Especially with beginners it is important to go slowly. There is a steep learning curve at the very beginning of their studies especially if you are the first to introduce them to the Latin alphabet. Try to introduce manageable chunks of information and do not add in more information until your students are comfortable with what they have already covered. This may mean that they are not able to understand the purpose of learning certain things initially but perhaps after a few lessons on a topic, you can help put it all together and then they will be amazed at how much they have learned. For example, in one lesson you may teach your students the words I, you, he/she/it and what they mean but they cannot make sentences with this vocabulary until you give them some verbs to work with which may not be appropriate until a later lesson.