During the pandemic some neighbors asked me if I could help them learn Spanish. I jumped at the opportunity! As we were still in the scary days of COVID, we met outside on the patio twice a week. It was so pleasant! Each time I taught them just enough beginning Spanish so that they could converse about relevant topics like their families, hobbies, jobs and plans for the future. We accomplished this through applying some basic grammar rules and new vocabulary to complete authentic activities like describing favorite photos from our family albums, playing games in Spanish, listening to music, chatting about Spanish language movies, etc.

The classes were light-hearted, conversational and had just enough homework (10-15 minutes a day) that my students could progress slowly but have fun and really absorb what they were learning. It was so refreshing and delightful to teach at a relaxed pace and using authentic materials rather than dry textbooks. And my students found they could finally converse, something they simply couldn’t achieve with language learning apps.

As the pandemic slowly began to ease, I started offering more classes on my patio to meet the demand from word of mouth.  And before long I had quite a busy schedule of beginning and intermediate conversation classes both on the patio as well as online. Now we have the option of moving inside when the weather turns cold but we always keep that relaxed, authentic conversation-on-the-patio vibe!