What we’re about
This group is for people wishing to learn Spanish to a high level of competency, especially if they have had trouble progressing in the past and are looking for a new way to improve.
The group workshops are hosted by Francis Collier and are free and open to anyone interested.
More information on paid lessons is available at the end of the workshop for anyone looking to improve further.
The 3 Step Process:
Step 1: The 12 Sounds.
In Spanish there are 12 new sounds that do not exist in English.
The first step in the process to fluency is to learn ALL of these sounds CORRECTLY.
If you don't know what all of these sounds are please be advised Francis Collier will take everyone through them in the workshop.
Step 2: Native Phrases.
Very often Spanish learners when presented with a native level conversation find it sounds "too fast" and they can't keep up.
Commonly there are two things that are going wrong in this step.
Reason 1. The 12 new sounds in Spanish have not been learnt and therefore the fundamental building blocks required are not there.
Reason 2. The student cannot recognise the Native Phrases used as they do not know them and have not practised recognising them. This can often happen because the student is still translating in their head from English.
What are Native Phrases?
They are combinations of words that are used so commonly in a language that they are squeezed together and said very quickly.
Think of the way someone might say “What do you want?” to their friend if they are in a drive through. It’s more like “wadayawan?”
It’s exactly the same in Spanish, there are many native phrases that native speakers say every day and practising to recognise these at speed is crucial in order to understand real conversation.
Note: Grammar, vocabulary and listening comprehension are also focused on as support study in this step.
Step 3: Real Conversations at Native Speed.
The third step is to practise in a conversation at REAL Native Speed.
Imagine learning to play baseball and spending hours reading books on base ball, watching and analysing old games but never playing a real game at real speed.
How long do you think it would take to get good?
This being a bad idea seems very obvious in the example above but it is so easy to do by falling into focusing on apps and books and movies and not focusing on this very important action of hours spent in real conversation.
So if you are interested in coming along and learning more about the process to Spanish fluency and how to improve your Spanish then please sign up for one of our workshops.
To sign up for the workshop go to the event page and click the on "Attend" button for the workshop link.
Good luck and we hope to see you soon.
As per meetup.com policy: Attendees under the age of 18 must have a guardian with them.
