Exams

Ok, people are generally surprised at how I, as an educator of young people, have a generally dim view of the usefulness of tests and exams. In fact, I think they have a pretty negative effect. Yet I do have to admit that now that I'm doing increasing amounts of work with adults, I'm beginning to see a certain usefulness to formal examinations.

Lets face it, adults are keen; they want to learn - they're giving up good time and money to do so. But they're also extremely busy and tired and I have found that many have really benefited from the wee bit of extra motivation that an exam provides to help them settle down and learn their vocabulary - again I'm not a big fan of just learning lists of words, but if your life is too busy to "absorb" the language by spending lots of time reading Spanish books and listening to Spanish music and podcasts and watching Spanish DVDs, then learning the odd list of useful vocab could be just the shortcut you need. But what words to learn - well the ones on the word-list for your exam of course!! So the test provides motivation, direction and focus to the adult learner. And when they pass, as the generally do, it provides an extra boost of reasurrance that they are making progress along the long road to fluency in their new language, Spanish.

So, go, join a class and get doing some exams - don't hold back!

¡Suerte!