Six Benefits Of Learning Spanish

Six Benefits Of Learning Spanish Episode 366

With a passion for speaking Spanish, and experience as a homeschool mom, Alba Alonso shares the benefits of learning Spanish. You will be surprised at the innovation she uses and she explains more of this in this episode! Time to learn a #foreignlanguage ~ try #fitnesslatinos

Thanks so much to Fitness Latinos our sponsor! Please visit the website here: VISIT Fitness Latinos here

An informational video about the product is here: VIDEO Here

About Alba Alonso

Her first language was Spanish. She lived in Colombia in South America for her first 10 years. She learned English during her middle and high school years and moved from Miami to Oregon and went on to college in South Carolina. You can say she has tasted a little bit of our US culture in a short time!

She gave up a career as a marketing coordinator for an international architecture firm to be a stay-at-home mom and homeschooled her two children for the next 20 years. When her firstborn was eight years old her friends began to take an interest in learning Spanish. The first year her homeschool coop started with twenty students!

Alba is the founder of an all-male Hispanic soccer league, has been an interpreter and was the co-host of Mom’s Homeroom, a parenting web show. Thirty-eight years after having moved to the US she has poured her life’s experience into her online business Fitness Latinos where she teaches Spanish and English in a practical way that will commit learning the foreign language in a personal and permanent way.

She believes you have to define your “WHY?” before you learn to enjoy the journey. Her life’s motto is, “Transformation Through Education and Each One Teach One.”

Handout from Level 1 & 2 Syllabi and Benefits

Top Six Benefits of Learning Spanish

Inspire – Your journey will inspire others to be courageous and to step out of the mundane routine of life and get to know someone new and exciting.
Fun – The study of a new language helps us be able to navigate outside the tourist bubble, to connect and interact with the place and its people in a way that is typically not accessible to those without the language.
Appreciate –We begin to appreciate other traditions, mannerisms, and cultures. We develop a greater acceptance of others and we learn to have empathy for humanity.
Health – Highly successful people exercise because exercise keeps the brain healthy, reduces stress, helps improve memory, creativity, concentration, problem-solving skills, we can multitask better and we become better listeners.
Connect – We become someone who can connect at a deeper level with others simply because we are more in tune with the differences we each possess.
Challenge – Our motto is “Through language, we communicate, through actions we connect.” Our weekly challenge will encourage you to have the courage to make new friends one step at a time.

By nature, learning our native language or foreign language is elementary. The same way we learned to say hello, learned our colors, numbers, and animals in our mother tongue is the way we instruct students to learn a foreign language. Even if you have some knowledge of Spanish or English but you cannot carry or understand a simple conversation with a foreign speaker then you need to go back and master the basics. By the end of our 1st level course, you will be able to understand your GPS in Spanish or at least give someone directions.

You will understand cognates, articles, nouns, and 50 verbs. Our 2nd level will help our students have a full conversation using feelings, sports, professions, opposites, as well as learn cognates, nouns, prepositions, interrogatives, and 50 verbs. In addition, we give our students specific websites they can focus on to take ownership over their future studies. Learning how to conjugate in different tenses is more advanced and requires different examples best learned one on without stress.

It is important for students to read, write, hear and physically practice the language in a fun environment. There are 22 lessons with written instructions, a video with me pronouncing the vocabulary for the week and a challenge for the week. Some of the challenges are right in your own home and some require you to go to a local store and ask for help.

We have to live with the end in mind. No one lives a happy life without these three: love, purpose, and support. We need more than theoretical knowledge, we need to challenge ourselves to gain practical knowledge. The best way is through relationships. In each lesson’s video, I give my students tips on how to break out of that shyness, fear, lack of interest and truly experience how easy it is to learn Spanish or English. Through weekly assignments that include: family, friends and their community, they will retain the vocabulary for the week for years like my past students.

We have combined effective linear learning (as in one theme per week which is curriculum controlled) and flexible learning (where the environment is learner controlled) and coupled it with motivation to help decrease stress and master cognitive load. The weekly assignments connect our students peer to peer in their own community, something that no computer software can do. We lead the way for better relationship habits in all areas of life.