Posts Tagged ‘Spanish’

How you Can Learn Spanish Better Through the Arts

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Do you want to learn Spanish and enjoy yourself at the same time? There are many ways to do this. If you’re a person who enjoys the arts, a good way to learn Spanish is to take pleasure in the arts of Spanish speaking countries.

There is a great deal of very good literature that comes from Spanish cultures. You can go to the libraries in cities and even larger towns to find Spanish literature in its original language. Ask the librarian or do a search in the computerized catalog under Spanish language writers.

If you take time to learn Spanish to a certain extent before you try this, you will have the best results. This is a practice that is mainly meant to improve already existing language skills. After you check out a book that seems interesting, begin to try reading it. You will come to words and phrases you don’t understand.

This is when it is good to have someone who will help you learn Spanish by answering your questions. If you don’t have someone like that, you can sometimes get into a discussion group, whether in person or on-line. This is also a good way to learn Spanish culture because there are novelists and poets from virtually every Spanish speaking country.

Another way to learn Spanish through the arts is by watching Spanish language movies. One way to learn which movies are good is to find out which have been nominated to win foreign language Academy Awards. There have been some very moving and sometimes funny movies that have been acknowledged.

When you watch the movies, there are often subtitles. Don’t take these words as an exact translation. They usually are just an approximation, and sometimes not even that. As you listen carefully to the words, you will find the subtitles hilarious at times in their inaccuracies. Watching a movie gives you context for language and makes it easier to learn Spanish.

Even Spanish language television, although perhaps a lower form of art, can help you to learn Spanish as well. The nice thing about television is that there is a constant supply of programs. You can watch and learn Spanish every day.

There are different types of programs. There are many Spanish soap operas. This might not be the type of program you would normally watch. However, you will find a lot of common usages that will help you learn Spanish. There are also dramas, game shows, and even sit-coms.

People who aren’t even trying to learn Spanish have been doing it for years through listening to Spanish language songs. The trick is to find a song that has lyrics clear enough to understand completely. Then, sit down with a recorder and tape the song.

Once you have the song recorded, you can go through it a phrase at a time. Write down each phrase as you hear it. Then use the Spanish you know along with your Spanish-English dictionary to translate it. Pretty soon you will learn Spanish from the song enough to sing it as you work.

If you learn Spanish better through the arts, you will have enhanced your language skills while gaining a deeper understanding of life. After all, that’s what the arts are all about.

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Learning Spanish Part Eighteen: The Direct Method Of Language Instruction

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

Realizing that The Grammar Translation Method of second language instruction did not work to impart spoken proficiency in the target language, in the late 1800’s, The Direct Method surfaced in language instruction. The need for a system that worked to teach spoken competence is what drove those to create The Direct Method. What it entailed was methods of language acquisition that were more closely related to how first (native) languages were acquired. The main goal was to teach how to think in the second language and move as far away as possible from the harmful grammar-first approach. It did not seek to make constant references to one’s first or native language, as does The Grammar Translation Method.

The Direct Method brought a new wave of thought into second language teaching. The shift in philosophy of second language education led its proponents to believe that all instruction should be taught in the target language with no translation into the learner’s native tongue. The emphasis was in forming connections between meaning and the second language being learned. One of the major and famous advocates of The Direct Method was Charles Berlitz. His schools still employ this method and are famous worldwide.

The basic idea was to learn to think in the language one wanted to learn. This was to be done without relating the learner’s first language to the second language at all. Through the use of picture and pantomime, meaning was to be conveyed. The objective was to make links between meaning and the target language. If you were shown a picture of a cat, the word c-a-t in English would not be used to help you learn that in Spanish, the word is gato. The picture would convey the meaning of the word spoken by the teacher.

A problem with The Direct Method is that it met with opposition in public schools that are governed by strong political forces. Second language learning, for communicative purposes, was never popular in education and especially in mainstream America. Budgets, time, classroom size, and teacher incompetence were all cited reasons for sending The Direct Method into decline in the public eye. It is still employed in private schools.

It is the basis for The Audiolingual Method of Second Language Instruction.

NEXT: The Audiolingual Method