Señora Gose's Homeschool Spanish Blog (aka "Seriously, Suzanne")

Happy Birthday, USMC! (¡Feliz Cumpleaños!) I love that all the pre-orders of the the Ministry Spanish Flash Cards are being mailed out on such a day of honor and celebration. (I'm married to a Marine!) Creating a new product is always full of emotion. It's quite similar to having a baby... Hard work, concern, processing, deciding "today is the day," fear, and hope! When our children opened the box and the first set of flashcards, the "oohing and ahhing" and smiles up at me as they started laying out sentences immediately reminded me: (just like having a new baby) it...

Immersion is a pretty big idea in the Language Learning community, and I agree it's a fantastic method!... to a point. Here's my "point:" If we overwhelm our students, they'll tune the language out, especially if they know that at SOME point during their day, they'll get back to their native language. So, a lot (as usual) depends on the student. It's pretty difficult to use true immersion in America, without a native speaker living in your home full time. So… keep it simple: think about how we learned our first language.  When a baby begins speaking, he usually says...

But here it goes anyway. People always want to know how I became fluent. First of all, the answer is SLOWLY. After a good two years of studying regularly, speaking as much as I could find time, and even after the trip to Spain, THAT's when I became fluent. BUT, HOW? For me, fluency was gained by constantly and consistently thinking: "Can I say that in Spanish?" As parents and children, though, there are many more distractions and priorities that I didn't have in that station of life. So. Here's your Spanish Learning Hack: Put flashcards in your silverware drawer. Yup....

You can find tons of "Learn in your Car" language CDs as well as simple CD’s to listen in the car. For audial learners, these are great! For visual learners, it’s a bit frustrating, and perhaps even a little dangerous, if the learner is also the driver!Making your ChoicesStay away from full curriculum set ups for your trip. Keep it light and fun, and grab a couple of traditional songs on a cheaper kid CD or folk song collection in the target language instead. You can take a few moments and choose three words per song to listen for. Clap...

I'm gave this fanTAStic seminar at the Community Homeschool Center in Bryan, where our children and I attend (and teach) weekly classes. I've been looking forward to it, and decided I'd share my basic points with you here, too! Of course, bullet points and paragraphs aren't nearly the same as attending a seminar, but perhaps, if you're struggling with attitude of some sort in your homeschool today, this will help. Here are some basic steps to think through: 1) What's your problem? Phrasing the question that way sounds really antagonistic, but it needs to be asked. Defining the problem, and...