How to teach Spanish
I’m just wondering how the teachers here teach Spanish in their schools.
I remember I started… we started… learning sounds before anything/everything else. We would learn the vowels a, e, i, o, u, (y) and have to pronounce them. The teacher would point at John, and he would say, “a, e, I o, u”. Then it was Mary’s turn, and then maybe Pat’s turn, and then the whole class out loud. We sounded like a bunch of apes. I, OF COURSE, brought bananas and coconuts to class. I think we did this for a week and then we started on the consonants. That didn’t last long because it’s hard to pronounce a consonant without a vowel. So then it was consonants and vowels. Maybe this took three weeks total. Then we started to read. We could read perfectly, but we didn’t understand “a lick”… not a word, unless it was “es”, “transportación”, “hospital”, etc. Only then did we start to learn about verb conjugations, gerund, pronombres, articles, and all the other stuff.
I remember that it was especially hard for the girls to pronounce the “rr” and the initial “r”. It wasn’t so much of a problem for the boys because we had all played “army” when we were younger. For those who can’t guess, “rr” was the sound of a machine gun.
I laugh about it now (It was so “Mayberry”), but it was a very effective method to teach the language.
Is it still the same today?
6 Answers
The method I use is quite different.
We start out with expressions of greeting (saludos) good byes (despedidas) and introductions (presentaciones) as in "Felipe, te presento a Pablo." with the "mucho gusto" and "el gusto es mío" After the students can do reasonably well, we begin to analyse the expressions in terms of the sounds made. I explain how the Spanish vowel system is so easy compared to English, and tell them which consonants are different and how to go about pronouncing them. During the course I present over a period of time a detailed explanation, just a little bit at a time, of the various differences in the "why's" and "wherefores" of the differences in Spanish consonants. I'm not talking here about "j","ll" or "r". Those are discussed the first week. At this later period I get to the differences between "b/v" "d" "p" "t" and several others that give English speakers a few problems.
After a day or so of "poll parrot" pronunciation, I teach them the alphabet. From there we go to personal pronouns and the verb "ser" Along with all this we begin to work on a basic classroom vocabulary, in addition to the saludos, despedidas, y presentaciones.
Then we get into definite and indefinite articles, how to make plurals and how to tell when a noun is mascluine or feminine. Finally in this first unit we discuss how to tell time.
In the next unit we begin the study of "ar" verbs, and learn vocabulary pertinent to university life, what classes are you taking, what are your friends and teachers like and a whole bunch of other items.
The course goes on, each unit focusing on the family or pass times, vacations, and a bunch of other practical things, all the while mastering all the ins and outs of the present tense. At the sixth unit we start the preterite of regular verbs. Also direct and indirect object are presented and how to use them. In the fifth unit we start reflexive verbs. Subsequent units deal with different matters and eventually we finish the regular forms of the present tense.
In the next semester we continue the format of dealing with practical matters and the vocabulary necessary to talk about them, including various points of grammar as needed. In the second semester, we finish all the indicative mood tenses and begin the subjunctive mood, and imperatives, all of which are discussed within the context of events of every day life.
The main point I'm trying to make here is I try to put all the structural/grammatical stuff within the context of what goes on in life.
When did you start studying Spanish?
We began our English course with the verb to be and the vocabulary was about the objects in class like pen, pencil, blackboard, copybook etc.
R or RR like a machine gun. Nice! I would not begin teaching Spanish with the vowels but introduce them very early on together with vocabulary and easy structures. In fact the five vowels are essential in Spanish For me not pronouncing them well stops foreigners from being understood.
Having a good model of the foreign language is very important and starting at an early age makes the process easier and better.
After a certain age you can learn vocabulary and syntax and be an expert in them but the problem is always pronunciation. I remember immigrants in my country whose Spanish was fluent, always used good perfect subjuntive ( true), excellent structures and vocabulary but their pronunciation gave them away.. Especially people from Germany or Austria. Well, everybody. I even know a person who came at the age of 12 from Sweden and her Rs are still weird. The rest is perfect.
I started studying Spanish in high school in September, 1970. I graduated in June, 1973. My high school offered five years of instruction. I finished all those classes and was able to attend, with special permission, a local college during my senior year in high school. That was for Spanish only. My professor there was a former Cuban lawyer who came to the US in 1959. I also tutored other students. My high school teacher was American. She taught Castillian Spanish
Daniela mentioned basic phrases. I forgot about that. We did learn “Buenos días, “¿Cómo está usted?, and so on and so forth in the beginning. The classroom walls were plastered with signs naming colors, objects, and those sorts of things. We learned dates and how to tell time at the beginning too. We had a library in our classroom. I used to listen to Voice of America on a short wave receiver at night. I spent most of my busboy and odd-job money on books. My prize possession which I still have is the 1970 leather bound edition of the DRAE. I think it cost something like $35. It still has separate sections for ch, k, ll, and ñ, I updated it to the October, 2015 edition.
Patch said:
Is good pronunciation part of the teaching?
I am big on stressing pronunciation.
My student Elenita, she is now 13 years old, scored 161 points (First Certificate level) in her Cambridge Pet exam in the oral exam. She only needed 140...she got less than that in writing...but there you are, thanks to her good pronunciation and speaking level she passed the exam.
Mind you, the very first person she spoke with in English other than me...was Marianne (on skype) !!
Elena was 4 and a half years old. So imagine the conversation! 
She couldn't read or write, so I taught her drawing and with pictures. I remember that scene vividly. She had drawn a red apple, two blue birds and four yellow chicks. So she just had to say that to Marianne who then had to answer in Spanish, Marianne's Spanish was great.
So she perfectly said her three sentences...except that on the third she said "three yellow cheeks". Poor Marianne was flabbergasted...lol. But she thought, hey, cheek??? , hmmmmmm, what sounds similar? jeje, so elena was ever so happy having pronounced everything so perfectly 
What makes a good teacher? The love of teaching
I have been teaching children for years ; I also prepare adults for exams, many of my students have passed the Advanced Cambridge Exam, thanks to the help they got on the forum with proofreadings and I also prepared two students for Civil Servant Exams, many of the forum friends provided listenings for them.
So I owe the forum and all those friends who helped me to be such a wonderful teacher. Do I brag? Yes I do 
, I love teaching
I was just wondering......
Is good pronunciation part of the teaching?
Are students graded according to their ability to be understood?
The answer might seem obvious but I'm not so sure.
I once saw a program about 17 year old British kids who were about to take the "A" level Spanish exam (advanced level). Some of them spoke fluent and grammatically correct Spanish but I didn't recognise what they were saying. Maybe a native Spanish speaker would understand a lot better though.
Similarly, I've spoken to Spanish people who spoke fluent English but I could barely get the gist of what they were saying.
Patch, in my case, it was part of the teaching. If you see my earlier post, we first learned how to pronounce before we knew what we were saying. We had a "language Lab". Once a week or so, we were required to go there and read a couple paragraphs of whatever we wanted. We were scheduled at different times so that we were there individually. A microphone and "reel to reel" tape. It only let us record, so we couldn't hear a prior person's pronunciation. We were graded on that, but I don't know or remember what sort of weight it had on our grade.
