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April 29, 2007

Learning Spanish For Adults

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Have you ever thought of learning Spanish but never had the time and right opportunity to do it? You don’t need to worry about “how” to actually do it but what you want to think about twice is if you really have the dedication and interest to learn the Spanish language.

Learning for adults does not come easy any longer compared to how children and teenagers learn. This is true because there is a certain point and range of interest and learning skills each age group has and as a person gets older, the ability to learn depreciates. Think about young children, learning a different language to them is easy as learning A,B,C’s.

Now the next question comes into mind…how do I learn a foreign language fast? We all know that it takes a while to learn new things. It also takes great enthusiasm and interest over something to be able to learn it well and apply it to normal day to day activities. Also, a good memory is built from a vivid event. Findings show that we tend to store in events or images that has a strong impact towards the senses in our memory. This is also why it’s recommended to imagine silly and outrageous images in learning foreign languages because the words can be easily remembered this way. A human brain can certainly not erase these images.

By now you should be able to realize that whatever you have seen ever since you were small is all still registered in your brain. So the next time you see something familiar, be aware that you haven’t completely forgotten what it is or what it is for but just that the image might have not been too interesting at the moment you saw it and in turn, didn’t alert your attention as you were absorbing it to your brain.

So to give you an example how pictures can create an impact in learning a foreign language, we’ll take the English word morning and ma

Learning Spanish: Begin By Listening - Part 1

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I remain convinced the primary reason why so many Americans are attracted to Mexico is in the Gringolandias, or Gringo Expat Enclaves, they will never be faced with what seems to be the overwhelming task of learning Spanish. The British, I am told, do the same thing in the south of France. An intricate and well-organized expat infrastructure awaits the would-be retiree and alleviates the fear of having to master the language. Everything is organized around the monolingual Gringo and negates any need whatsoever to learn Spanish.

Whether this is a good or bad thing is not within the scope of this series, “Begin By Listening.” I think the point is, and most of my readers would agree, if I am going to gripe and complain why something called a “Gringolandia” should even exist, then I should provide an answer or solution instead of criticizing all the time. I have been writing for years about how to go about overcoming the fear of learning Spanish. However, it wouldn’t hurt to go over it again, perhaps in a new and different light.

Two important advantages of learning Spanish, if you plan to retire to Mexico, are:

You could significantly increase your social standing and sense of community if you were able to socialize with more than the other gringos in the Gringolandias. In Southeast Asia, the locals used to call this phenomenon “Social Incest.” The Americans, mostly those in the Foreign Service, would live in American enclaves and only socialize with one another. Their ability to mix with the locals was non-existent because they didn’t know the languages. Unlike their then cold-war counterparts, the Russians, the American Foreign Service workers were then, as they are today, not required to have any language fluency nor develop it onsite. The Russians arrived onsite with bilingual and bicultural fluency. Fluency before arriving in the country&ndashimagine!

Without the language, your social involvement is severely limited to only those who speak English. That can and should change, in my view.

The other reason is that in the Gringolandias, the real estate for residential housing can cost much more than in your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Mexican neighborhoods. Not always is this true, but you will have an ability to ferret these deals out if you are bilingual.

April 28, 2007

Learning Spanish: Financing Your Spanish Education

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A couple of years ago, an American lady came to Guanajuato to learn Spanish. She enrolled in one of the most expensive schools in town. This school is good, by the way, and I always recommend it to people who want to come study Spanish in Guanajuato. This poor woman was a rank beginner. When she arrived, she was put in a class commensurate with her level; only the class was in the middle of the beginning class cycle.

In other words, when you enroll in a local, private Spanish school, you may not be put into a class that is exactly at the level at which you tested. If you are a rank beginner and need to be taught how to pronounce the Spanish alphabet and learn the phonetics, you will not necessarily land in a class with students at the same point as you. You will be put in a beginner’s class but at what point in the class cycle is in will depend on when you show up. It isn’t like beginning a language course at a university where day one, everyone begins at the same point and is studying the same material as the class proceeds.

This poor dear was totally lost. All the input she received in this beginning class was absolutely above and beyond her. There was no “comprehensible input” for her, although she was in a beginning class.

This is a total waste of your time and money. Wouldn’t you want to know that before you end up flushing your money down a Guanajuato Spanish School toilet?

The school she attended is not cheap. It is good and you pay for good.

What to Do

Come to Guanajuato expecting to become fluent at these Spanish schools and you will leave sorely disappointed. Before you spend a small fortune coming here expecting to become fluent, try to develop as much spoken fluency in Spanish as you can. You will get a better return on your money in a Guanajuato Spanish school if you do. And, don’t enroll in a classroom situation in the States. Do a home study course in the privacy of your home.

Commercially Available Products

Pimsleur Spanish

Rocket Spanish

Learning Spanish Like Crazy

Financing Your Spanish Adventure

If you check Ebay.com, you can often pick up all three levels of the Pimsleur Spanish course at a great discount. Then, you can turn around and sell them through Ebay.com to come up with the funds for Rocket Spanish and Learning Spanish Like Crazy.

I bought level one of Pimsleur Spanish, went through it, and then sold it so I could buy level two. I repeated the process until I got through level three of the Pimsleur course.

You can download both Rocket Spanish and Learning Spanish Like Crazy for about $97.00, burn it on your own CD’s, and you will have saved a considerable amount rather than buying them wholesale. These companies actually encourage you to do this.

You will end up with a tremendous amount of Spanish by going through these courses first. Then, you will be prepared for a stint in Guanajuato studying or just hanging out. You will do well with your Spanish.

Look, visiting central Mexico is not a breeze. It is not designed for Gringo comfort, as are Puerto Vallarta and other resorts. You are not going to find a covey of resort staff hovering over you to make you have a good time.

Central Mexico is real Mexico and you will see and hear things that might shake you to your soul if you are not prepared.

So, tell me, what’s better…to hear the truth or come here and find out you may have flushed a lot of money down the toilet. You can’t count the cost and be willing to pay the price if you don’t know what that cost is.

Those who count the cost and are willing to pay the price will not be those who go back home after vacationing in Mexico and mean-mouth the city they visited. After all, they knew what to expect BEFORE coming.

And, that’s why I write what I do.

April 27, 2007

Learning Style Exercise Help Identify Root Causes For Learning Disabilities

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Identifying the deep and underlying causes of learning disabilities doesn’t have to be difficult. A “Learning Style Exercise helps bring to the surface potential causes for many common learning disabilities including dyslexia (difficulty understanding words, sentences, or paragraphs), dyscalculia (difficulty solving mathematical problems and grasping mathematical concepts, and auditory and visual processing disabilities. There are many other disabilities as well that affect people from all walks of life. The important thing is that these learning disabilities often are masked behind weak cognitive skills.

The exercise can pinpoint exactly what cognitive skill is weak, and will give a qualified tutor the knowledge they need to create a plan of action to help the student strengthen the weak skill. Working on strengthening weak cognitive skills will dramatically increase effectiveness of the individual when it comes to learning. Simply, if a student is compensating for weak cognitive skills by relying on his or her strong cognitive skills, a “Learning Styles Exercise” will reveal this underlying pattern and allow for corrective action.

Studies have revealed that more than 80% of learning struggles come from weak underlying cognitive mental skills. That is why cognitive based testing, like a “Learning Styles Exercise”, is the most proven and effective way to start someone on the path to improved learning.

With a learning style exercise the main focus is on the main processing areas in the brain. A scoring system is used by quality testing and learning centers to help better identify potentially weak or strong skills. Higher scores in a certain area typically will mean they are a root cause for a learning issue. The processes focused on in this exercise include attention, processing speed, auditory processing, visual processing, and logic and reasoning.

Here are your instructions so you can conduct a small sample “Learning Styles Exercise”: “Compared to kids the same age and gender, this behavior occurs _________ in my son or daughter.” Rank each statement on a scale of “0” to “4” as follows: (0) less often OR doesn’t apply at this age; (1) at about the same frequency; (2) slightly more; (3) considerably more; or (4) significantly more. You would rank where your child stands on topics such as attention, processing speed, auditory processing, memory, visual processing, and logic. Each of those main categories would have a variety of sub categories that you would work from.

After you are done you would add up each category. A score of 6 or below would suggest a normal range for that particular skill set, scoring 7 to 9 points out potential weaknesses, 10 to 11 shows a likely weakness, and 12 or above suggests a significant weakness.

Once you have conducted your own assessments it is important to go to a qualified learning center for a more thorough assessment of your child’s particular situation.

Learning Styles - The All-Essential Guide.

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People have different learning styles, and it sure can be very helpful to identify your own. Although a number of people can use enough learning styles to be able to fare pretty well in school, there are some people who have different strengths and weaknesses in different area.

For instance, a person with a visual learning style is likely to do very well when looking at diagrams, pictures, or text in a book. Visual learning styles might even have a photographic memory in some cases, which will allow them to remember practically anything at all that they have seen even once. Although all of the different learning styles have their advantages and disadvantages, visual learners are perhaps best adapted to a standard education environment.

For sure, the auditory learning style is also relatively essential for classroom achievement, and students who can not learn auditorily are very often at quite a disadvantage when in the traditional classroom setting. The fact is auditory learners do their best work when either listening to instruction, or taking in information through their ears. Of all of the learning styles, auditory learners tend to order things most sequentially, their memories having the habit of cuing themselves up to the sequence of sounds.

If you are a kinesthetic learner, you may be in for trouble when you are dealing with the public school system, as you will not be able to grasp through visual and auditory learning styles &ndash the two most important styles in modern education. In the case of kinesthetic learners, a person would preferably like to get things through touch and texture, through actually moving and doing something rather than absorbing it passively. Those who have this learning style in fact do quite well as mechanics, construction workers, or artists, as they are so thoroughly cued in to issues of touch. Of all of the learning styles, they have the best grasp of the physical world &ndash it just simply comes intuitively for them.

If you are thinking about your learning style, or perhaps of your child who might be holding him or her, or you back, it is surely best to get them evaluated by a competent education consultant. There are several people who are skilled at testing learning styles, and might be able to help you find more effective ways to learn your lessons, which in turn will greatly improve your educational opportunities. The educational system is taught as if there were only one way to learn, but in reality it is much different than that. There are a number of learning styles, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Learning Survival French Before Traveling To France

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Will you be traveling to France in the near future? Are you ready to meet the locals? If you think you are not yet equipped the best way you should be before going on a leisure or business trip to France, at least bring French survival phrases with you. It won’t be much but it will help you get through to the calm but fun personalities of the local French.

You may not know it yet, but traveling to France requires you more than just what you need to say during your stay. Most French locals do know how to speak English but there is really no point in making them especially if you are the tourist. They may speak English but only during moments they feel comfortable. Arm yourself with anything that could possibly come up during your trip by learning few phrases that are used mostly by tourists who doesn’t speak French very well.

Phrases like Excuse moi, parlez-vous anglais? (Excuse me, do your speak English?), Merci Beucoup (Thank you very much), Sil vous plait (Please) are few of the phrases that will allow you to reach out to French locals. Most of the local people knows how to speak English so asking nicely should be your primary approach.

As a tourist and knowing that you don’t know anything about the streets and bars, look comfortable but also dress elegant enough because it is how you should appear in a city like Paris. Hang out on bars and enjoy the food as you eat. If a local French person comes up to you and engages you in a conversation, don’t be nervous. As a matter of fact, the more you become friendly with them regardless your inability to speak French, you will still get a warm and friendly smile.

There are so many things that you need to learn and get to know first before traveling to France. It isn’t very important to learn all of the French words as it will not be useful at all times. Pack your things and only with the important French words that you will be using during your trip. Also, research more about the locale’s way of living to learn how you can react better to emergency circumstances.

April 25, 2007

Learning Through Correspondence

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Correspondence in the case of distance learning would be any instructional material in a printed format which has been sent to the student. Why is correspondence or the printed word still the medium that is most commonly used? It’s probably because once the materials have been sent to a student, he can read it at his leisure anywhere. He does not need to be near a computer or a phone and doesn’t need to be Internet-connected. If there is supplementary material sent, it is usually meant to enhance and add to the printed material. This could be in the form of audio or video tapes, CD-ROMs or DVDs.

How exactly is this correspondence put together? It takes quite a bit of doing to put the material together. First of all, there’s a lot preparation involved. Some person who is qualified to do so has to put together the document which has to go out to all the students of that particular course. The person who puts together the document has to do the research for that particular topic, collate all the material and assemble it into a document, image or a chart. After the material is put together, the final version is duplicated, packed and sent off to the students for whom this is the instructional media.

What is the advantage that distance learning or correspondence has? The main advantage is probably the fact that the students do not need access to a computer or to a network in order to be a part of a learning environment. It can also act as a supplement to another learning media. What is also great is that there is no question of location or time constraints. Students can read, review and re-read at their own convenience and at their own pace. There are no classes to attend, no time schedules to follow.

Distance learning does come with a few limitations as well. One of then is that once the document has been sent off, the information cannot be updated unless it goes back to the preparation, packing and delivery routine. This can mean additional time and costs and sometimes works out to a considerable amount being spent. And of course, courses like these do limit them to a faceless learning which does not give them the benefit of instructors teaching them.

All said and done, correspondence is great way to impart knowledge across time and distances. This is especially relevant when the material is not likely to need updating. For example, in case studies, the details stay the same and even if there are changes, it will not change the facts of the case as far as the past goes, but just add a new scenario to the case as far as the present and future go. Correspondence also works well if it is used to describe a topic or when it is used for narration. It is also great for students when they have to practice, like math problems or learn a speech or poem by rote.

Learning To Play Guitar Can

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Learning to play guitar is a tough job. To learn playing guitar properly, you need an efficient coach, someone who would teach you all the varied lessons and how to pick a note and play a tune. You might wanna play the tune of “Hotel California” by the Eagles. Well, wait no more the perfect guitar coach for you is right here. It’s Jamorama with its 26 jam tracks to jam along and there are lots more. All the styles of music including rock, jazz, country, hip-hop, blues, and dance are being covered in the lessons. The lessons are designed such as to make your guitar learning speeds like a rocket.

There are also video lessons. The number of the video lessons is 148. The creator of the kit Jamorama is Ben Edwards. He was a former lead guitarist of the band “DegreesK”. He went to tours with this band in many countries. These days he is working as a dedicated guitar teacher. Jamorama is designed to be multimedia course for fast and effective guitar learning experience. There are also step-by-step instructions to let you learn to recognize the notes from a song and then to be able to play the song later.

People want to learn guitar for many reasons. The reason could be just urging for playing a musical instrument. It also could be the reason that guitar does make you look sexier. And of course another reason is to be a star. Whatever the reason is your entire target is to learn to play guitar. The perfect kit for guitar learning is Jamorama. It has a fun process of learning. The lessons are rich and the gaming software used to teach notes are amazingly helpful. Also adds up to all these are fast learning.

The learning kit is also designed for each level at mind. No matter you are a beginner or an expert, you might be in the intermediate level, this guitar learning kit has something to offer to you. The quality of the guitar playing courses and books isn’t quite satisfying. This is a new way of learning guitar with step-by-step instructions and this is fast learning in a fun way. There are video clips to make the lesson more functioning. There are games designed to fast track users’ learning.

The Jayde Musica and GuitearIt are the software for gaming and these games help you to learn how to read music and how to be music transcriber.

The Beginners’ Guitar E-course is given free from the website. More than 97% of the learners claim that learning guitar was discovered to be tougher than they thought. The website for Jamorama, states that there is no need for any other books, the ultimate guitar learning kit is sold in the market. The information is presented in an easy way to follow statements. The learning time also depends on the learner’s capability, if the learner is capable of taking the load or not. Using Jamorama really helps you to learn guitars.

Learning The Alphabet And Language Of Spain

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The Spanish alphabet only has three more letters than the English alphabet, ch (che), ll (elle) and n (ene). All three letters simply follow the letter from the English alphabet which starts with the same or similar letter. The Spanish alphabet is as follows: a,b,c,ch,d,e,f,g,h,I,j,k,l,ll,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z.

However, there is some controversy over the letters “w” and “k” due to their similar language origin. No Spanish words contain the letters “w” and “k” unless added through translation. Also, the letter “rr” is used in some versions of the Spanish alphabet when the “r” is rolled.

A Spanish dictionary may add to the confusion regarding the inclusion or exclusion of certain letters. For example, older dictionaries may list all words containing “ch” after all words beginning with “c” while new versions list the “ch” words in alphabetical order as with the English language. On the contrary, this is opposite when referring to the letter “n.” This change occurred in 1994.

To add more confusion, some letters may not be part of the official alphabet but are created by adding accents to the letters. For example, adding accents to the vowels o, e or u alter their pronunciation and, consequently, their meaning. These accented vowels are not included in the alphabet separately. Though other languages may add these accented vowels separately, when learning the Spanish language you must simply remember the variants of these vowels when accented.

If you speak English, you already know some Spanish words since these languages are both based on the Romance language. Though the spelling may be different, the pronunciation is almost identical with only the accent differing the words. For example, the word “baby” in English is pronounced similar to the Spanish word “bebe.” As you see, though, the spellings are different.

Once you have a good grasp on the Spanish alphabet, you will be ready to begin learning the language for your next trip. The residents of Spain welcome travelers and will be flattered at your attempts to communicate with them in their language. Also take some time to learn about the Spanish culture. This will make your trip even more enjoyable. You will find, though, that in the larger more tourism-based areas, everyone also speaks English. But, do not let that discourage you from improving your Spanish speaking skills. Keep practicing and be prepare for your next trip to Spain!

Learning The Spanish Language On Your Own

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Learning a new language can get you just close enough on how to speak like a Spanish native. But, no matter how much you like to become one, the thing is, you wont become like a native Spanish speaker unless you have many years spent in studying it and experiences to relate yourself to. If you are really on the brink of giving up hope just because you think there is no better way you can learn the Spanish language and to become a good speaker, then its time you should take on Spanish language immersion seriously.

However, you can start teaching yourself how to become a native Spanish speaker by plainly teaching yourself. There wouldn’t be any other way around learning the Spanish easier for transition but to apply it daily. It sounds really difficult and could get really in your nerves especially when you are starting from scratch. But learning this way is a good training method for you which also means, its a good form of learning for everybody who prefers to learn by themselves.

When you get down to learning the things that you want to say, it’s most effective to sort your ideas according to what purpose you want to use it for. This way, your learning phase doesn’t get cluttered up by the different areas of the Spanish grammar and vocabulary.

The cutting edge benefit you will get from learning Spanish on your own, and by this, it means you should include your grandparents too (since language learning doesn’t have age limit), is you have so many sources to use to confirm one information after the other. Plus, the unlimited sources that can be obtained from the Internet are almost as good as taking Spanish classes inside a classroom. Just make sure though that you implement everything that you learn from the online courses and free Spanish learning materials to practice because after everything has been said and done, your proficiency is still measured by how often you have practiced.

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