Teaching kids Spanish for non-Spanish-speaking parents!

[Reya]

I'm back mainly to share the stuff I've discovered over the past year. :-) One REALLY exciting thing I've found is a book that you can start using with a child of 4th grade language arts ability through high school level--just at different speeds and with different amounts of reinforcement.

 

Even better--it's dirt cheap!

 

Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish is the single best way to get out of the rut of interminable years of learning colors, numbers, and greetings and to really get kids to the point where they can read and speak Spanish. It covers ALL the major points of Spanish grammar usually taught in three years in high school (though it skips lots of minor usage points). All the exercises have answers for self-checking. The only drawback is that there's no CD. I'd recommend either a monthly tutor or a combo of Rosetta Stone and a monthly tutor to get pronunciation down.

 

This would be my #1 starting place for getting a kid up and running and aimed at the Spanish AP tests.

 

A high schooler could do the book in as little as 6 weeks (for the dedicated) to a semester. My son's taking about 55 weeks of school to do it. My friend's son will do it in around 100.

 

A great next step for reading is to search google books for free ebooks with the key words "Spanish reader."

[Amy Jo]

Interesting - mind sharing your schedule? I just bought that book for myself, as I want to learn Spanish before the kids do. Perhaps I'll have DS8 use it next year.

[mom2bee]

I've been thinking about using that book at some point with LilGal I don't own it, but I know it from the Spanish learning circuit, lol. How are you using it with your student? I second the plea for the schedule.

 

55 weeks seems kinda slow....do you think its possible to do it faster? Maybe in 25-30 weeks?

 

Right now, we've just started doing, and are doing Daily Spanish Time, (and we're doing pretty well with it.) And with all these workbooks/resources/programs and things that I've accumulated, I'm not sure if we'll need it or not, by the time were done with the schedule I've been building, but its at the top of my "Plan B" file.

 

How is your sons Spanish, can you give me some tips? LilGal and I have had a pretty successful start to learning Spanish. She wont learn to read for a while, but the main goal is to lay a foundation of oral/aural skills and I think that the reading will come VERY easily for her once we get there.

 

Right now we're doing commercial Spanish workbooks, and psuedo-immersion for several minutes a day.

As well as lots of conversational bits throughout the day. I'm trying to stay a few (okay, okay several) paces ahead of LilGal with my own Spanish abilities.

 

I've had 3 semesters of Spanish in CC, and I'm using the language with her alot and she's building comprehension rapidly. We're going to start some basic grammar towards the end of this month. I'm hoping to get her through all the grammar in my Spanish textbook with in the next several months, and by the end of next year hopefully she'll use something like Pimsleur, Learn Spanish Like Crazy or Assimil for 'language lab' as well as watch her way through Destinos, with lots of comprehension.

 

I have a TON of books, both on childrens and adults level, so I'm going to be adapting several of my things down to her level, my aim is to give her the language, not a bunch of grammatical jargon.

 

How were going to get from studying from "The Complete Book of Starter Spanish" to using "Learn Spanish Like Crazy + Destinos" for review/upkeep in less then several years is a very good question, but I have no intention of giving up!!!

 

Our dream-goal is to have a 'secret language' to use around the rest of the family and friends circuit. (MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!, lol.)

[Reya]

My kid's eight. :-) We supplement with Spanish readers--because I DO speak Spanish, we can do both at the same time! I think if you made review cards for the rules and the patterns and then you made electronic flash cards for the vocab (we use Full Recall for the Words to Remember), it would take most kids under 10 at LEAST two full years to do, especially if you do the written work and make sure you really memorize as you go along. But I don't think the child would end up behind.

 

We usually cover 2 pages a day of Magic Key, and more readers whenever he starts doing really well with the vocab he's got. We do NOT do the writing because it's difficult for him (dysgraphic) and doesn't add to his learning. He does it entirely orally.

 

We did Destinos, but it is WAY HARD for an elementary schooler just because a lot of the references have to be explained in English! My DS loved it, though, and we'll continue where we left off when he's a wee bit older and has a greater ability to focus his attention continually to something auditory. The speed is difficult for most learners, too. He can't wait to do it again. I made him stop because he was just struggling too much a year ago.

[Anita in NC]

I just looked up that book (Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish) on Amazon. It looks really good. I think I'm going to have to order that.

[Mallory]

I've also tired of the colors/weather/blah blah of elementary spanish curriculums.

 

We've started checking out simple kids books from the library and they are doing copywork and reading in spanish!

 

But I want to keep this in mind, so I thought I'd post so I don't lose this thread ;)

[alegnab]

and I want to teach my two younger kids. I took three years of Spanish in high school (approx 30 years ago). My two older kids took/take Spanish for high school, and I've had to check their work to provide grades to their teachers at The Potter’s School. I started studying Spanish some when my oldest child was taking a class, but I hadn't done much until last summer. I slacked off on my studying once school started. Things I've found very helpful are:

 

Reading from a parallel Bible. I have the NVI/NIV by Zondervan. Since I'm so familiar with the text anyway, I don't need to look at the translation nearly as much as I would with an unfamiliar text. I started reading it in February, and I've made noticeable improvement.

 

Reading various books. I started with Spanish for Reading. Then I went on to readers/novels for students. I really like the ones by Command Performance Language Institute. They are at a good level for an advanced beginner or maybe a beginning intermediate. Amazon sells them. They are eligible for the 4-for-3 promotion. I also have read from various old, free books online. I've read some children's books from the library.

 

Watching movies/TV shows with either Spanish soundtrack or subtitles. I actually started this when I noticed that Smallville Season 1 DVDs had Spanish subtitles. They were my entertainment and education while exercising. Even though my family really enjoyed the shows, they got tired of my watching them over and over again. LOL! I know seasons 1 & 2 quite well (I haven't seen any episodes beyond that, so please don't "tell" me any spoilers.). If Smallville had Spanish soundtracks, I would have used them. I've now moved on to the Spider-man movies. Spidey 1 only has the subtitles. My family watched the whole movie in English without subtitles. Then I watched a second time with the Spanish subtitles on. I was surprised at how easy the Spanish was, so I started watching it with the sound off. Now I'm watching Spider-man 2. After the family viewing in English, I watched it with the Spanish subtitles a couple of times, and now I'm watching with the Spanish soundtrack and the English subtitles. I don't pay much attention to the subtitles anymore, though. I'll soon go on to Spidey 3. I've also watched some Disney movies with the Spanish soundtrack and English subtitles. Most (if not all) Disney movies (at least the animated ones) have Spanish soundtracks and subtitles. The Barbie movies also have Spanish. BTW, I tried watching a couple of movies with both the Spanish soundtracks and subtitles on at the same time, but the written Spanish was so different from the audio that it was irritating. So, I don't recommend doing that.

 

In March, I loaded up two Mp3 players with music, audio New Testament, sermons, and podcasts in Spanish. I typically listen to Spanish several hours per day. On Saturdays when I’m doing housework, I listen almost all day long.

 

My listening and reading comprehension have increased greatly since February, when I started trying to immerse myself in Spanish as much as possible. I’m enjoying it immensely and finally think that I probably will be able to become fluent in Spanish. I sure wish that 30 years ago I had had all of the Spanish resources I have now.

 

Cody’s Cuentos – Classic fairy tales and children’s stories in Spanish

 

Sermons by Henry Tolopilo of Gracia a Vosotros and a pastor at John MacArthur’s church

[Haiku]

Thanks! I have been wondering where to go when we finish Getting Started with Spanish. I am familiar with Madrigal's Magic Key from previous Amazon searches, but I don't know much about it. It's nice to hear that you recommend it so highly! Thanks!

 

Btw, your son is 8 and he's doing Jacobs Algebra??

 

Tara

[alegnab]

Margarita Madrigal wrote another book for learning Spanish: See It & Say It in SPANISH. It has a lot of line drawings. It starts teaching sentences from the beginning, as you can see from the sample at Amazon. It's much simpler than her other book (I have both). My younger children use it. I bought it for them, because I liked her other book so much.