Teacher Mom Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 I just hired a Spanish tutor for my daughter. We were going to use OK State Spanish I starting in August but the tutor has lots of wonderful ideas and wants to teach Spanish like the children learn it in her country. How would I assign credit when most of the materials would not be considered US high school Spanish material? They will only meet for 2 hours per week but the tutor has a list of videos and podcasts for my daughter to listen to when the tutor is not here. The whole thing sounds wonderful but I am afraid I won't be able to assign credit or write a decent course description. If you use a tutor for a foreign language, how exactly does it work? Does the tutor teach the subject or does she just help with the curriculum you already use? How do you write your course descriptions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ester Maria Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 It depends on the specifics of what you agree upon. Some people are hands off and let tutors design the course and organize everything; other people merely want help with some specific parts of the course, within the framework they chose. Some people teach and use tutors only to reinforce / practice things; others do the opposite, by letting the tutor do the actual teaching and then practice outside of tutoring hours. It depends on what you want out of it and what you agree on with your tutor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 I just hired a Spanish tutor for my daughter. We were going to use OK State Spanish I starting in August but the tutor has lots of wonderful ideas and wants to teach Spanish like the children learn it in her country. How would I assign credit when most of the materials would not be considered US high school Spanish material? They will only meet for 2 hours per week but the tutor has a list of videos and podcasts for my daughter to listen to when the tutor is not here. The whole thing sounds wonderful but I am afraid I won't be able to assign credit or write a decent course description. If you use a tutor for a foreign language, how exactly does it work? Does the tutor teach the subject or does she just help with the curriculum you already use? How do you write your course descriptions? What are your goals? A good approach for speaking might be different than the approach for someone wanting to eventually take the AP test. And for athletes wanting to have NCAA eligibility in college, a textbook is important (I'll be adding a text to our OSU German work). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 One thing I would do is use Google or another search engine to find some course descriptions for Spanish 1 (there are a multitude). Print out a variety and with the tutor's aid, work on the course description together. Regards, Kareni Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 When we used a tutor for French, I would cobble together a curriculum from various resources out there and work on this with DD. The tutor came once a week, and we would use this time to practice conversation, and to have our writing assignments critiqued. I do not worry about using ONE specific resource. If you google the typical content of a language 1 course, you can see what is typically covered in terms of grammar and vocabulary. However you do this should not matter for awarding credit and describing the course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chez J Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 My child is not in high school yet, so no official credits to worry about. We have used a tutor for the last five years for French and will continue through AP French in high school. Together we decide on the direction for the year. In some years in the past, we used the CNED from France. It is very thorough and covers all the necessary language arts skills. This year, we are focusing more on speaking. She can speak well. However, she has a somewhat limited vocabulary. For example, she doesn't ever talk about taking a bath, or brushing her teeth. It just never came up in the CNED curriculum. So, this year we are focusing on that. Next year, we will use grammar and vocabulary curriculum, dictations, movies, books and conversation mixed together and will begin to assign grades. The tutor will put that all together. At home, I am responsible for making sure she does the homework assigned by the tutor. I can check the dictation (compare what she wrote to an answer key). I can grade other papers that have an answer key. That allows the tutor to focus on what I can't do - talk with her, teach her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teacher Mom Posted March 3, 2012 Author Share Posted March 3, 2012 Thanks everyone. I have a better grasp of what to do now. As always, I appreciate the help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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