Take advantage of learning opportunities

Language learning can happen in day to day situations. Missionaries can teach their companions not only words, but whole phrases.  Repetition makes a difference.  Babies learns to understand words after they have heard them about 200 times.  An adult has to use a word about 20 to 40 before it is a permanent part of their vocabulary.  Words cease to need translation.  Tortillas. Adios.

Reading is easiest.  Writing is next, with a dictionary of course. Understanding comes after much listening.  Context helps and it is important to help people listen for what they do understand without worrying about words they don't know. Don't speak unnaturally, but sometimes speaking slowly and clearly will help your students learn faster.

Speaking is most difficult for people because it is in speaking that mistakes are most obvious and embarrassing.  But it is important to realize that mistakes are a part of the process of learning.  A toddler will never learn to walk without falling down. A teenager will never learn to drive a car with a manual transmission without stalling the engine and jerking the car.  It gets smoother after you do it  enough times.  So get your students busy making those mistakes so they can move on to  smoother speech.

Important things to know about English class

1.  Focus on speaking, the most difficult skill.  They can learn reading and writing in school or on their own.

2.  English class should be fun and useful to English learners at different levels.

3.  Each class should be somewhat independent so that if they miss a class they are not lost, but can come when they can.

4.  Teach the class about prayer.  God can help us learn to speak English or Spanish.  If they all come at the same time, have an opening prayer when you can.  Always have a closing prayer.

We pray to God, our Heavenly Father.

To begin we say: Heavenly Father.

Then we say:  We thank thee for

1.  

2.

3.

Then we say: We ask thee to

1.

2.

3.

We close: in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Explain the options in a very simple way. 

Give Examples:  We thank thee for English class.  We ask thee to help us learn English.

Teaching prayer is a sweet experience and the spirit will help you.

Teaching English to Spanish speakers

When I cannot express my thoughts and feelings in Spanish, I will post here in English. I began this blog when Elder Babcock and I were a missionaries in the Puerto Rico San Juan East Mission teaching the Gospel in English on the islands of the Caribbean.  I want to retain the ability to preach and teach in English.

One of my goals is to develop a curriculum for English speaking missionaries to use to teach English to Spanish speaking elders and hermanas and to our spanish speaking members and their neighbors and friends.  It is hard to prepare English lessons in Spanish, so I may use this blog as a way to prepare and distribute the curriculum.

I am convinced that missionaries can improve their ability to speak Spanish by teaching English to their companions.  The missionaries end up helping each other and the end result is magnified.