To be fair, with a lot of English verbs the ending doesn't change - I walk, you walk, they walk - only the 3rd person singular changes, and it's the personal pronoun I, you or they, that tells people who the subject is.

It was the subjunctive that scared me! It's a sod to get to grips with, but a necessary evil for those that are serious about learning Spanish. I'm sure I'm still get it wrong a lot, not so much the conjugation but not using it when I should be.

yes, but having taught English to spanish people they find that just as hard as we do, having to change the ending of the verb

& they invariably forget to add the s to 3rd pers. singular

the thing which amazes me the most is that even pretty fluent speakers of English still manage to say 'he' when talking about absolutely anyone, male or female
you'd think they'd find that bit easy

which all goes to prove that language has its tecky bits in the same way as computers, televisions, telephones and communications, along with cars and planes and biology etc etc.

decades ago I remember a saying went round the signal school "Line 2 routing is now mandatory". Those who knew what line 2 routing was understood, but those that didnt only found out when they got to the appropriate part of the course. This was a major move forward in military communications, but will probably go over the head of everyone reading this.

Language is the same.
All I am asking is that you don't get shirty with people who walk away from a language course because of a teachers desire to enter the tecky bits, perhaps at the wrong moment, or in the wrong manner.
A child has 5+ years of open ended learning with only a small amount of passing tuition, so please don't expect an adult who has spent 60years swimming in the English language to pick up what can at times be a difficult language such as Spanish without some effort that can at times be hard to find. Especially when after several weeks they haven't come out with the ability to put a few sentences together and go out and buy something.

Do the architects of the adult training course curriculum base them on those for pre-teens ?? If not why not ??

Of course,but you must remember that with computers etc, the tecky bit as you call it, starts with switching the computer ON. Step one.

At that point, in the journey to learn tecky bits, you have used the only
little bit of technical knowledge you have.

Turning the computer on, without that you are going nowhere.

So instead of opting out and running scared of simple conjugation, why dont you think of it as the switching on of the computer/machine

Vocabulary will come later, somone might be able to recite parrot fashion all the parts of the computer and describe the functuin and programmes in detail, but untill they turn it on it wout get them very far.

The same analogy applies to language.

The tengo, leo, sale, follamos etc is "the on button"

Chin up it is not so hard stepby step.....

J, the tecky bit starts when you get up in the morning and lie there checking that all the working parts are still operational, you just don't know you are doing it. Although as you get older it seems to take longer.

as to switching it on - that starts when you walk in to the room and switch the light on, but it doesnt come on, so what do you do. !!
I wish I had £1 for every time I have been called to a desk where someone hasnt been able to make their computer work because a fuse has blown or the laptop hasnt been plugged in properly.

a good job I didnt conjugate my verbs too loudly whilst lying on the floor with a meter and screwdriver.

IMHO, based on 50+years doing tecky bits,there is more than one way to cook a goose, teachers of foreign language to older people should be more accommodating in the manner in which they teach. As some pupils will never be good at it, some lecturers will never become teachers.
there is a time a place for everything, and conjugating verbs and discussing the fiddly bits of past participles etc etc are of no use to a student who hasnt even taken the laptop out of the box to see what delights are awaiting them.

Have it your way, make it sound impossible..............youhave lost the war before the first battle with that attitude.

You make it sound like it is an impossible task, which it is not.

And why sould a teacher alter their methods to the slowest in the class, to the detriment of others.

And if some will never be any good, well then you cant flog a dead horse and best to call it a day, save yourself a lot of frustration,time and money.

And learning at least the basic use of Spanish verbs is exactly the same principle - learn them by rote and by drilling, then use them to make phrases and sentences. Much the same as learning your times tables in maths - if you don't learn them, you might still be able to do multiplication but not without relying on a calculator. When I learned Pitman shorthand, I had to learn all the basic symbols or 'strokes' as they are called and memorise them, then use them in different combinations to make words.

As for Stevideluxe saying that the verb endings in English are much simpler, they certainly are - but personally I don't think it's helpful for anyone learning Spanish to constantly make comparisons between English and Spanish, or as my OH was wont to do, keep telling the teacher that it made no sense for an irregular verb to be the way it was, it should be x or y instead! Just forget all that and concentrate on learning what it actually IS, not what you think it should be. Maybe that's one reason why adults find it harder to learn, because they spend time questioning things when they would be better off concentrating on the memorising part.

it's not impossible - but it IS harder to retain info as you get older


a good teacher will adapt their methods/level of teaching to each individual student within a group - some can be pushed harder than others - with some you just have to keep it simple

it is perfectly possible to do that with a smallish group - they can all be learning the same thing - for example my group this morning was doing posessives

some of them I can push to speak long sentences - It's not my dog, it's not Fred's dog, the dog isn't ours, it's theirs

but some of them will feel a great sense of achievement if they can manage - The dog is mine

they are all going away having practised essentially the same thing............you just have to get to know your students

horses for courses

not impossible, but for god sake don't make it frightening


I don't believe I have ever given that impression, all I am asking for is flexibility

as soon as a student knows they are falling behind especially if the teacher then starts to concentrate on those who are zooming through, then they start losing interest never catch up and never complete the course.
but then the teache will only ever record the successes never the failures nor analyse the reason(s) for the failure.
because a student has reached a blocking point (common in learning anything) then they should be given assistance in getting over it - many turn into star pupils later on.
(I failed the 8wpm morse test twice, was allowed to go back 2 weeks to 6wpm and take another go. Later on I reached 40wpm. It works)

that someone has expressed a desire and paid for a course is a good start. That they cannot get beyond a given point is something they will have to appreciate/understand. But that should mean they will be able to do a little bit, and that little bit over much longer may improve some.
But remember that the teacher is being paid for their frustration and they shouldnt just dump a student they have personally written them off and go off to concentrate on the best..

My BH attended a Spanish language course, on which there were 3 girls who could speak very passable Spanish. The teacher concentrated on them, ignoring many others in the class who didnt speak any Spanish. They got their certificates but 60-70% of the course had fallen by the wayside, partly because they felt they were being ridiculed.

It's a large subject, J, and I appreciate the passion you have for your country and its language. Many of us want to share that passion along with the country but we havent been brought up in anything else except the English language fog for the past 60years. And you better than most know how hard it can be for newcomers to make that transition.

rgds