Questions To Ask Before Learning Spanish

Hello Patch readers :-)

Even though I am a professional language instructor and have my own language studio in Marietta, I want you to shop around and learn how to pick the best instructor, school, tutor, and/or curriculum for your money-regardless of whether you work with me or not.

The five questions below will help you determine whether the teacher, school or curriculum you are being offered is worth your time and money.

Don't let fancy marketing tricks and overpriced teachers, schools etc. take advantage of you.

The five questions below will help you determine, if you are going to get quality instruction, what type of Spanish you will be learning, and, most importantly, if the instruction you are going to receive, will help you develop conversational and auditory skills.

If any of the schools, learning institutions or language instructors, you are looking to hire, fail at offering a curriculum that helps you develop conversation and auditory comprehension, then they are NOT to be hired.

Don't be seduced by a low-cost or cheap course offering. When learning a second language, you never want to sacrifice quality or else you will waste money and time. 

The five most important questions to ask before decide to spend money and time on learning Spanish.

1. Is the instructor or teacher a native Spanish speaker?  This is an important question because if they are native speakers, it increases the likelihood that you or your child will get authentic and quality pronunciation help and real native talk as opposed to textbook talk. 

Ex: So theoretically, if you need to hire a composer, whom would you hire? Mozart himself? or his talented student? If you can hire Mozart, get Mozart:-). It's the same with native speakers; they can give you an advantage that even the most talented non-native Spanish speaker can’t give you sometimes.

2. How many years of experience does the teacher or instructor have teaching? This too is very important because being a native speaker doesn't automatically mean you have the talent to teach or are qualified to teach. Remember that teaching in itself is a special skill so you should aim for getting a native Spanish speaker with good teaching experience; however, if you can't get both, then you should go with teaching experience-it's a balancing act sometimes :-) I know.

 3. What type of Spanish will the instructor or teacher teach me? There are four major "types" of Spanish-Latin American, Caribbean, Argentine, and Spaniard Spanish.

It's just like English. English spoken in England, New York and in the South all sound different but are all the same language, right? Same thing happens in Spanish For most students, I would recommend focusing on Latin American Spanish if you can; however, email me or leave me a comment and I will gladly help you decide which one is better for you to learn.

Sometimes it depends on your lifestyle and who your circle of friends are made up of or what countries you do business with. Just to reiterate for most people, Latin American Spanish is a strategic choice. How will the lessons be structured? Super important!! You must know how the lessons will be structured that way you will know if you will get a healthy balance of the three components of language-which I refer to as M.A.C. M= Mental comprehension of grammar and grammatical structure. A= auditory comprehension (your ability to hear and understand Spanish-the input of a language) and C= conversational ability (your ability to converse-the output of a language).

Every curriculum must M.A.C If any of these three components are missing, then you are wasting time and money. You will not get any major results and you will unfortunately have a hard time becoming bi-lingual.

5. How many people per class, how long is each lesson, and how long is the course? If a school has more than eight people per class, then you are getting a watered-down language instruction-the more people in a class, the less conversation you will have-the less A. and C. you will get, thus leaving you with a third of what you originally invested money and time on.

Don't be impressed if a course meets 2-3 times a week for two hours each time, most of the time these courses have about 20plus people in them which means that you won't get the same quality as a course that only meets once a week for two hours (that only has eight people). It's a numbers game.

For example, let's say there is a $1 million lotto drawing. Now, $1 million is a lot of money, but if 20 people win that drawing, that means that you have to divide those earnings with 19 other people; when you do the math you will notice that it's not as impressive anymore. $1 million divided by 20 winners is just $50,000 each.

So you see? Picking a language course is the same thing, you need to pick a course that has about 5-8 per class; that way everyone in the course gets quality instruction and personalized attention or else you will be like one of those lotto winners in my example above.

Keep in mind that good language instruction is not exclusively determined by how long or how many times a week students meet but mainly by the size of the class, as well as, the other factors discussed above! You want to get a healthy balance of all.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to leave a comment or question; it is my pleasure to be of service and to help people get the best deal for their money.

Humbly yours,

Delilah Ortiz