BigMamaBird Posted February 7, 2013 Share Posted February 7, 2013 We will be ordering Rosetta Stone Homeschool Edition soon. I have become VERY spoiled by homeschool curriculum providers because many of them offer a preview of a lesson or two online. At the very least you can often find a table of contents or index. But try as I might I can't find any of that for RS. *sigh* We're either going to order Level 1 of Spanish or French. Could you tell me how many lessons or chapters there are? It says there are lesson plans and tests, how many days of the week are they planning out? What topics can we expect to cover? How do you use this program? I am really drawn to RS, but I feel like we're flying into this without the usual obsessive previewing. :laugh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NittanyJen Posted February 7, 2013 Share Posted February 7, 2013 The homeschool edition comes with a planner with several options to suit your needs. If you use the workbook, quizzes, and tests, you can choose any of several lesson plans; a very gentle, complete one lasts 36 weeks across (I think 4 ) major units. A typical plan includes one day for an introductory lesson, then 9 weeks for each of the 4 units, with two computer exercises most days, with some worksheet, quiz, or test exercises scattered here or there. I will warn that unless your kids are older, it will be best to teach them the worksheets or do them a unit or two behind. They can be tough at level for younger students, ESP a few units in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbollin Posted February 7, 2013 Share Posted February 7, 2013 I liked using the lesson plans that MFW did for RS. (for high school credit). sample of those are here http://www.mfwbooks.com/products/M50/100/0/0/1 and a demo too. 160 instruction days in their lesson plans to cover 1 level. Instead of doing the worksheets, etc.. they add in real life activities, cultural stuff, how to better use the audio companion cd, children's books, etc.... I tried using the RS written plans when they first switched to version 3, and didn't click with that as well the mfw plans clicked better to use various curriculum paths, and when to add in other activities and such. (mfw plans include a similar note about the worksheets,tests that Jen said above) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigMamaBird Posted February 7, 2013 Author Share Posted February 7, 2013 Thank you! That's what I was looking for! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted February 7, 2013 Share Posted February 7, 2013 I'm not sure if you want to hear it, but Rosetta Stone is the one main regret I have with homeschooling (middle and high school). We spent a ton of money on it, and my older two did it faithfully getting high As with RS grading. Then, oldest went to college and couldn't even test out of 1 semester of Spanish... Middle took a look at one of his peer's books from high school and couldn't understand a good bit of it - including some of the basics. We switched to books we could get from the library (Learn to Speak Spanish types of books) for middle's senior year and he felt he learned a ton more in that one year than he had learned in the previous 3 with RS. Just thought I should mention it. RS is pretty much a bad word in our household. However, if you are using it for younger students and just want them to get a feel for hearing the language and don't mind spending a ton of money for the privilege, well, for me it still wouldn't be worth it, but YMMV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbollin Posted February 7, 2013 Share Posted February 7, 2013 also agreeing with Creekland, that if your goal is to test out of college level.. you may not like using RS. That isn't our goal, so we've enjoyed it. We wanted to enjoy learning language and get comfortable with another language. I know when I was in public high school decades ago, I took 3 years of French and didn't test out of first semester either. Switched languages to Italian and it was all good. at college we were instructed via immersion methods, but also had a small textbook to explain things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted February 7, 2013 Share Posted February 7, 2013 My kids didn't mind using it. They found it easy and always had As (Rosetta Stone grades itself). They just didn't really learn anything... They could never understand much they heard in other settings (except the super easy stuff that even I could understand having had Spanish 1 way back when I was in 10th grade, but being fairly decent in French). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbollin Posted February 7, 2013 Share Posted February 7, 2013 What I'm particularly disappointed with are the worksheets . They don't even seem connected to what is being taught or they expect way too much. yep... even the plans I use say the same thing. They say the worksheets are more of an obstacle than a help. I think it's on p. 4 of the sample plans http://www.mfwbooks.com/inc/pdf/RS_sample.pdf just saying, you're not alone on that thought! I know the person that mfw got to write up the plans has taught Spanish in high school and community college and that person didn't like the worksheets either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SevenDaisies Posted February 7, 2013 Share Posted February 7, 2013 We tried RS and while I love the practice my kids get speaking it, it's not enough for us. I am adding L'art de lire (French) but will continue RS to practice speaking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NittanyJen Posted February 8, 2013 Share Posted February 8, 2013 I, on the other hand, love RS. I do think the worksheets need to be tossed and started over from scratch, but the rest I loved-- all the explicit grammar instruction in high school and college had me tearing my hair out, even though I excelled in English grammar. I understood the concepts on paper and coud test well, but I found them needless and confusing when it came to speaking and understanding-- I have never once paused when speaking to think, "Now, this is the genitive case, so I should select from the following set of pronouns..." Knowing that I should be thinking of such things only made me refuse to speak the language at all. With Rosetta Stone, I can hear a very patient and repetitive set of people speaking, and hear it: "Ah, when he speaks to her, he says this, but if he peaks to him, he says this, and the same thing in the predicate sounds like this..." When I don't have to worry about naming it all, I can just hear it better. Maybe it's my music and English grammar working together? Here is the funny part: I love the explicit instruction in Lively Latin-- but perhaps that s because we are primarily reading and writing in Latin? Regarding supplementing, oh heck, I supplement everything else, why should RS be any different? We use storybooks, downloaded Pokemon videos, Usborne Easy German, and other cheapies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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