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Hi -

I am trying to find a Spanish curriculum for my student that is credit worthy and not awful, but not the most rigorous thing out there.  We don’t want live online, as we already have 3 of those. I know the two I’m asking about likely aren’t favored on this board, but I thought I’d ask anyway. 
Thoughts on ACE Spanish with DVDs (Cathy Duffy has good things to say about it so it added it to my list) 
The other one is something like Switched on Schoolhouse

Thoughts? 

Posted (edited)

I have no feedback on ACE or SOS, but if you’re open to other options, I’d say Destinos is pretty gentle.  Be warned that the (free!) telenovela component is early 90s cheesy.  We loved it anyway . . . or maybe partly because of that.  Having at least one “classmate” is important for language learning; is a parent or sibling willing to co-learn?

Here’s a blog post describing Destinos (not my blog) http://www.tobefluent.com/2013/07/24/destinos/

If using it as a full curriculum rather than a supplement to another curriculum, the student works with the text briefly prior to watching the episode (Preparación), watches the episode, returns to the text for more activities, and then moves on to the consumable Study Guide/Workbook where most of the grammatical instruction is found.  

The curriculum creators suggest that it be covered in two college semesters: Lessons 1-26 the first semester, and Lessons 27-52 the second semester.  At high school pace, you’d cover 1-26 the first year and 26-52 the second year.  

As far as scope & sequence, I’d say it covers less vocab than many high school texts, but it focuses on the most useful vocab.  In terms of grammar topics, by the end it has covered more topics than many high school Spanish 2 curricula, but not at an overly challenging level of depth.

Videos are at Annenberg Learner https://www.learner.org/series/destinos-an-introduction-to-spanish/

A comprehensive compilation of resources, including the audio files needed for both text and workbook, can be found here: https://destinostelenovela.wordpress.com


I was able to find cheap copies of the printed materials.  Amazon, eBay, gettextbooks.com, etc. are all good places to search.

Textbook 978-0070020696

Study Guide/ Workbook 1 (Lessons 1-26) 978-0070020726

Study Guide/Workbook 2 (Lessons 27-52) 978-0070020733

There are various other teacher-created resources that you can find by searching either the internet or Teachers Pay Teachers.

 

 

Edited by jplain
  • Like 4
Posted
3 hours ago, jplain said:

I have no feedback on ACE or SOS, but if you’re open to other options, I’d say Destinos is pretty gentle.  Be warned that the (free!) telenovela component is early 90s cheesy.  We loved it anyway . . . or maybe partly because of that.  Having at least one “classmate” is important for language learning; is a parent or sibling willing to co-learn?

Here’s a blog post describing Destinos (not my blog) http://www.tobefluent.com/2013/07/24/destinos/

If using it as a full curriculum rather than a supplement to another curriculum, the student works with the text briefly prior to watching the episode (Preparación), watches the episode, returns to the text for more activities, and then moves on to the consumable Study Guide/Workbook where most of the grammatical instruction is found.  

The curriculum creators suggest that it be covered in two college semesters: Lessons 1-26 the first semester, and Lessons 27-52 the second semester.  At high school pace, you’d cover 1-26 the first year and 26-52 the second year.  

As far as scope & sequence, I’d say it covers less vocab than many high school texts, but it focuses on the most useful vocab.  In terms of grammar topics, by the end it has covered more topics than many high school Spanish 2 curricula, but not at an overly challenging level of depth.

Videos are at Annenberg Learner https://www.learner.org/series/destinos-an-introduction-to-spanish/

A comprehensive compilation of resources, including the audio files needed for both text and workbook, can be found here: https://destinostelenovela.wordpress.com


I was able to find cheap copies of the printed materials.  Amazon, eBay, gettextbooks.com, etc. are all good places to search.

Textbook 978-0070020696

Study Guide/ Workbook 1 (Lessons 1-26) 978-0070020726

Study Guide/Workbook 2 (Lessons 27-52) 978-0070020733

There are various other teacher-created resources that you can find by searching either the internet or Teachers Pay Teachers.

 

 

Thanks! I’ll check this out.

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