Working with the Lesson Topics

The Lesson Topics are designed to help you learn essential language patterns in Spanish and to become proficient at applying them to your own speech. This section will examine topics such as the conjugation of Spanish verbs, the use of Spanish pronouns, and other topics of Spanish grammar or sentence construction.

By default, you will begin each lesson in the “Study Dialogue” tab. Click the "Lesson Topics" tab header, to open up the Lesson Topics section:

Lesson Format:

Each Lesson Topics section will begin with a written discussion of the topic or topics covered in that lesson:

For most topics, the written discussion will then be followed by a set of "Illustrations" which present several example sentences illustrating the pattern or topic being presented:

These same sentences will also presented on the audio file labelled "Illustrations":

Finally you will be presented with 2-4 audio files containing a series of Audio Drills designed to build and reinforce your proficiency in applying the specified pattern:

Working each topic:

We recommend proceeding through the following steps for each topic:

1. First, briefly read through the written description of the topic. Please note that the goal is not for you to memorize anything at this point. Simply read through the description in order to gain a basic understanding of the topic being presented.
2. After you read the written description, review the written Illustrations along with the Illustrations audio file. Examine each example carefully, making sure to take note of how each sentence applies the pattern being illustrated.
3. Finally, complete each of the included Audio Drills. The Audio Drills will allow you practice applying the specified pattern on your own.

While courses you may have taken in past probably required you memorize tables or lists, in this course you should focus most of your effort on successfully completing the audio drills.

Instead of trying to simply memorize rules in the abstract we want to focus our efforts on practicing these patterns in a manner that replicates live conversation as closely as possible. The Audio Drills are designed to help you do just that.

Types of Audio Drills:

There are 3 main types of Audio Drills:

Translation Drill - For the Translation Drills you'll be required to translate a passage from English into correct Spanish. On the audio you will hear the English sentence presented first, followed by a short pause, and then the correct translation in Spanish.

You should attempt to correctly translate each item aloud during the short pause between the prompt and the answer.

Substitution Drill - The Substitution Drills will require you to revise a sentence in Spanish by making certain changes to the original sentence.

The idea behind the substitution drill is to practice applying a specific language pattern to different people or situations, while making appropriate modifications.

Here is an example of a substitution drill from Lesson 3 on the topic "Number of Nouns and Adjectives":

Original sentence: Eso es una pluma. [This is a pen].
Prompt: Hotel.
Answer: Eso es un hotel. [This is a hotel].

The prompt asks us to substitute the word hotel for the word pluma. But because the word hotel is masculine, we also had change the word una to un in order to match the gender.

Response Drill - The Response Drills require the student to make an appropriate response to a particular prompt. Usually this will take place in question and answer format.

Note: The Audio Drills in this course are presented are designed to improve you ability to listen and speak orally and are presented in audio format only.

Why are the drills so fast?

One the issues that we frequently hear from students is that the audio drills are "too" fast - specifically that the pauses between each prompt and the correct answer not long enough for students to come up with the answer to each item in time.

While the pauses are indeed relatively short, this is quite intentional.

In order for you to maintain a fluid conversation in Spanish, it is important for you to develop the ability to respond relatively quickly. The audio drills have been designed to help you practice responding at a speed that is close to the pace of real-time conversation.

Your goal for each set of drill will be repeat each set until you can answer each item correctly in the time allotted.

Dont worry if you fail to answer any of the prompts correctly in the time provided on your first time through a particular drill. You will need to repeat each drill multiple times until you are able to answer each item correctly in the given time.

While this may seem tedious at first, this process has shown a much higher propensity to transfer to real conversation, compared students who only practice with un-timed drills.

We strongly recommend repeating each drill until you are able to answer each item correctly in the allotted time.

Recap:

Read the written discussion to familiarize yourself with the topic being presented and then use the Audio Drills to practice applying each pattern orally. Repeat the drills several times until you can answer each item correctly.