How to select a Spanish Tutor in London
Learning a new language like Spanish is a big lifetime decision. It will involve a long-term commitment to learn the language effectively and is almost like a life journey. Many people underestimate the time and effort that is necessary to learn Spanish when they first start.
For this reason is essential that you get a highly qualified and experienced professional to help you learning Spanish. What does this mean? That you need someone that fully understand the process of learning a language and therefore is capable to guide you through that journey in a structured yet interesting manner so that you don’t lose your motivation.
There are many platforms and websites available to choose Spanish tutors in London. However you shouldn’t consider all of them reliable. Some sites are generic sites offering tutoring services for all subjects. The truth is any individual can register themselves in those websites and offer their services as a Spanish tutor or a math tutor or any subject they want. Since it is a digitalized platform there is no scrutiny done because those tutors are not the employees of those sites, meaning there are no background checks done about the teachers professionalism, quality or even if the background that they claim they have is true or not. On the other hand if you find a Spanish tutor in London from one site which is specialized in teaching Spanish only, those sites the teachers there are full time staff and therefore reliable. Why would be more reliable? As simple as if their teachers happen to be bad and they don’t care about the quality of their teachers, soon enough they will be out of business. Therefore they ensure that their teachers are not only qualified but all rounded individuals capable of motivating students and making sure they stick to the long term path of learning a language like Spanish.
It must be emphasized again that learning a new language like Spanish takes time and requires not only having a great experienced and motivated teacher but also a good dose of self-motivation and commitment. It can be frustrating to learn Spanish for a few months and then go to Spain and realize that you can’t communicate with the locals much. Learning a new language requires the mastering of 4 main skills, reading, writing, speaking and listening. You might be very good at reading and writing but if you didn’t have much contact with locals your listening and speaking skills will have a very low standard.
Keeping that in mind take the learning experience as a fun project so that you will be able to slowly improve while enjoying the process. If you feel exhausted you can always take a break for 1-2 months and restart your studies again!
London is a big city, therefore there are many Spanish teachers available. You must make sure that you like the teacher that you are learning with and that you feel some connection with him or her as he or she will be your teacher for a long time if you are serious about learning the language. If after 1-2 lessons you don’t like your Spanish tutor please do not hesitate to ask for a different one. If you are in contact with Spanish Tutors London or another Spanish company offering private Spanish lessons they will have many tutors available. Sometimes even the teacher is an experienced professional the chemistry is just not there so don’t be shy ask ask for someone else to assist you in your learning process instead.
In London there is a big Spanish community. Besides your formal Spanish lessons you can get in contact with some Spaniards and become friends with them as an added way of improving your Spanish. Going for a language exchange can be a good idea but you should take it more as a hobby as most people that like to do language exchanges are not formal teachers but a regular person like you and me with interests. Language exchanges are specially useful when you have reached an intermediate level so you can start communicating effectively some basic Spanish, if you start a language exchange too early it might be frustrating and you will give up the idea too early.
In London there are also cinemas offering movies in original version. If you are not a beginner this is also a great way to improve your Spanish listening skills, which is usually the hardest to acquire for most learners. Nowadays via Netflix you can choose a wide array of Spanish movies and series that will ensure you have a good time while improving your Spanish without effort.
If you already have learned Spanish for 1 or 2 years and you feel that you are not improving, the best you can do is go to Spain or a Spanish speaking country for 3 weeks to 1 month. In that short period of time your Spanish will improve dramatically and you will experience that your brain can finally start to “process in Spanish” instead of having to translate everything to English first every time that someone speaks to you or that you want to build a sentence. Of course you might not have the chance to take 3 weeks of holiday. If that is the case then your only option will be trying to hang out with Spanish people in London.
As a summary in order to choose the right Spanish tutor for you, get in touch with a professional Spanish school or a Spanish tutoring school like Spanish Tutors London which they focus only in Spanish instead of all subjects and matters. Anyone can self advertise as a teacher in the portals offering all kinds of tutoring services and therefore there are no filters in terms of quality and expertise of the people offering their services there. Keep in mind learning Spanish is a long term project, one that you cannot achieve after a few months unless your expectations are a slow as being able to order some food in a restaurant, getting a taxi in a Spanish city or buying things in a market.