Tips for teachers of Spanish ELE<

Tips for teachers of Spanish ELE

My name is Salvador Alemany and recently I finished my course for teachers of Spanish ELE.
The course was on-line because i live in Denia, a nice village in the East coast of Bilbao. It is a bit far so it was not possible to take a personal course in a class.

It has been 10 years now that i am giving Spanish courses to foreigners, normally to pensioners from England and Germany that are planning to live in White Coast, attracted by our Mediterranean climate, the fine prices and the relaxed way of life.

From my personal experience, for those who speak other languages apart from theirs, learning Spanish is much easier but if they don´t, learning another language seems more difficult, especially when you have a certain age.

I also know cases where they give too much attention in grammar or in speaking perfectly. Many of them get tired and finally they quit. So you should try to be able to communicate but often it doesn`t have to be in the most correct way.

My recommendation for the future ELE teachers is to have a lot of patience and to repeat things many times. Try not to go too fast and to spend some time in practicing every new thing you teach. Nothing should be taken for granted. Also make sure that your teaching is entertaining and fun. In my class i recreate many daily situations of the real life where the students can get involved.

Apart from Spanish courses, i also teach English to a union of unemployed workers and I have a big variety of students. The truth is that thanks to the ELE course i have a more communicative vision while teaching. I also think that without the appropriate grammatical tools, i wouldn`t be able to communicate with the same confidence and certainty.

So due to my way of teaching languages, it is better to teach well the grammar first and as soon as the students understand it is time to implement it.
My e-mail is salvadoralemany@hotmail.com in case that any Spanish student wants to ask me something or if you would like to speak some day in skype. It would be a pleasure for me to help you.