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In this article we explore why it’s so important to dream the dream, and to hold onto your dream as you progress in your studies. We also explore how to go about structuring your studies to actually take you there.

The answer to achieving a dream lies in keeping things simple, doing a little planning and breaking larger tasks into smaller more achievable parts.

The beautiful rocky mountains of Cabo de Gata, Almería, Spain.

Dreams

A dream is something that establishes a general direction. Dreaming is important because it’s in your dreaming that you can identify what it is that you really want. When you dream it doesn’t matter whether it’s actually possible right now or not. And your dream doesn’t have to be practical or even make sense.

Your Spanish daydream might involve you travelling somewhere you’ve always wanted to, or it might involve doing some volunteer work, living and working in a Spanish-speaking country, communicating with your partner in their first language, falling in love, WWOOFing or taking cooking classes … the list is endless!

Remember: a dream doesn’t have to be all that practical. Dreaming is meant to be fun, it opens up possibilities.

Looking out from Almería towards África

Visions

What makes a dream real is having a vision. A vision is more practical, and involves the actual plan of how you’re going to end up getting close to your dream.

Having a vision is kind of like seeing the path from where to are to where you want to go. You might not have even taken the first step, but if you can see the path, you’ll know what to do next to achieve your dream.

A vision has a better chance of working the more specific it is, as the idea of a vision is to create the practical reality of a dream.

Aspects of a Spanish-speaking vision would, of course, involve studying Spanish, but might also involve thinking through practicalities around visa requirements or volunteering programmes, looking into possible work opportunities or doing some research into the place you’re wanting to travel to. 

When it comes to having a vision around learning Spanish, it might be useful to include other details about how you might go about your studies, such as thinking about how much time you might dedicate a week or whether you can set aside a particular time aside each week for study. 

It’s also a good idea to give your vision a timeframe to give it some scope.

Of course, enrolling in a course at El Patio provides a nice readymade structure – all you have to do is turn up to class! … and maybe commit to doing some study at home between class (more about this below).

Goals

With the vision more-or-less in place, the next step is to make it happen! Here is where goals come in handy. 

Goals are the little achievable pieces that form part of your vision and help you get to your dream.

Goals to plan your study

If you’ve never studied before, a goal for Spanish studies might be to enrol in Elementary 1 and stick at it all the way through to Elementary 2.  You might stretch yourself and set yourself the goal of getting to Elementary 3.  

Along the way if things get tough (and Elementary 2 involves directions and getting lost in cities around the Hispanic world, so things do get tough!), it’s good to remember your dream. Your dream can help you keep on going if things are difficult, because you know that ultimately it will be worth it and you’ll end up exploring cenotes in Yucatán, enjoying a tinto de verano in the Barcelona summer or building a school in Bolivia.

If you’re already studying Spanish at El Patio, you might set your sights of a littler further along. If you’re in Upper Elementary 1 getting to Upper Elementary 3 is a massive achievement, and committing to reaching the Lower Intermediate levels is akin to climbing a mountain! But once you’re there you’ll see that you can do it, and the reason you can do it is because you’re visionary – you have a vision – and you stuck at it.

Same goes if you’re in Lower Intermediate levels stick at it to Upper Intermediate, Advanced and beyond!

Take advantage of the different courses on offer at El Patio. The 10-week courses fit well into a busier work schedule and keep your Spanish alive as the year progresses. If you’re keen to progress more quickly, the Rápido courses are excellent. These are 15 hours over 5 weeks – 3 hours each week. If you’re super keen and are new to El Patio and up for making a commitment (and saving some money), you start with a bang and join an Express course – 30 hours over 10 weeks.  Financially there are some good incentives to plan your year. Taking full advantage of the Early Enrolment Discounts – these are a great way to save money whilst making the commitment to further your studies. The Early Enrolment Discounts expire two weeks prior to the start of the course. Over Summer we have a Super Double Discount – this expires four weeks prior to the start of the Summer Intensives and Term 1. Lastly, the enrolling in Multiple Courses not only provides a study plan, but saves you lots of money. You can enrol in 2 or more courses at once. You don’t have to specify which courses you’ll take and when following your first course as long as you use all the courses within an academic year. So say you enrol in Elementary 1 in Term 1 and purchase 2 courses, you can either continue your studies straight away in Term 2 with Elementary 2 or take a break and return in Term 3.

Goals within your course

As mentioned above, courses on offer at El Patio provide an excellent readymade structure. Coming to class means at least half of the work is done!  

However, outside of class there’s a lot more you can do that can help your learning. And setting goals is really useful in this regard.

Set yourself the goal of learning a new word a day Commit to memorising the verb endings of a particular tense before the end of Term Strive to learn one irregular verb a week – some good ones are SER, the stem-changing verbs in the present tense, verb form in the indefinido, for example. Pick a particular topic and learn 7 to 10 useful words. Good topics might include: the bar, the beach, the jungle, the city, the weather, food, feelings, transport, friendship … almost anything is a good topic! Take full advantage of the resources available in your Student Login and on our website. A good one might be to set yourself the goal of reading over the Wordlists before each class If you're extra keen, set yourself the goal of memorising all the words on the Wordlists week-by-week Aim to speak as much Spanish in class as possible, for example when asking ¿Cómo se dice ... en español? Even better, aim to only speak Spanish in class!

Setting little, achievable goals like these make a massive difference, and by definition they’re not hard to achieve. The brain retains seven things well (which is great for learning the days of the week!), so break long lists of words into smaller ones when learning vocab.

If you find you can’t achieve your goals, consider breaking them up into smaller achievable parts. For example, it might be a bit much to remember all the irregular forms of a particular tense in one go so try learning three or four well and add more little by little.

As we say in Spanish, poco a poco se va lejos – little by little one travels far.

Put it to the test, spend some time daydreaming, think about a making a vision or plan and put it into action goal by goal!

¡Muy buena suerte!

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