Just received BJU Spanish - now what?

[MommyThrice]

I ordered the Spanish I kit - but I have no idea how to use it. There is no "How to use this" section. Just a textbook & activities manual (both student & teachers edition), audio CD, and tests. I have no idea how to integrate these things. On top of that, all the chapter titles are in spanish.

 

Help!:willy_nilly:

 

Does anyone know how this is supposed to work?

[Janet in WA]

There's a reason BJU stipulates that the course is designed to be taught by an instructor who speaks Spanish. Sorry, I know that doesn't help.:glare:

[LoriM]

I didn't use BJU Spanish I, but I can give you a good general idea of how to implement *any* Spanish I course. :) Most of the work of Spanish I is vocabulary memorization, verb conjugation for present and past tenses, and learning "special" verbs like estar/ser, ir, and idioms.

 

For my children, I had them memorize anywhere from 50-75 vocabulary words each week. They had to be careful to memorize the gender of the nouns, and any irregularity in the verbs. They spent time each week on sentence structure, translation, and oral conversation. Our week tended to look like this:

 

Monday: Vocabulary list work (make flash cards, conjugate the verbs, etc.) We often labeled the "real" objects in our house with flash cards. The house looked like a Dr. Seuss or Richard Scarry book after a few weeks. LOL!

 

Tuesday: Write simple sentences, work exercises in the text

 

Wednesday: Translate a passage from Engl to Span, and one from Span to Engl.

 

Thursday: Practice oral conversation--read sentences aloud, answer simple questions, enact scenes, etc.

 

Friday: Quiz

 

We'd spend 45 minutes a day on Spanish.

 

Hope that helps! If you really don't know *any* Spanish, then I suggest you just hand the whole kit-and-caboodle over to your child, and have them go for it. If your child wants to learn Spanish, then he or she will self-test periodically, and spend an appropriate amount of time memorizing. Personally, I had to do that with German, and ended up making German an non-credit course for my younger dd who was interested but not diligent. Had she been diligent, I could have allowed her credit for her work, but she mainly turned it into a hobby, not a course. And that is why we switched to Spanish for her high school language study. :) Even so, she's taking it at the CC now instead of relying on my skills as a teacher. Plus, she has access to her older sister who was quite diligent in her Spanish study...and took five university Spanish courses as well.

 

I taught myself all the Latin I needed to know to teach my children's Latin. I can't imagine trying to teach a language I didn't know, or requiring my children do work I wasn't willing to do.

[Michelle in AL]

I just got this too. Have you taken any Spanish in the past? The newer edition is supposed to be homeschool friendly and easier to use if you aren't fluent. I just looked through my materials and I agree, they are not formatted together, but I think they're pretty easy to figure out. The teacher's manual plans what to do each day for the textbook work. For the activity's book, Capitulo uno means chapter one, so those activities go along with ch 1. The verse I would present at the beginning. You can pretty much plan to assign the activity lessons after each one's content is explained in the text. The CD's seem to be assigned along with the activity book.

 

I hope this helps some, it may not even answer your question.

[MommyThrice]

I guess I'll quit trying to be so O-C, and just jump in & try it.

 

... but I really, really like to have it all planned out...