Spanish Curriculum - co-op friendly

[Lisa TX]

We need a Spanish Curriculum for our Co-op for next year. We want something that would work well for the four days work at home with one day of teaching and interaction at Co-op. It would be great if it were affordable for the families.

 

Bob Jones is good for buying used, but is it a quality program?

 

Any ideas? Any proven curricula at your co-op?

[Susan C.]

We need a Spanish Curriculum for our Co-op for next year. We want something that would work well for the four days work at home with one day of teaching and interaction at Co-op. It would be great if it were affordable for the families.

 

Bob Jones is good for buying used, but is it a quality program?

 

Any ideas? Any proven curricula at your co-op?

 

Not sure about Bob Jones w/o their dvds at only once a week. I would be tempted to do Rosetta Stone, with the one day a week to check pronunciation, etc., all the "out loud" work.

[8filltheheart]

Have you looked at Breaking the Barrier? I have not seen the Spanish, but I think the French program would work well in a co-op type situation and would expect them to be similar. It comes with a CD, workbook, and TE for roughly $50 or there abouts. There are samples on their website.

 

http://www.tobreak.com/preview.php

[Halftime Hope]

We need a Spanish Curriculum for our Co-op for next year. We want something that would work well for the four days work at home with one day of teaching and interaction at Co-op. It would be great if it were affordable for the families.

 

Bob Jones is good for buying used, but is it a quality program?

 

Any ideas? Any proven curricula at your co-op?

 

Lisa, I have to tell you that I started out exactly where you are with Spanish 1 and 2 at a co-op. I had a group of diligent students, who often frustrated me with what they did not seem to know how to do (create cheat sheets to study, study for exams, grapple with material until they really understood it, etc.) These were kids who had done well in other co-op classes over the years, so it wasn't that they were underprepared, just I think they didn't really get studying for high school level technical material. I came to understand that Spanish is kind of like math. Lotsa detail to memorize and rules to follow that have to all be put together, with lots of practice, to achieve mastery. But I digress from my main point...

 

So, we started out with one cram-packed hour of teaching and sent home a detailed assignment sheet. Within a couple of months I realized that I had to teach through email, after I got to look at their homework. I was also teaching on their thoroughly corrected papers, and finally in the second semester, I scheduled monthly two-hour Saturday morning seesions. It was just nuts to think we could do this in one hour/week, even though they had plenty of audio material for use at home. (We used Paso a Paso, which has a 10 or 11 CD set that goes along with the book. The second year I had six continue on with me; the others felt confident enough to tackle CC (dual credit) Spanish, so I was pleased that I had served them well. We put our foot down and opened up our co-op classes to two days/week, and when the math teachers saw what we had done, they threw minor fits as well, so our co-op went to two days/week for selected hgih school classes. :)

 

It made all the difference in the world. We didn't have to be breathless, fighting for every second. We could practice, dialog, have fun with the language, and review. It was like night and day. I would never go back to one day/week again.

 

That's my nickel's worth for ya'!

 

Best of luck!

 

P.S. I know BJU is a good program, but I didn't care for the huge empasis on churchy content/vocab in it, and I'm an MK, so there's no bias against it there. There are only so many words and concepts that can be covered in a year, so I chose to use secular and add churchy vocab, including having the kids choose and memorize a favorite scripture passage, so as not to sacrifice some of the very basics. (jmho)

Edited June 2, 2009 by Valerie(TX)

[Lisa TX]

Thanks for the input! I've forwarded these three responses to the Spanish teacher.

 

Anyone else have input????

[Matryoshka]

I've been teaching a small group of kids Spanish using Spanish the Easy Way this year, and it's gone very well. Each lesson has dialogs that I have the kids take turns reading aloud, as well as a couple of different oral exercises. Then there's a second section that focuses on a grammar concept. Each part of the lesson has written exercises that I assign for homework, along with the vocabulary from the dialogs.

 

Spanish Now! is essentially the exact same curriculum, except it has a different cover and a CD to go with it.

 

Oh, and it's very inexpensive - about $10 for Spanish the Easy Way, and about $20 for Spanish Now! (because of the CD, I'd guess). Both are combo text/workbooks, so the one book is all you need.

 

It usually takes 2 sittings to do the homework, and if you wanted them to do more, I'd guess you could have them listen to/repeat the dialogs on the CD at home as well.

[74Heaven]

8th gr Book 1A; 9th grade Book 1B

10th grade, Book 2A; 11th grade Book 2B

 

It has worked very well basically covering a chapter every 2 weeks. I have been impressed with the teacher's use of classroom time [i assist at every class, mostly correcting papers. I have only a high school Spanish [1 yr] experience and I have basically enjoyed a very good review of my Spanish and the 2A/B covers new material for me.] The teacher basically does 5 min in class oral participation; almost every week there is a quiz on vocab; then she teaches a new grammar concept, does Q and A and assigns homework. The kids are making grammar and verb charts throughout the year and she is constantly stressing verb form review, etc. Some weeks, she is able to review for the whole period before a semester test. Most tests are to be done at home, closed book and given to the moms to administer at home.

 

The teacher heavily ups the conversational aspect in the 2nd and 3rd years, lots of oral resports assigned, written reports to be read aloud, etc. I have been very impressed.

HTH, lisaj

[mcconnellboys]

BJU is certainly good, if all can afford it. A single book solution that's also good for groups is Barron's Spanish Now! (Much, much less expensive option, too - but no tapes.)