Helping my 12 year old with Spanish (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Helping my 12 year old with Spanish
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

14 messages over 2 pages: 1 2 Next >>

sherry_d Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4711 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes	Message 1 of 14 18 January 2012 at 5:05am \| IP Logged
	Hello, I'm new here so I hope I am posting in the right section. I home educate my 12 year old daughter and she wants to learn Spanish. So far we have used a Spanish for dummies cd and book as well as free online resources like the BBC website. She has got a couple of words now that she can speak and we have been learning together as we are going on holiday to Spain for a month in a couple of days.I don't speak Spanish myself either. I am not sure what to do next, it seems we have overgrowm the free BBC stuff and want something that she can follow properly as she might sit some IGCSE exams in Spanish in 3 or 4years time. What would you recommend she does or a program to follow that isn't too dry? We are going to stay in one of the villages and we just want to immerse in Spanish culture and language. Is there anything else we can do to help her develop her Spanish further when we are there? Edited by sherry_d on 18 January 2012 at 5:08am 1 person has voted this message useful
leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog	Message 2 of 14 18 January 2012 at 9:16am \| IP Logged
	I recommend finding a skype language partner for her. That way she'll be able to hit the ground running when she's in country. FSI is a good free course available online, but somewhat dry. Michel Thomas, Pimsleur and Assimil are all pretty good audio courses. Movies with subtitles are also a good call. 2 persons have voted this message useful
wv girl Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5240 days ago 174 posts - 330 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish	Message 3 of 14 18 January 2012 at 4:44pm \| IP Logged
	Check out BlondGirl's list of free internet resources under Links and Internet Resources on this forum. I've been working on listening comprehension & have enjoyed Destinos & News in Slow Spanish. A month in Spain ... estoy celosa! 1 person has voted this message useful
July Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 5274 days ago 113 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish^B2 Studies: French	Message 4 of 14 18 January 2012 at 11:23pm \| IP Logged
	What books does she like to read? Get the translation and/or audio books of a favourite novel. DVDs of UK and US TV shows dubbed into Spanish are also great once you get used to the lip-sync being wrong (you get used to it surprisingly fast, believe me) as you can get hours of listening practice from them pain-free and put on the subtitles in English or Spanish if you like. Of course, you can also watch real Spanish TV shows while you're in Spain and legally online while you're in the UK at http://www.rtve.es which is like the Spanish BBC and has an iPlayer equivalent. Edited by July on 18 January 2012 at 11:24pm 2 persons have voted this message useful
Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Finnish^C1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish	Message 5 of 14 19 January 2012 at 7:25am \| IP Logged
	I really love the site http://www.lyricstraining.com you basically listen to a song, read the lyrics and have to type up a word here and there. Check out lang-8.com as well, it's a site where you can get corrections for free. Read the various threads in this forum, check the wikia http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Learn_Any_Language And definitely get some materials while in Spain. books, especially those for young people, computer games maybe and anything else. There should also be a variety of Spanish as a second language books - just browse some of them and get what seems useful to you. Why does she want to learn Spanish, what does she like about the Spanish-speaking countries? Make sure this is reflected in her learning somehow. For example if she likes the cuisine, you could cook together using recipes in Spanish:) Edited by Serpent on 19 January 2012 at 7:26am 2 persons have voted this message useful
Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German	Message 6 of 14 19 January 2012 at 8:15am \| IP Logged
	I started learning French with my 12 year old about 6 months ago (he's 13 now) to help him in school. We have used several things, but some of the ones he enjoys the most are: Pimsleur (we listen to about 4 minutes a day on the way to his school bus stop, and repeat each lesson once. We've done 6 lessons in about 10 weeks). Vocabulary walks-- we take about 30 vocab cards on a 20 minute walk around our area. We take turns testing each other. Cartoons. We have a Spongebob DVD with a French soundtrack. This is just good listening practice for when we can't be bothered to work. The textbook we use is Fast French (just over halfway through). We've used a bit of Assimil, which we'll turn to fully after finishing Fast French. I have Michel Thomas, but he prefers Pimsleur. As we get little listening time, we stick with Pimsleur. Oh, and we sometimes use the French in Action DVD's, but that's irrelevant to you. 1 person has voted this message useful
sherry_d Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4711 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes	Message 7 of 14 19 January 2012 at 11:33pm \| IP Logged
	Thank you for all for your feedback. We will see what we can find in terms of books whilst we are out there. She is learning Spanish because it appeals to her most that the other languages and she thinks it will be much more useful. She did a bit of French and hated it. I have to decide on either Pimsleur or Michael Thomas but have some questions. What is the main difference between these two? Which Pimsleur site do you buy from? I would prefer a download if at all possible. I saw a few sites and couldn't work out which one is being refered to http://www.pimsleurapproach.com/ or this http://www.pimsleur.co.uk/catalogue/courses/spanish/419 I checked on my local library and they have Pimsleur Spanish I/A complete course cds 5- 9 from 2008 and wonder if these will be OK for entry level Spanish. Would the 2008 version work with Windows 7. At least I will save my money if I can get them on loan for free, they are all out and I have to reserve them. Jumping ahead of ourselves are the above any good for vocabulary? If not which ones would you recommend for vocab? She probably won't be doing much vocab now but the exam she intend to take at the end is heavy on rote learning vocabulary. Edited by sherry_d on 19 January 2012 at 11:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful
Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German	Message 8 of 14 19 January 2012 at 11:41pm \| IP Logged
	I get Pimsleur from Audible. The disadvantage is that it only works on your one registered device, although you can burn CD's. The advantage is that I pay a monthly fee, and can download a set of 5 lessons each month for a reasonable price (cheaper than buying on CD's). I imagine a lot of kids would find Pimsleur boring, but my son finds it okay in 4-5 minute sections, while sitting in the car. 2 persons have voted this message useful

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