These are tips that have helped me for those of you that are have to:
-Take spanish for language requirements
-Trying to major/minor in Spanish
First off, you want to make sure you attend class every day. You have no idea how important this is because the teacher goes over something new each day and it is always good practice to be there listening/speaking. If you were to miss one way to use grammar or something else, then it might cause you to not understand the next lesson and then the next which will create a snowball effect.
Secondly, participating in class helps tremendously because the teacher will notice your efforts and will set out to help correct you. All the practice that is done in class is less practice that you will have to do later while studying because it will be ingrained in your memory.
Third, know the vocabulary. At the end of each chapter will always be a new set of vocabulary words to learn. Most of the time they will have to do with the topics of the chapter you just went over so some or most of them will be familiar already. Learning the vocabulary will help you decipher sentences even if you can't read the whole thing and will help you when trying to speak the language.
Also, the conversation center in Leutze is there to help students taking Spanish classes or any other language for that matter. It's extremely nerve racking, I know, to go in and practice Spanish in front of people, however, that is usually the best way to learn and understand the material.
These tips have worked for me and I hope that they can help you out.
