Looking for a Good Spanish Textbook

[Jazzy]

Any one know of a good Spanish textbook for Spanish 1 with my soon to be 11th grader?

 

He has no prior experience with Spanish. We tried Latin last year, and it was a flop.

 

I have enough background to help him through Spanish 1 if we have a really good textbook. He'll then do 2 semesters DE.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Jazzy

[HSmomof2]

I haven't used it yet, but we're looking at Break the Barrier for Spanish or French.

 

http://www.tobreak.com/spanish/

[Momto6inIN]

Not a textbook but we like Visual Link software (levels 1-3) for the first 2 years of Spanish, then move on to Destinos videos and textbook.

 

Sent from my Z988 using Tapatalk

[mom31257]

I haven't used it yet, but we're looking at Break the Barrier for Spanish or French.

 

http://www.tobreak.com/spanish/

 

We are using BtB Spanish this year. It has been very difficult to do on our own. We meet once a month with a friend who is a Spanish teacher. She does some practice and review games for several of us trying to do Spanish at home on our own. She says the book covers more than most Spanish 1 programs. It just doesn't have enough practice and exercises for me. It's meant for a classroom teacher who knows Spanish, though. 

 

I owned an older version of Visual Link and reinstalled it. I decided to do the following and call all of this Spanish 1 & 2.

 

Breaking the Barrier Spanish 1

Visual Link 1 & 2

Read through several of these readers: Pobre Ana

Extra exercises in Easy Spanish Step-by-Step & Basic Spanish (when I can make them fit well)

 

My friend taught my dd in a weekly class using this series.  She can't teach weekly anymore. 

[StephanieZ]

I *highly* recommend Galore Park's So You Really Want to Learn Spanish. Level 1, obviously. (Buy the student book, teacher book, and the audio CD.)

 

It'd be easy to get done in a year, with a high school student, IMHO. (My kids did it much younger, and we did a level each year, NO problem, very modest time investment.)

 

Worked great for my kiddos, through all the levels (3). Oldest two CLEP'ed out of Spanish in college. After years of Spanish, based on Galore Park's books, my 2nd kid went to the public high school this year for his senior year, and he jumped into Spanish 4 Honors and was easily the strongest student in the class, super easy As all year, and just scored high enough on his CLEP to get 14 credit hours (all 4 semesters) of Spanish at his intended university. So, clearly, it was a solid preparation.

 

You can supplement with italki one-on-one tutoring/conversation if you like. Not necessary, but easy enough. Duolingo is another great, FREE, resource, and definitely is a super supplement, IMHO. 

 

Personally, based on my experience, I'd guess that Level 1 is easily equivalent to Spanish 1 in high school. All 3 levels might get you through Spanish 4 (based on what I saw with my kid being clearly over-prepared for Spanish 4 in high school -- if he's worked at it more than 2 hours a week all year, I'd be SHOCKED, lol ), but I wouldn't assume that. (We did do supplemental conversation with native speakers here and there over many years, so GP wasn't 100% of my kids' Spanish studies.) I would safely assume that each level of SYRWTLS is a solid year of high school Spanish, though. 

 

Now, if anyone has a suggestion for what to do NEXT for my rising 9th grader who finishes Level 3 this year, please advise. LOL, I'm trying to avoid going to college classes at our local uni just yet. 

 

ETA: I know no Spanish, so our experience was based on being able to use the GP materials to check work, etc. Occasionally, an older kid would check and/or assist a younger kid with more advanced exercises, but that wasn't frequent or necessary, especially with Spanish 1, and especially if you have any knowledge of the language yourself. We have one Spanish speaking friend and we paid tutors over the years, and if you can get access to a native speaker on some regular basis, that'd be great, but not really required to use GP, IME.

Edited April 27, 2017 by StephanieZ

[HSmomof2]

We are using BtB Spanish this year. It has been very difficult to do on our own. We meet once a month with a friend who is a Spanish teacher. She does some practice and review games for several of us trying to do Spanish at home on our own. She says the book covers more than most Spanish 1 programs. It just doesn't have enough practice and exercises for me. It's meant for a classroom teacher who knows Spanish, though.

 

I owned an older version of Visual Link and reinstalled it. I decided to do the following and call all of this Spanish 1 & 2.

 

Breaking the Barrier Spanish 1

Visual Link 1 & 2

Read through several of these readers: Pobre Ana

Extra exercises in Easy Spanish Step-by-Step & Basic Spanish (when I can make them fit well)

 

My friend taught my dd in a weekly class using this series. She can't teach weekly anymore.

Thank you, this is good to know. I took Spanish in high school, but haven't used it since. 🙂

[deerforest]

If you have sufficient Spanish, then I love Español Santillana. It's not cheap, but it's an excellent program. We get the student/teacher book, plus the Practice Workbook, and Speaking/Listening Workbook. Level 1a/1b is the same as Spanish 1, just split up for middle school. So, you'd just get Spanish 1 level materials. http://www.santillanausa.com/catalogs/secondary-catalog/spanish-as-a-world-language/espanol-santillana-6-12.html

[prairiewindmomma]

I have BtB as well. I do not recommend it. We added a lot of supplements to give sufficient practice of the material.

[Renaissance Mom]

Another vote for the Galore Park So You Really Want yo Learn Spanish series.