A couple of days ago I booked a lesson with a Spanish Tutor using italki. It seems ages since I made that next leap in my journey to learn to speak Spanish.
Well today is the day…
…gulp.
I am really excited about the opportunity of actually starting to use some of what I know.
Fortunately I don’t need to worry about how the lesson is going to work out. This is because Gabe Wyner has created a great blog post about how to conduct these sessions.
Essentially I will share Gabe’s 625 word list with my tutor聽and then we will create sentences using the words on that list.
I will get her聽to write out the sentence and then record them too so I have a record.
Then after the class I will go and create a bunch of flash cards based on what I have learnt.
And then it is on to the next lesson.
How To Record The Sessions
So how do I get the recordings of the sentences?
Well Gabe has thought of that too and at the time of writing, he has released the BETA version of a tool that allows your tutor to type your sentence, and then record it. Two files are created, one the audio and the other the text file.
You can get access to that here.
These can then be downloaded for later use.
I must say that Gabe’s approach is extremely thorough and very systematic and is PERFECT for the way I think. What is also impressive is how he has blazed the trail ahead of the rest of us to find out what works and what doesn’t.
The flash card system and now this facility for recording sentences are just phenomenal.
But back to this lesson.
How do I need to prepare?
I Am Worried About The Time Zone Difference
Well it is scheduled for 10.00am UK time. Once of my concerns when I booked the lesson was whether the system accounted for the time zone difference between the UK and Spain. I was assured that it did.
So I had a bit of a shock this morning when I got a skype contact request from my tutor at just a few minutes before 0900.
I rushed around to get everything ready just in case there was a problem with the time difference…
…but luckily it was just my new tutor being extremely proactive.
Now what I have done is created a quick mind map of the way I want the lesson to go to remind me. [Mind Maps are VERY useful tools btw].
So the aims of the session are:
– To create example sentences using words I have already learnt
– To explore how and why each sentence is constructed
– To record my tutor saying those sentences
I am not nervous about speaking to her at all.
As someone who speaks to people for a living, that doesn’t phase me in the slightest.
In fact I am very excited by the learning that is going to come out of these sessions.
I think this approach is probably going to be the purest, fastest and most efficient way of learning to speak Spanish.
Gabe Wyner has been using this approach for a couple of years now to learn Spanish and Hungarian at the same time!
So it must work.
Well, in a few minutes, we will see.
Wish me luck 馃檪
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