Spanish 1 and 2 credits question, especially VL users

[mom31257]

Should you complete the standard requirements of a 1 and 2 level foreign language to give credit for those, or can you base it upon working 2 years on the language?

 

Here's our situation. And I don't anticipate ds doing any kind of BA degree that would require much foreign language in college. 

 

A group of homeschoolers in our area started a once a month club last year to practice Spanish. I decided to go ahead and have ds start on his 2 credits required by our state. He has no desire to really learn a foreign language, so he decided this group might be a good thing. We met all year working slowly through Breaking the Barrier, which was very challenging without a regular, daily teacher and no knowledge of the language myself. I saw that the group was not going to continue past that year, so I late spring I added Visual Link because I already had it here at home. We got half way through BtB. 

 

We had a short summer break, and ds has been working on VL all year. We haven't returned to BtB because I'm not sure I can go it alone. He will finish VL soon, but I don't feel he has truly mastered it. I know I can purchase the next level and keep going. It's supposed to cover 5 tenses of verbs. I'm concerned it will expect him to know fully everything in level 1. Would it be better to keep working on Level 1, using other sources to practice basic Spanish grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension, and thus know the material a little better than going through higher levels and retaining little? 

 

If you have used Level 2, can you tell me more about it? I have an older version of the program, so I'm concerned about differences from one version to another. 

 

Thanks for any advice!

 

 

 

[Momto6inIN]

VL levels 2 and 3 are very different from level 1. Not so many games, more dry. 2 and 3 is where they learn all the tenses. Both my DSs have or will finish 2 and 3 both in 1 year, so it goes much more quickly than level 1. I called level 1 Spanish 1 and levels 2 and 3 Spanish 2. Oldest DS then went on to Destinos (called it Spanish 3) and CLEPed out of 3 semesters of Spanish.

 

If he doesn't have level 1 down very well, you can have him continue with the games and stuff until he improves. It will let you do the games and take the quizzes several times. My DS is a perfectionist and he continued til he got the scores he wanted me to record lol

 

Sent from my Z988 using Tapatalk

[mom31257]

VL levels 2 and 3 are very different from level 1. Not so many games, more dry. 2 and 3 is where they learn all the tenses. Both my DSs have or will finish 2 and 3 both in 1 year, so it goes much more quickly than level 1. I called level 1 Spanish 1 and levels 2 and 3 Spanish 2. Oldest DS then went on to Destinos (called it Spanish 3) and CLEPed out of 3 semesters of Spanish.

 

If he doesn't have level 1 down very well, you can have him continue with the games and stuff until he improves. It will let you do the games and take the quizzes several times. My DS is a perfectionist and he continued til he got the scores he wanted me to record lol

 

Sent from my Z988 using Tapatalk

 

Would you tell me more on how Level 2 is compared to Level 1, especially the format of the lessons? 

[Momto6inIN]

Would you tell me more on how Level 2 is compared to Level 1, especially the format of the lessons? 

 

My two DSs have this to report:

 

No annoying virtual instructor and added guitar music after every lesson :)

Very repetitive format where each lessons follows the same routine

Much more straight-forward and not focused on "fun"  (this was a plus for them, YMMV)

Not grouped according to theme, such as "travel" or "phone conversations" but instead focused solely on verb conjugation

 

2nd DS is still in the middle of Level 2. 1st DS finished all 3 levels and went on to Destinos and the CLEP exam. He says that Level 2 is where it all started to come together for him as far as how to structure the sentences instead of just random vocabulary. He acknowledges that he needed the vocabulary first but was much more pleased with the instruction in Level 2 and 3. Hope that helps!

[mom31257]

That is encouraging, and I think I may continue it into Level 2. I could always do it slowly and have ds continue to practice the vocabulary as needed.