Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

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Cainntear
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby Cainntear » Sun Aug 21, 2016 10:30 am

Stefan wrote:The point I was trying to make is that you spend a lot of hours (I believe MT is about 21 hours) listening and afterwards I wasn't sure what I really knew. I felt like I lacked the fundamental grammar tables that you can get from any textbook at a glance. It's been a few years since I went through the course so it's possible that my memory is clouded by the frustration I felt at the time.

That's the interesting thing -- it teaches you a lot, but doesn't do it in as conscious a way as most courses. There's something reassuring about explicit grammar tables, because it's a thing you can point at and say "I know that," but there's a big difference between being able to describe a language point and being able to use it. Thomas goes straight for the latter, and if you're used to being able to list "what I know" then you're going to be uncomfortable with it.


PeterMollenburg wrote:I don't see an issue with overlap with courses as I believe we get a massive amount of repetition in native content (TV for example) in conversations and so on.

I think you're comparing apples and oranges here. Repetition of content is not the same as repetition of presentation of content.

Repetition is good and necessary. When using courses you're not necessarily going to retain something you come across the first time.

True, but there's a problem: when you look at something you've seen before, you're likely to think "I know this" and stop paying attention. The only way to stop the "I know this" feeling is to be shown you're wrong, and only then have it re-explained. For the self-teacher, that means doing exercises with corrections available and then looking back at the rules when you make mistakes.

Still if one did 10 hours a day then progress would be quick enough I'd think, but I could be wrong.

There are very few people on the planet who could handle 10 hours a day without burning out. You would need to be following the world's best planned, most engaging course to succeed.



Cavesa wrote:Tutor can be very useful for speaking and writing practice and feedback, yes, that is extremely true and paying one for these purposes is a good idea.

But not so much for explaining the tasks (which is a more important role in some more advanced exams with tons of formal stuff to take into account. B1 writing genres and speaking situations are explained and given examples of everywhere) or the exam in general, which many tutors love to waste hours on. Not for tasks including multiple choice answers and such, a key to exercises suffices here, another favourite.

Well that all depends on the tutor. A good tutor is invaluable for exam technique. When I'm prepping students for Cambridge English exams, I spend a lot of time on getting them to talk through the process of completing the task -- what is the goal? what are you being tested on? what clues in the question help you find the answer? I've seen very few prep materials that go into that sort of depth, and it is something that is very hard to put down on paper because there needs to be space to react to what the student says. (The best prep material I've seen was actually for the City & Guilds English exam.)

From my experience, being repeatedly corrected a mistake is worthless without the student taking a grammar book and studying on their own.

The problem here is too much explicit correction and re-explanation. Students should be correcting their own errors wherever possible -- the tutor should be giving just enough feedback to allow this to happen, and that should require less and less information each time. Ideally a good tutor should get to the point where raising one eyebrow is enough to get students to correct themselves.

And I totally don't think any tutor would say "What learning materials does the person have? Assimil, Michel Thomas, French in Action, the book 501 Spanish verbs? Good stuff but let's add some websites and other tools.". Instead it would be "What is Assimil? What is Michel Thomas? Oh, and you don't need an explicit verbbook. Let's go through my favourite classroom series instead and I'll give you personally copies from other books to supplement it." Which usually leads to using crappy courses, worse organisation of the learning process, and more dependence on the teacher, without necessarily leading to better results.

If you go to a tutor for exam prep and they propose a course book, then they're not doing exam prep -- they're more interested in teaching the language, and you should find another teacher who's willing to just focus on exam technique.

There really is nothing wrong with a teacher who follows an exam prep book, as long as they are genuinely adding something -- clarifying doubts and helping you automise the process.

I may be a bit controversial here, but I don't think FSI (except for the pronunciation drills) is a good course now. Not cefr labeled, very intensive yet with curriculum not necessarily teaching the B1 exam stuff.

Also mind-numbingly repetitive and mechanical, and pretty roundly rejected by experts as ineffective in learning to use a language. I really don't get why so many people here are so keen on it.
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby emk » Sun Aug 21, 2016 11:17 am

Cainntear wrote:
Cavesa wrote:Tutor can be very useful for speaking and writing practice and feedback, yes, that is extremely true and paying one for these purposes is a good idea.

But not so much for explaining the tasks (which is a more important role in some more advanced exams with tons of formal stuff to take into account. B1 writing genres and speaking situations are explained and given examples of everywhere) or the exam in general, which many tutors love to waste hours on. Not for tasks including multiple choice answers and such, a key to exercises suffices here, another favourite.

Well that all depends on the tutor. A good tutor is invaluable for exam technique. When I'm prepping students for Cambridge English exams, I spend a lot of time on getting them to talk through the process of completing the task -- what is the goal? what are you being tested on? what clues in the question help you find the answer? I've seen very few prep materials that go into that sort of depth, and it is something that is very hard to put down on paper because there needs to be space to react to what the student says. (The best prep material I've seen was actually for the City & Guilds English exam.)

When I was preparing for the DELF (B1 originally, but I ended up sitting the B2), I contacted a bunch of tutors. The first several were completely useless. But I eventually stumbled upon a woman with a master's degree in language education who had previously helped administer DELF and DALF exams at the Alliance française. She knew exactly what skills I was supposed to be able to demonstrate, she knew how the exams were graded, and she'd already helped other students pass the exams.

I still did most of the studying and learning on my own. But for a typical lesson, she might email me 30 minutes beforehand with an oral exam topic. When the lesson started, I had to present an opinion on the topic and defend it. Then she'd ask me questions and force me to defend my ideas. Along the way, she'd type notes and corrections into Skype.

Then afterwards, she'd tell me things like, "This is supposed to be structured presentation. You need to summarize the viewpoints in the original text first, present your viewpoint with a summary of your arguments, and then elaborate on each argument before giving your conclusion. I need to be able to follow your structure without getting confused about where you're going." Or, "During your oral presentation, I expect you to use the subjunctive at least once, and concordance des temps at least once. You really ought to know both at the B2 level, and your examiner is going to be looking for evidence of 'grammatical complexity'. Show off some of the verb forms you know, and you'll get those points." Or, "You're overusing simple words, and not using more precise words that you know."

Honestly, it was kind of drill-sargenty. But it was invaluable, because it forced me learn how to justify an idea in French, how to BS coherently and stall for time, and how to react to questioning. I've used all those skills ever since.

I've had other good sessions with tutors. Before a French startup conference in NY, I tried a couple of iTalki tutors. As usual, the first few were useless. But then I found a guy who got it—I told him, "I want you to ask questions about my business, about the services I offer, and why you should choose me instead of the competition." He immediately understood what I wanted, and we did a couple of hours of role-play over a couple of sessions. So when these questions came up in life, I'd already dealt with them before, and I'd rehearsed typical responses.

If somebody has only a few months to prepare for a CEFR exam that's far above their current level, I think that this kind of specialized tutor can help identify weak points, point out opportunities to pick up "free" points, and help the student to fully internalize the structure of a high stakes exam so that they don't waste time figuring out the format once the clock is running. If you can afford the price, this kind of third-party feedback is probably worth more than an extra 6 hours staring at exam prep books. If you have a lot riding on an exam, then you want every possible advantage.

But of course, each time, I had to try at least 3 different tutors before finding somebody like this. Shop around.
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby s_allard » Sun Aug 21, 2016 11:57 am

I can't for the life of me understand why someone who passed a C2 exam with the help of a tutor continuously makes such disparaging and discouraging remarks about tutors. Was there something traumatic about the tutoring experience? I'm sure there are lots of bad tutors out there but considering that one has a vast choice and in many cases one can have a sample session cheaply, one can surely find the right one.

I think a good tutor can make all the difference in the world. I've given all sorts of reasons but let me add one more. It's fun to interact with a real person. Language is about communicating with people. With all this talk about this method, that method and how many hours a day of studying I wonder if we're not forgetting that the B1 exam will attempt to assess your ability to perform in the language. What better way to see how you're progressing than by having an expert opinion? Here is an official description of the DELE B1 oral exam. Sorry for the length:

Before starting the test, the examiner will ask you various information questions as a kind of introduction. You will not be graded on this. It just makes the situation more comfortable and helps to calm your nerves.

In the first part of the exam, you will answer a series of questions asked by the examiners. Remember, right from the start of the session, you will have to determine whether to use “usted” or “tu” with the examiners. During this part of the exam, they want to know if you are able to answer all of their questions with appropriate and wide ranging vocabulary, and if you understand what they’re saying, so don’t be afraid to ask.

In the second part of the exam, a situation is presented in which the student must know how to respond offering short questions or answers (like in a real-life situation, it’s not necessary to construct long, complex sentences). Here you also must show that you know the appropriate vocabulary to respond to the situation (which is always very general). The best part of this section of the exam is that there are no specific answers; there are many different ways to respond, and you have plenty of freedom to do so.

The third part of the exam involves observing images. The examiner will ask you various questions and you will describe the pictures one by one. Afterward you will tell the whole story told by the pictures. You must show that you are able to describe (in general terms, without going into fine details) the characters, situations, landscapes, etc. It’s important that you describe the pictures accurately, to show that you know what you’re explaining.

The fourth and final part of the exam is where you’ll have to describe your tastes and preferences based on the short story from the third section. It’s important to come to the exam with some general sentences that you’ve already prepared, this will help you to not get too nervous during testing.

It's clearly stated what you're supposed to be able to do. Can you do this now? No. So, what has to be done for you to get there? This is where the tutor comes in handy. For example, the fourth part of the test says that you'll have to describe your tastes and preferences based on the short story from the previous section. So, you work on this with your tutor who will point out various things to correct or add. The tutor will probably encourage to say things like en mi opinión, a mi modo de ver, a mi juicio to show that you know how to give opinions.

I don't see why people are making such a big deal out of all this. There's no need to beat around the bush. It's not rocket science. If you feel that you can do all this alone, fine. Or, if you feel that some outside help could make a difference, then get a good tutor.

PS: I wrote the above post before reading emk's own post on the subject. I want to echo what emk has written and apologize for my redundancies.
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby Cavesa » Sun Aug 21, 2016 7:31 pm

I was not advicing against getting a tutor, obviously some people answer to poster's name, not to the content of a post ;-) . I was simply pointing out extremely common mistakes, like relying on the tutor and their advice too much.

How can I warn against tutors so much: because the ratio of good ones and bad ones is not too favourable and I'd like others to avoid mistakes I had done in past. Even the tutor for the C2 left something to be desired, despite some of the qualities. The lower level ones, I had been using them years ago, were absolutely not worth even half the money they asked. As I already said several times, I have experienced only 3 really good tutors/teachers out of the 25 total so far, which is not that a small sample.

Thanks, Emk, these are good examples on how to use a tutor. A good thing to read, as so many people fall into the usual traps of using bad tutors (which are the huge majority, considering how many people go into tutoring languages just because they are natives and don't know what else to do with their lives, not because of being good at it) or relying on them too much, not doing much more than advised, leaving good quality resources.

I was not advicing against getting a tutor, quite the opposite considering the fact the OP is a first time learner. No need for this stupid strawman. I was just giving the honest advice that vast majority of the work needs to be done on one's own, noone will do it for the OP. Throwing money on the problem will not solve it.

I don't know why we are discussing this so much either. Simply anyone not working much more than what their tutor tells them is acting foolish, that is the take home message. You are taking the exam, not the tutor. And you are the one who wants to learn efficiently to save time, not the tutor, as they are paid by hour. Use them for things that are hard to do on one's own, don't waste your money on fill the gap exercises with them. :-)
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Aug 21, 2016 11:10 pm

emk wrote:A good tutor is invaluable for exam technique...........


As usual emk, extremely well said. Thank you for pointing out with such clarity the advantages of an excellent tutor.

Cavesa wrote:I was not advicing against getting a tutor, quite the opposite considering the fact the OP is a first time learner. No need for this stupid strawman. I was just giving the honest advice that vast majority of the work needs to be done on one's own, noone will do it for the OP. Throwing money on the problem will not solve it.

I don't know why we are discussing this so much either. Simply anyone not working much more than what their tutor tells them is acting foolish, that is the take home message. You are taking the exam, not the tutor. And you are the one who wants to learn efficiently to save time, not the tutor, as they are paid by hour. Use them for things that are hard to do on one's own, don't waste your money on fill the gap exercises with them. :-)


This I absolutely agree with Cavesa 100%. It is up to the OP to learn and really LEARN. Thus, in listing 5 very very good resources and suggesting they do it twice a day amounting to 10 hours it was somewhat in jest but mainly a serious comment demonstrating that the OP better be prepared to work hard. Cavesa is right, 10 hours is unrealistic, but aiming for it wouldn't hurt, at least for me. At the very least 5 hours a day I think would give some good evidence of progress. I listed quality courses, whether the OP would be best to use one solidly for hours on end or break it up with 3 courses, or 5, I guess depends on the person. I don't think the repetition would hurt, but perhaps there is a point there, particularly if 10 hours is unrealistic that one would be spreading themselves too thin and not advancing quickly enough with 5 courses. All in all it depends on the person, their capabilities, what will motivate them and so on.

s_allard wrote:I think a good tutor can make all the difference in the world. I've given all sorts of reasons but let me add one more. It's fun to interact with a real person. Language is about communicating with people. With all this talk about this method, that method and how many hours a day of studying I wonder if we're not forgetting that the B1 exam will attempt to assess your ability to perform in the language.


I'd like to conclude by saying. Thanks again to emk who said it so well (the value of a tutor) which was what s_allard was trying to tell me and was concerned I had not focused enough on in my recommendations for attempting to pass a B1 exam in a very short amount of time starting from scratch. s_allard you were right, I didn't put sufficient emphasis on the value of a good tutor. I must say though that I guess I'm going from my experience(s) with French. I passed a B1 exam with a sprinkling of conversational practise here and there and no I mean absolutely no exam tutoring, no teachers to prepare me in a class either, nothing, not even exam preperation materials (ie no exam prep. course/books/practise exams). It can be done without it, but I suspect the importance of an exam tutor grows in value the higher the level of the exam. Still I did say that as the OP wants to advance quickly that a tutor could be quite useful, I just think as Cavesa does that the OP better be prepared to work hard and that a tutor will likely nicely package the OP's knowledge together which will be more targeted to the exam itself. I'd be following my own advice were I wanting to pass B1 in 3 months without needing to work (ie have to attend my job/place of employment)- a LOT of course work, with a tutor on the side... still might not entirely agree s_allard but I think I've found peace ;)
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Aug 21, 2016 11:57 pm

....meanwhile.... where's the OP?
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby LadyGrey1986 » Mon Aug 22, 2016 3:32 pm

Learning Spanish?

Sorry PM ignore my silly joke
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby reineke » Tue Aug 23, 2016 12:12 am

Stefan wrote:It's definitely possible and just a few days ago I stumbled upon a project where a girl tried to go from zero to passing the German B1 exam in 14 days (8 hours scheduled first day). Unfortunately she fell ill and only got about 10 days of studying. Still, she got a decent result but failed writing/grammar. There's a playlist with videos of her but don't bother watching since it's unrelated and not worth your time.


The second project is described here:

B1 in 14 Days – II

https://smartergerman.com/german-language/how-to-learn-german-quickly/14-days-challenge/oops-i-do-it-again-b1-in-14-days/

The tutor advertises his regular courses here:

https://smartergerman.com/private-german-lessons/


"Duration: 2-3 months from A1 till B1
24 x 45mins tuition + 2hrs daily homework
No travel time
24 x 30mins conversation with native speaker
One on one only
97% chance to pass your B1 exam"
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby s_allard » Tue Aug 23, 2016 12:24 am

I looked at the video of the 14-day project. Totally awesome. It shows what dedication, discipline and working with a good tutor will do. And lots of money. This is tutoring on a whole different level. And the price reflects this.
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Re: Need to go from A0-->B1 Spanish in a few weeks

Postby s_allard » Tue Aug 23, 2016 4:27 am

reineke wrote:
The tutor advertises his regular courses here:

https://smartergerman.com/private-german-lessons/


"Duration: 2-3 months from A1 till B1
24 x 45mins tuition + 2hrs daily homework
No travel time
24 x 30mins conversation with native speaker
One on one only
97% chance to pass your B1 exam"


I should point out that the above course costs 5760 €. That's a pretty penny. A little bit of arithmetic tells us that there is 30 hours of contact (18 hours with teacher + 12 hours with a native speaker other than the teacher I guess). The price works out to 192 € an hour. But of course you're paying for a lot more than just 30 hours of speaking. This is obviously an upscale operation. This is far out of my league but it tells you what money could buy. What I like about this approach is the commitment and the continued support and encouragement. Wouldn't it be fabulous to have the opportuniity to meet virtually with someone four times a week on this rather difficult journey
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