I need some advice as I just booked my first Tutoring sessions with a native Spanish speaker. I have 4 weeks before the session. I want to prepare as best I can to be able to interact entirely in Spanish.
Having never learned a language to a conversational level before I have been studying Spanish for almost 1 year now. I have been using primarily Lingq with a comprehensible input approach. I have never had a conversation in Spanish with anyone before. And I have not written hardly anything in Spanish either. But I have read a lot out loud and practiced repeating what I hear. So I believe I have good pronunciation. I have done virtually no grammar study. I believe I can recognize and even translate at times what I read and hear to English. But I struggle to produce Spanish accurately.
I also did about 45 days of Pimsleur. But I found it slow, hard, and frustrating.
I would be embarrassed to say that I have been studying a language for over a year but still can’t speak at all. So I am forcing myself to do something about that. I feel my problem is just…knowing what to say. How do I activate my passive vocabulary so I can use it in a conversation? What do I need to do over the next 4 weeks to make this tutoring session go smooth?
I don’t know if these are good ideas, but some things I have tried are
Stop a video and argue back with it.
You can make stuff up–it doesn’t matter about facts. It is just an exercise to say words.
No, creo que no; no entiendo porque lo dijiste. Creo que este verbo no se usa asĂ. Creo que la gente que habla asĂ es muy maleducada. Prefiero usar otro verbo.
Retell a story, summarizing or trying to use some of your own words.
Obviously this can be done by looking at a story in English and telling it in Spanish, but you can also look at a story in Spanish and then retell it in Spanish, if you want to avoid any other language except your target language being directly involved.
Or take some random article off wikipedia and try to retell it.
And it’s okay to look back at it when you need help remembering stuff or thinking what to say or need vocabulary help. It’s not a test–the idea is to say stuff in your target language. Or you can do it as a practice summarizing it as you look over it, without looking away at all, if you like.
Try different methods and see what feels comfortable and helpful for you now.
Zorbital gave you some good suggestions. I’ll add my two cents from a slightly different angle: have fun! Enjoy the tutoring session! You don’t have to be perfect; it’s only your first time speaking with a conversation partner in Spanish. In fact, you don’t ever have to be perfect. “I struggle to produce Spanish accurately.” Yes, of course you do! You’ve never done it before. But that is not important. You don’t have to be accurate, you only have to listen and try to communicate using whatever Spanish you DO have. Instead of thinking, “My goodness, I’ve studied Spanish for over a year and I cannot speak, “ think to yourself, “This is so cool! I am speaking another language!” Listen, I am married to a native Spanish speaker, and our common language is Spanish. I literally speak Spanish every day, and I still struggle to produce Spanish accurately at times. You are not going to be able say the things you can say in your native language. If you can let go of the idea of accuracy and perfection, let go of the fear, you will have fun! One more note: Book more tutor sessions. The more often you speak Spanish, the less it will be a big deal. Right now, in your mind, you are thinking that this ONE SESSION will be the one true indication of whether or not the past year of study has been worth it. And that is simply not true. It’s just another step towards conversational comfort. You should be proud of youself. Enjoy the moment, and then do it again and again and again and again.
They will try to assess your level during first lesson and what your goals are.
In 4 weeks you can practice on your intro, learn the alphabet, numbers, days, months, if you have not done so. They may ask you if you know them.
To access your level they may make you read various passages with increasing difficulty and ask question on it or ask you to translate.
They may ask you to describe things, home, family, school, work, hobbies and etc.
Some may give you quizes to check your level.
They will probably say your reading comprehension is good, your listening is probably decent enough to understand teacher. They will tell you which area need work.
I also recommend taking a few trial lessons with different teachers.
They wil probably teach you, but in the 4 weeks you can also learn to ask a few questions in your target language. Example “Could you please repeat ?” , “ I don’t understand… “, “ What is meaning of…. ? “ and etc.
The tutor should guide you, that’s why they called tutors. So don’t try to set the stage, just be there at the given time. You also don’t have to be good, as if you would be, you wouldn’t need help from a tutor.
There is no need to wait 4-weeks for your session. You have plenty of vocabulary for conversations and I am sure many of the tutors speak English as well. I do live sessions on italki every week - speaking is the best way to improve your language skills. Enjoy the journey!
Best tip is to focus mostly on your listening comprehension to make the lesson less awkward and easier for them. Prepare key words that you would use in your own language to the target language and prepare to sound as confident as you can.
You are taking conversation tutoring sessions to activate your vocabulary. You don’t need to activate your vocabulary beforehand. Speaking and conversing is the best method to activate your vocabulary.
Your first tutoring session will probably feel a bit rough, and you won’t remember lots of words when you need them, but that’s okay. This is completely normal and is part of the process. After 10 or 20 hours of speaking (so 20 or 40 hours of conversation sessions), you’ll be much better. Don’t judge yourself too harshly at the very beginning. You will make lots of mistakes, and at the very beginning you may feel quite fatigued after the session. This feeling of fatigue afterwards is an indication that your brain has worked hard and after a good night’s sleep, you’ll have solidified some good learning. Your speaking progress will come fast, if you continue with lots of listening practice at the same time.
Tips:
Send a message to the tutor beforehand saying you are interested in speaking and conversing, not learning grammar. Tell them you want someone who can ask you interesting questions. Also tell them that you don’t want them to correct you all the time. Sometimes is okay, but not every sentence.
Book trial sessions with multiple tutors (at least 3). You probably won’t vibe with every tutor, so trial a few and pick the one you vibe the most with.