STUDY IDEAS FROM FORMER STUDENTS AND MY RANDOM MUSINGS...

1. Look at the pictures in the book and say the words out loud while looking at the pictures.

2. Have your friend, spouse, parent, child, etc. read Spanish words out loud to you and you respond with the English.

3. Write a quiz for yourself and do it.

4. One student said she did her homework with a friend from another school - Great idea! Do your homework together with friends - working together always helps, as long as one person isn't doing all the work! It's a good idea to talk to people at other schools, too - see how other students and teachers present and learn info - something might click in a different way than what we do here

5. Make a list of vocab - Spanish-English - 1 column Spanish, 1 English. Cover one up and quiz yourself, or alternate between languages.

6. One student walked around the house and named all the items in his house in the vocab. Great idea - get the visual stimulation, and movement too! Label the things too so you see the word written (some students have Post-It’s with Spanish words hanging all around their houses!)

7. When learning new verbs, act out the word while saying it to yourself.

8. Do extra, unassigned Workbook pages - especially those at the end of the chapter.

9. Use the Useful Links!!!

10. One student said she talks to her mom in Spanish, even though her mom doesn’t understand her! Another said she greets her boyfriend in Spanish all the time. Try talking, or at least saying a few things, to your parents or friends. Or talk to your dog, your fish, your plants, in Spanish! Practice, practice, practice! Get it out of your mouth!

11. Talk to friends in Spanish who are in a different class than you. Find out what they’re learning and how they’re learning it.

12. Write verbs on cards and practice conjugating.

13. Read questions and answers out loud - write out questions for yourself and answer them. Or answer questions we use in class. It's more fun to do this with a friend! One of you ask a question, the other answers, then switch roles. If you're not sure how correct you are, I'll be happy to go over them with you in office hours if you do this.

14. One student said for fun, she read directions and labels on products to see what she understood. Good idea - or read signs, fliers, anything you see in the community in Spanish - what can you understand?

15. Write the word in Spanish while saying it out loud and then write the English word beside it.

16. One student watched "Friends" with the Spanish subtitles on (you can do this with most DVDs! Look under setup options or subtitles, and turn them on! Or even set the language to Spanish and watch in Spanish with English subtitles!)

17. Read out loud while writing words on flashcards

18. Greet your friends in Spanish.

19. One student said she had short conversations with her co-workers in Spanish - the basics, but they communicated!

20. When making flashcards, color-code them. Have blue be for masculine nouns, red for feminine nouns, green for -ar verbs, purple for -er verbs, orange for -ir verbs, yellow for adjectives, etc. Color often stimulates and organizes the mind!

More technology-based people can use Excel or other programs, to create a spreadsheet with vocab words, color coding them according to gender, noun/verb/adjective/kind of verb, etc. Color stimulation does a lot for many people!

21. Write out sentences in Spanish, rather than random words in a list. The more context you give the sentences, the more organized they may stay in your head. Create a story in your mind and write sentences to go with your story. Underline the vocab words you use. Then read the sentences out loud.

22. Put the words you really struggle with remembering on a card or paper and post it in a place you see often (like the bathroom mirror or your bedroom door) so that every time you pass it, you see the word. Say it out loud to yourself too.

23. Listen to songs in Spanish - especially with the lyrics in front of you to read - then take away the lyrics and see what you understand. Even some songs in English have a quick section or a repeated word in Spanish - see what you can hear and figure out. Focus on what you figure out rather than getting discouraged by what you don’t understand! Even understanding random words is good!

24. Watch the news in English. Then, once you have an idea of what’s in the news, listen to the news in Spanish (Univisión, Telemundo). With the ideas in the news already established in your mind, you may understand more. Or watch a movie you know well already, this time in Spanish (often you can switch languages with DVD’s under language selection). If you already know the plot, you don’t have to focus so much on what’s happening, and instead your mind may focus more on the words being used.

25. Any common activity that you can do in Spanish, do it! One student said when studying numbers, she started counting the M & M’s in a bag of candy she was eating. She even said the words out loud. When studying food, while you’re cooking or grocery shopping, say the ingredients in Spanish. When passing by a clothing store, say the clothes out loud. When reading or listening to the weather report, say it in Spanish. You get the idea!

26. When you’re standing in line somewhere and are getting bored, and you see things you know the words for, think or mutter them to yourself. Prices, objects, food, clothes the person in front of you is wearing, anything - describe what you see - in Spanish! Standing in line doesn’t have to be so boring anymore!

27. Speaking of standing in line, have a packet of flashcards with you when you go to the bank, the store, doctor’s office, anywhere else with lines or waiting times - and whip those card out while you’re waiting! One student said she has a slow computer, so she keeps flashcards near her computer to look at while the computer is booting or loading a website.

28. One student when studying adjectives flipped through a magazine and described the people in the magazine. This is great for other vocab too - question words, clothes, weather, tourism, professions, food... Visual stimulation often helps people - magazines are a good visual stimulation!

29. Check out and read Spanish children’s books from the local library. As always, focus on what you can understand, and try not to get discouraged by what you don’t understand. By looking at the pictures, and repeated words you know or may need to look up, you can probably figure out what is generally going on, and reinforce or learn new words. Picture dictionaries also help stimulate the brain!