BJU DVD/HomeSat users: I need some advice...

[Michelle in GA]

I need some info on the following courses: Chemisty, American Lit, and Spanish 2. I want to know if you are pleased with the courses...i.e..are they interesting, rigorous, well-planned. I am using Biology and Spanish 1 now, and am pleased with them, although the amount of chit -chat in Spanish 1 drives me crazy:). I have also used Physical Science, and was very pleased with that. Just wondering if I can expect the same thing with these courses as well. Thank you so much!

[TXSusan]

Michelle,

 

We are using all 3 of those classes this year. Chemistry is super, Mr. Harmon is my sons' favorite BJU teacher. He does a great job presenting the material and the students enjoy his sense of humor. Mrs. Saldivar teaches Spanish 2. I am taking this along with 2 of my sons, we are learning alot and she is patient with the live students. That said, we sometimes fast forward to avoid some of the extra talking. It takes what you learned in Spanish 1, reviews it and adds additional material and vocabulary. Miss Martini teaches American Lit and does a fine job, she enjoys her subject. Because this class is pre-taped there is not any student interaction and therefore no chit-chat.

 

We are taping like crazy this year to have the classes we are planning to use in future years as the HomeSat option won't be available next year. They will still have DVDs and maybe hard drives for some classes. I hope this is helpful to you.

 

Susan

[Michelle in GA]

Michelle,

 

We are using all 3 of those classes this year. Chemistry is super, Mr. Harmon is my sons' favorite BJU teacher. He does a great job presenting the material and the students enjoy his sense of humor. Mrs. Saldivar teaches Spanish 2. I am taking this along with 2 of my sons, we are learning alot and she is patient with the live students. That said, we sometimes fast forward to avoid some of the extra talking. It takes what you learned in Spanish 1, reviews it and adds additional material and vocabulary. Miss Martini teaches American Lit and does a fine job, she enjoys her subject. Because this class is pre-taped there is not any student interaction and therefore no chit-chat.

 

We are taping like crazy this year to have the classes we are planning to use in future years as the HomeSat option won't be available next year. They will still have DVDs and maybe hard drives for some classes. I hope this is helpful to you.

 

Susan

 

Thanks for your reply! I have some questions about the Lit class. Are there a lot of writing assignments included? Are the writing assignments througout both semesters grammar and lit? Also, how is the grammar component? Would it be too much to add additonal american lit novels on your own? Thanks so much! I hope I am not bombarding you with too many questions:)

[TXSusan]

We are only using the Lit semester spread out through the year. My son is doing an AP writing class in an outside class. Even with the guidelines and rubrics they give for grading writing, I don't feel comfortable grading all of my high schoolers' writing. That said, I can't comment about the writing/grammar semester. In the Lit semester there are some short papers (at least so far, half-way through). It is possible that I have not had him do all of the writing assingments for Lit because of the heavy load in his writing class.

 

It would be too much for this son (but perhaps not the next one) to add other novels because he doesn't enjoy reading. If your student is interested it might be possible. One idea would be to read the entire story or book in place of one or more of the excerpts.

 

I'm sorry that I can't be of more help,

Susan

[Melissa in CA]

Would it be too much to add additonal american lit novels on your own? Thanks so much! I hope I am not bombarding you with too many questions:)

 

Just jumping in here to say that this is what we did. The Am. Lit course is only a semester long. We spread it out for the entire year and added in some full length Am. Lit novels. for example when Miss Martini taught about Samuel Clemens we stopped there before moving on to a new author/video class and read one of his books. We did not do this with every author, because it would have taken more than a year to get done.:D

 

BJU's Am. Lit. is a great class and Miss Martini is a wonderful, interesting teacher. I highly recommend it. As for writing assignments, I don't recall there being too many. Most writing is done in BJU's Writing & Grammar. I do recall there being a few essays, etc.

 

As for Chemistry, Mr. Harmon is fantastic and this was my sons favorite class. Biology is great too!!

 

Due to the nature of the live LINC classes you WILL have to endure some chit chat and down time as the teacher is waiting for student responses, etc. But we found it worthwhile. I am currently recording both Spanish 1 and 2. From what I have seen I think we will be very happy with them if we decide to use them.

 

hth's!

[LynnG in Arizona]

We did Spanish 2 last year. I watched it with my girls. The teacher, Mrs. Saldivar, is a gentle soul. Think Michelle Dugar if she were a Spanish teacher. (And I mean that as a sincere compliment.)

 

She is a good teacher who explains things well. We definitely had to fast forward through some chit chat, but we had to do that with Spanish I as well. I think that's just part of the package when you do these DVDs.

 

My one complaint is that the class ended up moving too slow. I think she covers maybe 60% of the BJU Spanish 2 book, leaving out many important concepts (such as the subjunctive) that are normally covered in Spanish 2. It's not a deal breaker, just something to be aware of. If you're going to continue on with Spanish 3 with the same teacher, it will be a non-issue.

 

HTH :)

 

Lynn