Curriculum options for Beginning Spanish in Middle School

[Shellydon]

Could you share any curriculum choices you know of for a intro to Spanish course for middle school? THanks!

[mom31257]

Have you seen these free courses? They have Spanish 1, 2, and 3 for high school as well. I have not used them but a friend who was a Spanish teacher looked at the high school courses and like them.

 

https://allinonehomeschool.com/spanish-6/

 

https://allinonehomeschool.com/spanish-7/

 

 

Edited April 8, 2016 by mom31257

[happypamama]

Getting Started With Spanish and DuoLingo are good complements to each other for just getting started.

[Carrie12345]

We were very happy with Getting Started With Spanish as an intro.

[Chrysalis Academy]

We started out with Getting Started With Spanish.  We did about half of it in 6th grade, and the Easy Peasy Spanish 6 course through week 36.  In 7th grade, we started over with GSWS and finished it midway through 8th grade.  Also in 7th we did Easy Peasy 7th grade, and now in 8th she's doing Easy Peasy Spanish 1 and she completed the EdX Basic Spanish for English Speakers course. She's now working on Breaking the Spanish Barrier 1 alongside Easy Peasy Spanish 1.  We're liking that combination, I think she'll continue to do both together. We also watch Destinos episode for listening practice and will start throwing in some reading, too.

 

All that stuff was manageable for a middle schooler, although we found that using GSWS by itself wasn't so effective. It was fine at first, but by about halfway through, the new words were coming too quickly without enough practice, and there wasn't enough grammar practice.  When we added in other things and used GSWS mostly for oral translations (spanish to english and english to spanish) it became a more useful tool. I really like the book, but I found it more effective as one piece of a Spanish routine.

 

Duolingo is great for practice and review, but we didn't find it helpful when dd was a beginner. It moved to quickly without enough explicit teaching. The EdX course did a better job with explicit teaching. I think about adding Duolingo and/or Mango Languages (see if your library has a free subscription available) for more listening practice, but the plate is pretty full right now.

 

I like Breaking the Barrier, but wouldn't use that with a young beginner.  It moves fast! It's great for high school level spanish, though, for a kid who has been learning formally or informally for a few years already.

Edited April 9, 2016 by Chrysalis Academy