Learning another language is not always the easiest task and it can even be frustrating.
Learning a language, like learning to play a musical instrument or a new sport requires constant practice and commitment to see long-term results.
Although some people find learning a language relatively easy it does not mean the rest of us cannot learn too. After 17 years of teaching Spanish we know that everyone can learn to speak Spanish no matter what.
How Does The “Me Gusta” Method Work?
Our methodology has been tried and tested on thousands of students of different nationalities, ages, and educational backgrounds. It has proven to give excellent results. In teaching our students we have identified what characteristics are important to them to learning. They are:
Each class is pre-planned and organized according to the needs and prior abilities of each student. Our method of total immersion is divided into two parts:
The first part is theoretical, where we explain and practice grammar topics following a logical order and according to the level of difficulty and importance of each topic.
The second part is practical, where activities such as reading, songs, games, real life situations, and cultural notes, allow us to carry out cognitive processes that lead to the appropriation of the language.
How do we learn a new language?
There are countless theories and “formulas” that promise to learn any language in a short time and with little effort, the truth is that learning a language like Spanish should be a conscious and disciplined activity.
Have you ever wondered how babies learn? The human brain is surprising. Babies learn by interaction with others, for example, with their parents or older siblings, with whom they relate sounds to an object or an idea, imitating and babbling sounds that produce a reaction in their environment.
Something you should know is that children and many adults do not know grammar in-depth, that is, they do not know the syntactic rules or the irregularities of the verbs, they only speak the language and that’s it.
An effective way to remember new vocabulary is to make mental relationships, as happens with babies, you can relate words by sound or meaning, for example; The word “escoba” (broom) could be related to “Pablo Escobar” and his mustache that looks like a broom or the word “Viernes” which in English sounds like “Beer-nes” relating it to partying on a Friday. There are many words that you will surely want to memorize, just look for shortcuts to remember them.
The other method we recommend is to use “flashcards”. They are cards or pieces of paper with two sides. On one side you write the word you want to remember, and on the other, you can put an example or a drawing, we do not recommend just writing the translation as it is ineffective.