Help!! Tutor required

Ever had the feeling of just hanging on by your fingertips? I guess it happens to all of us from time to time, for lots of different reasons and in different situations. For those of you who have been following my journey in learning Spanish, you will know that I've had a couple of moments where my brain appeared to have shut down and just refused to take in any more information.

As a consequence of my last episode of "brain freeze" (not to be confused with what happens when you drink a very cold drink too fast), I decided to change my course and take a couple of weeks of individual lessons to reinforce what I knew and give my brain time to relax. This appeared to be an excellent strategy as all seemed well enough that 2 weeks ago, I returned to group classes at the advanced level and while I'd had a couple of moments of being confused, generally I've managed by reviewing the day's lesson and doing some independent reading / research on the topic,. I've then been able to go to class the next day with some level of confidence. So this week, I was feeling fairly upbeat and ready for whatever the teachers might torture us with. This week also saw some new classmates, all of whom are very friendly and collectively, we were all progressing. Obviously, different people have different strengths but overall, we were keeping pace with each other.

However ........... I think I'm back to being the Tortoise!!

For me, once again, the wheels seem to have fallen off the wagon and I'm finding myself increasingly confused by the technical terminology, the apparent expectation that we will understand quickly and finding I don't recall information that was studied the day before or I can recall the day before, but not what we learnt last week. There is some pressure to remember all the "expressions" of the language to gain greater mastery and fluency as well and I find that increasingly difficult with a brain that appears to be full once again. There's just too much information going in, too quickly. It's very deflating to one's ego and confidence, I must say, as well as somewhat frustrating.

I think for me, the problem is that I've not been able to assimilate all the new grammar and usage quickly enough so that each new piece, just adds to the overall confusion. When I slow things down and go back over earlier work, I find I can get it right most of the time, but I take time to do this and the group classes cover 2 new units of grammar each week. I believe they are all supposed to build upon each other like leggo blocks, but I feel like I'm working with a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing. I'm truly beginning to believe I've reached saturation point  and my limit of what I can learn and understand at this point in time and, to learn more will just become more and more difficult until ...... (?)


So, not sure what is the best solution this time, but I'm becoming increasingly resistant to new grammar and more and more reluctant to engage in the class activities due to my level of confusion. Unfortunately, it is difficult to get time to speak to the teacher with my full class schedule (7 hours per day) and their need to get to other classes immediately after ours finishes. I still have 17 days of classes left and I really doubt I can manage to keep up the pace. Looks like another visit to the Head of Studies in on the cards.  L