How do you decide when to give hints for words that might be difficult for that level of Spanish?

Question

The word "ambiente" was new to me.  I'm surprised that for a beginner lesson/practice that a "hint" wouldn't have been given for this word which I wouldn't consider a part of basic vocabulary for beginners.

Accepted Answer

Hola Lynne
For dictations we always suggest looking some words up (words that we think may be too hard for that level). For example in the introduction to this dictation we say:
Some vocabulary you may want to look up before or during this exercise: "expresar", "ambiente", "limpiar" & "lleno/a.
The word ambiente is included there. It gives the opportunity to the student to familiarize with some of these tricky words before they do the exercise. 
This helps us create more variety of vocabulary and topics to the different exercises.
Saludos
Inma