Testimonial 5

Cristian has been my tutor for 1 ½ years. He comes to my house every two weeks for an hour and a half session. I had finished Spanish courses at a junior college about six months before starting with Cristian. Prior to our first session I was apprehensive about conversing in Spanish for over an hour versus my usual speaking about ten minutes in a typical Spanish class.
However, with Cristian’s patient assistance, explanation and correction I have been able to converse with him for that prolonged time on topics from what I did on the weekend to Latin American culture as well as history, philosophy and religion. Unlike a Spanish class, our conversation is not limited to the class topic of the day and using the latest lesson’s vocabulary and grammar; nor is my speaking time limited. I can take my time to recall vocabulary from all past classes and prior and current readings and put together sentences with advanced grammar. My confidence in communicating in Spanish has improved tremendously. Cristian is enthusiastic, using his white board along with humor to give clear explanations. As a result, I have become much better putting together the grammar, syntax and idioms of the authors I read, such as Gabriel García Márquez. The homework he assigns is appropriate and he answers my questions completely. I am hard of hearing and Cristian makes an extra effort to help me distinguish similar sounding words like “mensaje” and “masaje”. In summary, Cristian is a great teacher and “buen hombre”.