Options for Spanish 3?

[kokotg]

My 8th and 10th graders are currently taking Spanish 2 online through Georgia Virtual School. I wouldn't have started the 8th grader so early, but they'd both been taking Spanish with a private tutor until she went to work teaching full-time, and I didn't want him to forget everything he'd learned with her. My 10th grader has one more semester to get through and then he'll switch to in person dual enrollment classes next year. The classes have been....okay, but there are a lot of things I don't love about them (for one thing, I don't think an online class with no live component at all is a great way to learn a modern language), and DS HATES it. I'd love to find something else that can bridge the gap until he can do dual enrollment as well (or even just get him through Spanish 4 so he can call it done if he wants to). 

So what options are out there for upper level Spanish? If anyone's in the metro Atlanta area and knows of something, that would be great, but an online class that has a live component would work as well. 

[chiguirre]

If you want a class that forces him to speak, there's none better than Homeschool Spanish Academy. It's one on one (but not ridiculously expensive because they're in Guatemala). That can be a good thing if your student is willing to dive in and speak Spanish or it can be paralyzing. If the student is willing to make mistakes and keep on chugging, they will get you over the hump of knowing grammar but not being able to use it to being able to use your Spanish in real life. Dd could read and write decently before she started with them (she'd done Spanish 4 at the defunct Landry Academy) but she was too intimidated to speak Spanish, even at home, or maybe especially at home. Now she's done twice a week lessons with them for 2 years and she is willing to speak Spanish with our relatives. They placed her in Level 3 when she started and she's done their grammar as a review and extension. They cover topics that aren't normally in American Spanish as a foreign language books in the upper levels. Once she finishes up the last couple of lessons, they offer tutoring in reading and writing to prep for the AP exams. We plan to stay with them until dd graduates. 

[Mom0012]

My dd really enjoyed Ray Leven’s classes and is now fairly fluent in the language reading books in Spanish, writing papers in Spanish and using the language in her volunteer work. https://sites.google.com/site/spanishlearningonline/
 

She just wrote a letter in Spanish for my MIL for one of her tenants, so she’s really getting to use the language more than we thought she would. His classes are not for everyone though. My opinion is that they are geared more toward highly motivated students that do not struggle with language learning. His classes never would have worked for my ds, I don’t think.

 

The Potter’s School offers Spanish through the AP level and appears to be very successful in preparing students for the exam. We never tried them, though.

Senor Gamache offers through Spanish 3 at La Clase Divertida. His class offers a great foundation, but he is very disorganized which can be frustrating. My ds was one of the weaker students in his Spanish 3 class a couple of years ago and yet when he took his 200 language course to meet his foreign language requirement at college, he got many comments from the other students about how well he knew Spanish. I know that some of his students have CLEPed out of the language requirement after taking his class.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Mom0012

[Mom0012]

Depending on how far along your kids are, another thought is to have them use Spanish121 (or something similar) for conversational practice, read books in the language and write in the language. My dd has her Spanish121 tutor correct her papers. Over the last couple of years of high school, she’s been reading pop psychology books like Grit, Outliers, The Power of Habit, etc. in Spanish. We chose these books over AP Lit because the reading level was in line with conversational Spanish and that’s what my dd wanted to be really strong in. We’ve also used News in Slow Spanish, which can be played slowly or at regular pace. There is a podcast that has a lot of stuff for free on it.

[kokotg]

Thanks so much for the suggestions, everyone! Happy to see there are a few good options out there!

 

[kokotg]

On 12/12/2019 at 11:23 AM, Mom0012 said:

Depending on how far along your kids are, another thought is to have them use Spanish121 (or something similar) for conversational practice, read books in the language and write in the language. My dd has her Spanish121 tutor correct her papers. Over the last couple of years of high school, she’s been reading pop psychology books like Grit, Outliers, The Power of Habit, etc. in Spanish. We chose these books over AP Lit because the reading level was in line with conversational Spanish and that’s what my dd wanted to be really strong in. We’ve also used News in Slow Spanish, which can be played slowly or at regular pace. There is a podcast that has a lot of stuff for free on it.

I've thought about something like this, too...he'll already be through Spanish 2 when he starts 9th grade, so there's no rush....he could spend a year or two reinforcing what he's already learned, diving into some more interesting stuff,  and making sure he's very ready for the faster pace of college classes when he gets to 11th grade. 

[jplain]

We have had positive experiences with both Dale Gamache and Ray Leven.  

My older daughter took Gamache’s class for Spanish 1-3 and Leven’s class for Spanish 4 and (currently) AP Spanish Language & Culture.  She took the Spanish CLEP test (free via Modern States) right after Spanish 4, and she scored 79/80.

My younger one started with Leven because she already had a pretty solid base and wanted a smaller class size and faster pace than Gamache offers.  The downside is that Leven’s class only meets 1 hour per week, while Gamache’s meets a total of about 3 hours per week (and costs less too).

Both kids also regularly practice conversational skills via Skype with a Mexican tutor employed by LiveLingua.  This has immensely improved their ability to use the language, and both kids are well on their way to functional fluency.  

I’m a big fan of the textbook series Gamache & Leven use.  They both use Vista Higher Learning texts, which have excellent online components.  The transition from Gamache Spanish 3 to Leven Spanish 4 was seamless.