Nargués Aghazadeh – Spanish Tutor

In my Spanish lessons, I follow the curriculum of Instituto Cervantes, which is the most important organization in charge of teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language. The Instituto Cervantes also follows the indications of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The CEFR establishes 6 different levels in the study of any foreign language: A1-A2 (beginning levels), B1-B2 (intermediate levels) and C1-C2 (advanced levels).

All my Spanish lessons are designed according to the needs and goals of my students. Before designing my lessons, I take some time to get to know my students and ask them about their goals and interests. I also want to know very well the reasons why my students want to learn Spanish. Learning Spanish to pass an official exam such as DELE or SIELE is not the same as learning Spanish to live in a Spanish-speaking country or to go on vacation. It will be the needs and objectives of my students that will determine what kind of lessons we will have: lessons more focused on academic learning or more communicative ones, in which they will learn the language to be able to face daily situations. In addition, before each lesson, I provide my students with the content that we will work on. This way, they can study the theory by themselves. In class, I will answer all the questions they may have, and we will focus on working on the practical part. This maximizes students’ performance as well as the time spent practicing the language.

The students’ progress is also measured according to the goals they have for learning Spanish. Case 1: The student  learns Spanish to live in a Spanish-speaking country, or travelling for vacations: the progress will be evaluated in each lesson, measuring their performance in dealing with daily situations, through role plays. In these cases, learning will be carried out through short tasks and then a final task will be carried out. For example: If we are going to study the subject of health: Short task 1 – Lexicon: parts of the body + names of the most important diseases. Short task 2 – Grammar: verb doler + 2nd person singular present subjunctive. Short task 3 – functional language: make a phone call to make an appointment with the doctor. Final task: role game – making an appointment, going to the doctor and explaining your symptoms. Following the doctor’s instructions. Bonus: vocabulary related to the remedies for the most common diseases + buying medicine at the pharmacy. Case 2: The student is studying for an official DELE, SIELE, IGCSE, etc. exam. In this case, the student’s performance will be evaluated with examples of real exams that will help him both to prepare for his exam and to evaluate his knowledge of both the language and the exam that he is going to take.

The materials I use in my lessons will be designed and chosen with the needs and goals of the student in mind. For students who learn the language for academic reasons or for official exams, real exam models and textbooks will be used, which will predominantly follow a communicative method. In addition, real texts that encourage students’ critical thinking will be used. For students who intend to learn the language for real, everyday use, materials designed to deal with everyday life situations will be used. In both cases, the classes will always be complemented with games whose objective is for the student to speak and use the language in a real and fun way. Highly visual materials will always be used so that the understanding of the target language is carried out without the need to translate or use a support language in the lessons, whenever possible.

The best way to help the students reach their long-term goals is to break those goals into smaller bits and gradually move up the ladder until they achieve their objectives. When the students break up goals into smaller bits, I also suggest they have checkpoints at the end of each bit. The student can tick a checkpoint when they have achieved the goal for that particular checkpoint. While setting goals, I also brainstorm the potential obstacles. If students don’t plan for obstacles, they can derail motivation, making language learning more difficult.

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