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Help! We're ready to tackle Spanish. I have no idea how to get started.


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DS10 has taken five months of Latin, and it has been going great. I think he's ready to add Spanish into the mix. I figure, the longer we wait, the less receptive his brain will be to picking up a new language. So ... what is the best way for a total beginner to get started with Spanish? Any curricula we should definitely avoid? Thanks!

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At about that point, we did two things: we started working through Getting Started With Spanish, orally, one lesson a day, and I had her start on the allinonehomeschool Easy Peasy Spanish 6th grade stuff - free and online.  And independent.  I don't know if this is the best way to start! But it has the benefit of being cheap, having the benefit of oral/together work on grammar alongside independent work building vocabulary.

 

I wouldn't start Duolingo with a complete novice - I think for a kid it's easier if they have a little bit of the language under their belts before they try to start learning.  At least my kids have found it too demanding at the very earliest stages.  It's great - and free - for adult learners, for refreshing my own skills, and I think it will be more useful later.

 

I'm interested in hearing how others have started out with this age group.  We are coming to the end of GSWS and I'm trying to decide what to do next.

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I went on to Amazon and got a cheapo worktext from the 80's.  We still use this route as they are very inexpensive and provide practice without being horribly dry.  We also use iPad apps regularly.  Pop Quiz Spanish is fun and free.  It deals with vocabulary.  Our library had Spanish for Children, so Ds watched it.  It was not terrible, but not fantastic.  I can't really say that he gained much from it, though many families rave about it.  It might have just been my Ds.  The library should have kids books in Spanish.  Small board style books with lots of repetition really helped around here.  Salsa! through Georgia Public Broadcasting is free and fun.  My son still really likes them.

 

Our first year is often a lot of playing around to see if my son is really interested.  We are not an "exposure" family.  The goal of foreign language study is not for him to just be exposed to lots of different things and later he can go deeper.  He is too intense and does not learn well with exposure. So we do trial year to see if he really wants to dedicate.  If he does, then we go for it. 

 

I do not know what your goal with Spanish is.  If you are looking for actual curriculum GSWS is great.

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Thank you so much for the responses. 

From what I can tell based on the above and elsewhere, "Getting Started with Spanish" by William Linney is a good, gentle introductory course. That sounds like it would be perfect for us. We might supplement it with Spanish-language children's books from the library and perhaps "Salsa Spanish" (provided by Georgia Broadcasting at http://www.gpb.org/salsa).

 

"Getting Started with Spanish" has 177 lessons. If we do five lessons per week, this will keep us going 'til June 2015 (roughly 36 weeks from now).

"Salsa Spanish" has 42 lessons. If we complete 1 video per week, we will finish up in August 2015.

 

We would use Anki (online flash cards, basically) to help with retention. 

 

My question is this: What comes after "Getting Started with Spanish" and "Salsa Spanish"? Pimsleur? Assimil?

 

Ideally, I'd like my son to be fluent before he graduates from high school (including speaking, reading, and writing).

 

I can pay for a tutor and am willing to consider sending him to immersion programs when he is older.

 

He seems to have a gift for language, but homeschooling him Spanish is daunting.

 

 

 

 

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Sounds like you have the start of a plan. We have not used GSWS, but we are working through GSWL. It is great, but I have had to incorporate an increasing number of review days to keep ids from catering overwhelmed, so it is taking longer than I originally planned.

 

My dc are slowly picking through the big worktext Spanish Now! It is nice for kids, not as dry as Breaking the Barrier or Practice Makes Perfect.

 

From your discussion, you might want to check out the Spanish options from Galore Park if you are considering a full program once you get going.

 

Buena suerte!

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What's got me baffled is how to add Spanish in right now. Latin is taking around 30 minutes daily, five days a week for us, and that's just about all the time I want to dedicate to foreign language right now. But I want to do Spanish. We have two immediate family members that are fluent in Spanish, I speak a little and understand more so the pronunciation isn't an issue for me. It would be a good modern foreign language for us. 

I just can't figure out how to add it in, yet.

I have Spanish for Children on my shelf waiting to use this year, and an awesome Spanish Dictionary that my father has threatened to make off with, and plenty of Spanish reading material at the library. Just got to figure out when, how and where to fit it in!

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I second the comment that as GSWS progresses, you will need to slow down and add review days.  We have used just it - orally, focused on learning the grammar - plus she did the Easy Peasy 6th grade and is working on the 7th grade, but that's really just vocab at this point.  We got up to lesson 140, and I realized that we're moving too fast for her to retain it, it's getting overwhelming.  I actually decided to start again at the beginning (skipping & combining lessons) for review rather than forging ahead from here.  I think we'll skim through the first 100 lessons pretty quickly.  Meanwhile, I'm planning to add something else.  I have Easy Spanish Step by Step and we'll start with that.  I also have Madrigal's, but it doesn't seem very user friendly to me.  I'm trying to figure out whether to break down and by Galore Park's SYRWTLS or whether what I have will work. 

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We're learning names of things and phrases, counting and the abc's... Kind of like how a two year old learns to speak at home. My 13 year old will start a conversational spanish class after the first of the year. Next school year, we will start a curriculum and probably hire a tutor.

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...

 

My question is this: What comes after "Getting Started with Spanish" and "Salsa Spanish"? Pimsleur? Assimil?

 

...

 

I don't think you would probably follow GSWS w/ Assimil. Both are beginning programs, but with different philosophies of language learning.

 

You might have something like Pimsleur (which also starts at beginning level) for listening to in car, etc., as a different auditory approach at same time as GSWS and/or later.

 

There are lots of Spanish programs though, so in your place, I'd probably make a start and then go from there rather than trying to plan out beyond 2015.

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We would use Anki (online flash cards, basically) to help with retention. 

 

 

 

Definitely use Anki. It has made all the difference with my daughter and me. We are doing Latin and Spanish. We use to look up Spanish words and promptly forget them. Now we have added several hundred words to our Spanish vocabulary, and all the vocabulary from the first 9 chapters of our Latin book (Familia Romana). I am teaching a German class to adult beginners and am strongly encouraging my students to use Anki, as well. 

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