During my 11 years of teaching Spanish, more than once students complained, “Señorita, I took this class for an easy A. I’m getting a B. What’s wrong with this picture?”

That question angered me at first. Learning a language is difficult. It’s something that take serious study and countless hours of listening, speaking, and writing. Why would anyone think it’s easy? Then it dawned on me that there are programs that promise that you can learn a language in a month! two weeks! Take this course, and you’ll be speaking Italian! It’s true. You’ll have a starting point. But it’s an entirely different thing to retain the knowledge over a period of time and constantly practice.

My brightest and best memories are of teaching the classes that few of my colleagues had patience for: beginning levels. For me as a teacher, those were the most rewarding classes. The students came into Spanish 101 knowing how to say “Hola. Cerveza. Yo quiero Taco Bell. ¿Dónde está el baño?” And they left with the ability to form complete thoughts in present tense, some past tenses, and knowing how make some future constructions. But those who asked me that question very often were the ones who cared about their grades and actually learning. They put the required time in and reaped the benefits. I did notice that some needed to realize that learning a language is a different aptitude than just memorizing parts of speech and vocabulary.

So we broke learning language down and created a formula that worked for them. Once they unlocked that formula and went beyond the basics of memorization and wrote learning, they could go on to retain much more than someone who was just in it for the semester. There was never one formula that worked for all students. It depended on their situation, what type of learner they were, what resources they had at hand. If it came easier to them after unlocking that formula, then that’s another matter.

So no matter what you are learning, whether it be a language, math, science, html coding, if the basics aren’t working for you, go beyond the basics and find your personal formula. Here are some of the questions I would ask my students to help them realize their potential (which is really what teaching is all about):

1. What do you hope to gain from learning Spanish?

2. How can you practice to achieve that goal?

3. Realistically, how much time do you have on a daily basis?

4. What resources do you already have at hand? (Because we’re talking about students, free or already owned resources were a must.)

5. Who do you know that can help you achieve your goal?

6. What are the basics of this lesson and how can you break it down into more digestible chunks?

7. Where and when do you learn/remember the most?