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How to teach a 15 year old Spanish? | ||
Tags: Language Teaching | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5033 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 9 of 22 11 September 2014 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Assuming all the above posts: they are interested in Spanish, they are reasonably intelligent and willing to put in the work then I would give them a book to read (see homework) and do some of these exercises.
- "Stump the teacher", if they can use a word in Spanish you don't know, they get a free period, but they have to be able to use the word in a sentence! (This requires them to find words on their own) - "No such thing as a free lunch", they order food in Spanish from a menu you provide. Then they take your order. They you can cook the lunch together using Spanish recipes. Perhaps one day you can get them to order from a native speaker. - "Shop-a-holic", take them shopping for something at a Spanish store, if there is something around you. - "Social Networks", have them create a twitter account in Spanish and follow a couple of Spanish celebrities. Have them read you the tweets that week which they liked the most. - "Play Games", play scrabble, charades, alias or trivia games, “I Spy,” “20 Questions,” in Spanish. If they are into computers they can sign up to "MUD" multiple user dungeons. Just search for multi-user dungeon games in Spanish. Most have free accounts. These are basically text games where you read a description, press N to go north, etc. Or if they have an xbox or other console they can get games in Spanish and play them. But text games make you read, and they are fun! - "Trivia", try to find a trivia app for their smartphone (if they have one) that’s in Spanish. - "Wikipedia Challenge", wikipedia has/had a random article button. Click that to go to a random article and have them translate it to you. Homework: - Give them a film with no subtitles (perhaps youtube) and they have to give you a written critic of the film next lesson. - Write a rhyming poem (or rap) in Spanish. - Record a video of themselves speaking with a native speaker. (Safely, take the mother) - Read a book, start with a book a 15 year old Spanish boy would read. Don't start them on books for little kids. It takes a long time to start but they'll learn faster. - Write you an email in Spanish. - 30 minutes of ANKI each day. You can create an online account, and look at the stats for the previous week, so you'll know if they've been studying. - Find a podcast or radio station they like and have them listen to it. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4706 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 10 of 22 11 September 2014 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
I can't describe how annoyed this comment makes me. It is partly because Cavesa didn't actually read my whole post. But it is also the emotive language he uses about "stupid" students and lowering expectations. Age appropriate lessons aren't "dumbed down", and stating that a student shouldn't do a single type of task for more than 15 minutes isn't treating them like they are stupid; it's understanding the research on learning. He writes, "normal ones are expected to keep the concentration for 45 minutes of a normal class". If he read my post, he would have seen that I wrote that if the activities vary in a lesson, the student's attention "can be maintained for much longer periods". With well-planned activities, there is theoretically no limit to how long students can maintain attention. "Normal" students are unable to focus for 45 minutes, that is simply a fact of life. A good class varies the activity, for example: 5 minutes of class discussion, then the students work in pairs for 15 minutes. After that the pairs might share results with the class for 5 minutes, and then students might write a response for 20 minutes. Name a class in which students did one thing for 45 minutes, and I can tell you the teacher didn't have a clue. Of course it is important to choose the right activities. But it is also true that no matter how engaging a particular activity is, it is only effective for a limited amount of time. Even if a student could focus on one activity for 45 minutes (and many can of course), they would benefit more from doing three different activities for 15 minutes each. It's a bit like the bow-wave theory mentioned elsewhere here, but on a shorter timespan. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6394 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 11 of 22 11 September 2014 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
This would be extremely frustrating at first. See this thread and this article. In the beginning it's best to use audiovisual resources. Consider reading the book "language is music" too. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4806 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 12 of 22 11 September 2014 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My apologies, I could have used different words but I cannot totally agree.
Yes, it is often beneficial to change the types of activity but not that necessary and sometimes not even the best way. It depends on the activity, the student and the teacher. A well chosen activity can keep the student's attention for way longer than 15 minutes but having such a ceiling for activities the student finds boring, that might be a good approach, true. I can name various classes where we did one type of activity for the whole 45 minutes. Class discussion over an extract in literature, a lecture in history and so on. And the trouble was never the length, either the teacher was good enough or he/she was not. The language classes tended to be more varied but I still don't think there is a universal rule concerning the amount of time. "But it is also true that no matter how engaging a particular activity is, it is only effective for a limited amount of time. Even if a student could focus on one activity for 45 minutes (and many can of course), they would benefit more from doing three different activities for 15 minutes each." Sorry but teenagers can focus on many activities for even more extended periods of time. It applies mostly to very engaging activities the student finds fun. So, as long as you can supply the person with computer games, movies, books etc in the language (sure, after getting some basics of the language), you are not unlikely to see them stick with one activity for a few hours. Again, about whether it's better to do one activity for longer or several for shorter periods of time, it depends on the activity. For exemple, when it comes to input (reading, watching a tv series etc), I am convinced a few days of several hours of exposure each are much more valuable than ten minutes per day for months. P.S. By the way, Cavesa is a woman. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6706 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 22 11 September 2014 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
This I like. That's probably how/why L-R works (and why barely anybody here has tried it!). I know that I find it much more beneficial to do certain activities intensively rathen than five minutes here, ten minutes there. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4241 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 14 of 22 12 September 2014 at 5:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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Adults learn languages by following phrase books and other text books. Kids learn to speak through play.
The other day I was watching a short video clip an American family relocated to China. The daughter was 2 at the time started picking up Chinese. At age 4 she was quite fluent in Mandarin almost to a native level. First, the child has the advantage of being in an environment where she is constantly interacting with native speakers. Unlike people who picks up languages in school, she is going about her daily routines like going to school, shopping with her parents in Chinese. She spends a lot of time interacting with other Chinese kids playing games. I know a few Polish people in my area who talk to their kids in Polish at home and English outside. I don't think any of the kids are enrolled in Polish classes during the week. If a parent feels that he/she is fluent enough in a language, instead of making language learning like a 1h/day language course at home, you simply try to communicate to the child more and more in the language. In the beginning you'd say "Good morning" and then gradually switch to "Buenos días" and expect the same in return. You simply think of Spanish as your mother-tongue you'd use at home and let your son pick up English in school. In the first year you probably wouldn't introduce any formal classes like grammar, vocabulary, reading or writing. Like a baby who picks up a language just be listening and imitating the sounds around without attending class. The other thing you can do is to watch more Spanish TV programs. People pick up a lot through the media. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5033 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 15 of 22 12 September 2014 at 10:14am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, but the original poster indicated she wasn't the parent, but rather a Spanish speaker which the parent is bringing in to tutor the child. So this is the tutor asking for some assistance, not the parent. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4806 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 16 of 22 12 September 2014 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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15 years old is not a kid anymore, he is much closer to an adult than to a 4 year old child.
15 years olds use the adult methods most often in classes and have no trouble with them (the low % of successful teenage learners at school is caused by different things, in my opinion. Quite the same as the low % of successful adult learners). 15 years olds have the advantage of being very open to lots of input as they are diving into tv series, books, pc games and so on anyways. There are as well student exchange programms which aren't available for adults. The main disadvantages are lack of their own money and therefore dependence on what their parents and teachers find useful, lots of distractions and different ways to spend time (yes, there is quite a peer pressure like "why do you waste time learning Spanish when everyone speaks English? you should do sports instead". I wonder, what is your teenager like? Is he an exciter reader, a scifi fan, sport enthusiast etc? Has he got any background in another language? Has he got any trouble with his native language? I think one of the good ways to get him interested in learning would be to use the great opportunity of homeschooling and making him responsible for his learning right from the beginning and leave him some freedom of choice. Go to a bookstore together, look at good quality coursebooks together and let him make the final choice of what does he want to work with. Get nice workbooks etc., don't settle for ugly/bad quality ones. And seeing the pricetag might as well wake some more responsibility in the guy. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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