Help me brainstorm ... Spanish

[dirty ethel rackham]

Help me brainstorm.  Dd has been taking Latin for the past 2 years, but really does not want to continue.  She would rather take a modern, spoken language.  She is also attending our local high school part time, but has some other homeschool things going on and is a competitive athlete.  So, we are somewhat limited as to what periods she has available to attend the high school.  We have decided on Spanish partially because I minored in it so many years ago and can help her (but really cannot teach it being this rusty) and partially because it is very popular at the high school and they have many more sections of Spanish for all the levels than they do of any other language. 

 

So, here is my dilemma.  I really want her in Spanish 2 next year.  I think after 2 years in Latin, she would be terribly bored after the first 3 months in Spanish 1.  Also, she wants to be in with a better caliber of students than she would find in Spanish 1 because most of the better students start their foreign language at the junior high.  So, I talked to the head of the department at the high school and he said that she could either take Spanish at the community college this summer and he would be able to put her in Spanish 2 without question (provided she did ok) or she could self-study and take a placement test. 

 

The community college is an option this summer, but it is 2 days a week for 3 1/2 hours.  It does allow her long weekends for travel for climbing competitions and outdoor trips, but that is a long time for class. It is also 35 minutes away, but we can manage.

 

As much as I would like to think I could work with her over the summer, the reality is, we need firm outside deadlines to make that happen.  Does anyone know of any providers of Spanish classes that can be done over the summer that have outside teachers to provide accountability? 

[swimmermom3]

Help me brainstorm.  Dd has been taking Latin for the past 2 years, but really does not want to continue.  She would rather take a modern, spoken language.  She is also attending our local high school part time, but has some other homeschool things going on and is a competitive athlete.  So, we are somewhat limited as to what periods she has available to attend the high school.  We have decided on Spanish partially because I minored in it so many years ago and can help her (but really cannot teach it being this rusty) and partially because it is very popular at the high school and they have many more sections of Spanish for all the levels than they do of any other language. 

 

So, here is my dilemma.  I really want her in Spanish 2 next year.  I think after 2 years in Latin, she would be terribly bored after the first 3 months in Spanish 1.  Also, she wants to be in with a better caliber of students than she would find in Spanish 1 because most of the better students start their foreign language at the junior high.  So, I talked to the head of the department at the high school and he said that she could either take Spanish at the community college this summer and he would be able to put her in Spanish 2 without question (provided she did ok) or she could self-study and take a placement test. 

 

The community college is an option this summer, but it is 2 days a week for 3 1/2 hours.  It does allow her long weekends for travel for climbing competitions and outdoor trips, but that is a long time for class. It is also 35 minutes away, but we can manage.

 

As much as I would like to think I could work with her over the summer, the reality is, we need firm outside deadlines to make that happen.  Does anyone know of any providers of Spanish classes that can be done over the summer that have outside teachers to provide accountability? 

 

My son loved Spanish 1 as a 9th grader (best teacher at the high school) and slept through Spanish 2  while still receiving A's.  He wants to be more proficient in the language and end up with 5 years of Spanish in 4 years. Someone on this board recommended Ray Leven at Spanish Online Learning. Ray worked with Sailor Dude as a private tutoring student over the past summer for Spanish 3 and ds is now in his Honors Spanish 4 class.  Private tutoring was pricey, but we felt that Ray was worth the investment. He places considerable emphasis on speaking and ds has found that to be very helpful.

 

We've argued on the board before how live classes are best with languages, but if the student is in a class with 40 other students, they don't get a lot of supervised oral practice. Ds says he gets way more out of his weekly Skype class with Ray then he ever did in his ps classes.

 

Someone recently posted that they weren't happy with him as a teacher, I don't know the reasons, but we've been very happy. Ds comes from a swimming background where coaching tends to be tough and to the point. Ray and ds's AP Biology teacher have been doing this for many years and tend to be rather dry in their commentary. Ds enjoys that and isn't ruffled by it, but other students may be so.