothing
post cards
foreign language rhyme and storybooks from a local book store