So, have any of you taught or studied with a Spanish textbook and loved it? My preference would be that it be Christian, and that the idiom be Mexican.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Anyone use and love Spanish textbooks?
I speak Spanish after a fashion, and am supposed to teach my family. We have the texts from Bob Jones Abeka, which have many strengths... and I don't love them. I don't love it all being split up into several books, instead of one. Rosetta Stone did not work for my family. Confusing.
So, have any of you taught or studied with a Spanish textbook and loved it? My preference would be that it be Christian, and that the idiom be Mexican.
So, have any of you taught or studied with a Spanish textbook and loved it? My preference would be that it be Christian, and that the idiom be Mexican.
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Wish I could help with the textbook, but I do know this (at the risk of telling you sthg that you already know): Once your family has a base of knowledge, speak Spanish to them around the house and demand they respond in Spanish. Takes discipline, but it's the single best way y'all will improve.
De vera.
I couldn't find one I liked, so I hired a tutor, who spoke to me in Spanish every sesssion. My husband also speaks it fluently, so he also helps. So, I'm with Rhology, a base vocabulary with helps for verb conjugation. I would NOT recommend watching Spanish language channels on your TV. The news is horrific, the women in every single show are dressed, shall we say, inappropriately, and the plots for non-news shows are all soap-opera-ish.
This may or may not help, but I learned a ton of vocabulary getting a word of the day emailed to me. My daughter and I memorize it, and if it's a verb, we figure out how to conjugate it correctly.
http://www.spanishdict.com/wordoftheday
That is a GREAT site, Kris. I use it at work.
I still have my 1 and 2 year ABEKA books from high school. Love them. My kid uses them occasionally to supplement what she's getting from her school stuff.
Hey Dan,
Did you mean "de vera" or "de veras"?
Skip the textbooks.
Just take the family for a 2 or 3 week Spanish immersion vacation in Guadalajara.
You'll all come back champs :)
http://www.glc.com.mx/index.htm
Always wanted to do that...
Not likely ever will...
Hi, Been reading your blog for a while. My wife and I raised our 4 kids in Mexico.(1983-1994) (We used textbooks for us for a couple years and used what we learned. The kids learned on the streets.After a few years I was dreaming in Spanish. Our class was our world around us. Here's a link I found (I can't verify any of it's claims.)that may help fast.http://colorado-negrito.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog God bless!mike
hmm you should ask Penn he's using this grammar text book (or i can ask him and let you know) and I can tell how much his understanding of spanish and how to speak it imrpoved using it. But ultimately your family will learn by exposing themselves to the spoken language, so next vacation trip think of a latinamerican country ;)
by the way colombians have the best spanish, they speak correctly so it'll be easier to understand and pick up the language....oh something that really helped Penn was reading the Bible in spanish, the Biblia de Las Americas is the best :D
i'm not spamming i promise!! I just remembered you can also listen to the Bible in spanish and that would help too!! Although i'm not sure if they have the Bible in spanish on audio...
¡Escribiré en inglés para sus otros lectores!
I concur with Rita, La Biblia de las Américas is the best Spanish language Bible I've found...almost perfectly equal to the New American Standard. You can read online at Biblegateway.com. If you want listening practice, they have audio of the same version.
I've been using the "practice makes perfect" series for extra help with grammar, and there are lots of online resources that are helpful as well, links below. If you poke around a little, you can find Mexican radio stations that stream live on the Internet such as Radio Luz from Houston. Or explore this list.
Other great study resources here:
Study Spanish
Spanish.language & Culture
Ejercicios de gramática y ortografía
Translation and Conjugation tools
BBC News in Spanish
Lots of good stuff out there.
¡Buena Suerte!
I forgot one other thing that I like, Destinos has some free stuff and a great video series that plays segments of a long-running story that will have you traveling all over Spain while a young lawyer tries to unravel a mystery.
They have a lot of other materials, but to get all of it might be a bit pricey. I really liked the approach to language acquisition though.
Go to your public library. Mine has a rich assortment of Spanish language and dual (Spanish/English) language children's books. Some are written in Spanish, some are translations of English books. Immensely helpful! Your library might have a variety of programs in its foreign language section. You can try some on for size.
The one thing I was curious to see was if anyone offered a suggestion that met your last criterion.
Almost all of the textbooks and "Rosetta Stone"-type systems that I've looked at (including a couple of books that I used to help people prepare for mission trips) focus on Spanish "as spoken in Latin America" rather than as spoken in Mexico (and the few that didn't modeled Latin American Spanish model Spanish as spoken in Spain). In fact, I don't recall ever seeing such a resource. Hmmm...
I think but don't recall for sure that the Pimsleur program is Latin American Spanish. That is as close to Mexico as I've been able to get.
I found one that is from a Christian perspective that looks interesting... Great Commission Languages.
You could also take a look at Rod & Staff.
I didn't find much Spanish material out there that was expressly Christian...Bob Jones was what we started with at our house, and we didn't like it :-(.
BTW, I corrected the post. I said Bob Jones - wrong! Abeka.
Not a textbook, but FWIW, we use the K12 online Spanish Course.
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