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The Easy Spanish
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Has anyone used “The Easy Spanish?” http://www.theeasyspanish.com/index.html
It looks awesome, and she even bases it on the CM method. It is somewhat expensive, but not horrible. Thoughts/opinions?
I’d like to hear more, also. I like that there is more than one year worth of material depending on the age of your child.
I was excited to hear about this when it first came out. She didn’t really base it on a CM method but on the methods of a man whose ideas CM espoused and used. I ordered it right away—and sold it a couple of weeks later. Not only did I find it silly, but contradictory to a lot of what I know about learning a foreign language, and also littered with errors and unexplained bits–for example, it did not teach the important difference between Spanish Spanish and many Latin American Spanish speakers dealing with second-person plural. If you learned it TES way, you’d sound like an idiot here in America speaking to someone from Mexico or Honduras or something. I hope she’s fixed the errors by now—I sent in an annotated list from the first couple of sections–but I’m not sure she can fix the silliness and vapidity. That was kind of built in. I’m really quite uncertain how much one could actually learn from this curriculum. As it was expensive, I was sorry I’d ordered it.
We didn’t love it either, for the reasons mentioned above. This was a while ago also; perhaps it has been revised….?
We have not used The Easy Spanish, but my daughter used The Easy French last year (she was 10 yrs at the time). It was pure torture for her to use and for me to prepare. It claims that it can be used by many age levels, including independent learners (which was the route my daughter took). In my opinion it isn’t particularly useful for any level. There were many activities, but they were all for very young learners (and many as Bookwork pointed out are silly.) For the older levels there is an “Independent Learner” section for each chapter. It basically containned the same verbage every single week repeated over and over again, and occasionally there was something unique for the lesson. (Such as copy this verb chart into your notebook -not very helpful in my opinion.) Even though the cost is fairly high you still have to print out the student pages, etc. from a CD (which was a huge pain). Overall I felt that it was poorly organized and difficult to use. We made it just over half the year and gave up.
The only thing I liked it about the program was that it included some cultural references. For example it included idioms and french sayings that you probably wouldn’t find in most other programs. It also had suggestions to further research a French artist, city, or historical monument.
I wish I could give you a better alternative, but I have yet to find anything! If anyone has any tried and true suggestions I’d love to hear about them!
I bought El Espanol Facil to use with my 4 children this year. I was a little dismayed, looking through the materials, because it doesn’t look as user-friendly as I’d hoped. I’m planning to use it somewhat differently than it’s written, loosely basing it on the instructions. I used to speak Spanish fluently (grew up in Florida!), though I’ve lost a lot through lack of use, so I’m hoping I can help make up for any lack in the program. We’re going to start school next week; I’ll let you know how it goes!
Well, that’s no good, either, if it’s a bad curriculum anyway. I also just found out The Easy Spanish (and French) are explicitly aligned to Common Core, and as I am avoiding those at all costs…
<sigh> Back to the drawing board. Any other suggestions? I am just running out of options. So frustrating!
We’re not making an official announcement until they have the final pieces of the curriculum in place, but we recently discovered a wonderfully CM foreign language resource and will be highly recommending them. Check out Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason and Francois from Cherrydale Press. The author has done extensive research into how Charlotte taught foreign language, and I was very excited when I looked through the volumes. (They are finishing up the audio component and teacher manual, so we’re trying not to spread the word officially until those pieces are in place. But I had to at least give you some hope!)
Thank you for sharing that! I’m thrilled to see that they have a French coming! We’ve used Memoria Press First Start French books 1 & 2 for lack of finding something better, but we’re looking for something better 🙂
Sonya,
Would you think Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason and Francois from Cherrydale Press work for high school level?
They recommend it for grades 1-8. It’s a great introduction for any age, but I don’t know that it would qualify for high school credit.
That’s great for my small kids! I’m still hoping to find something I love for high school for French. Right now I’m using the Memoria Press option which is working fine (1 & 2 count together for a high school credit) but I haven’t found anything I love yet.
I will echo Sonya’s nod to Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason and Francois. I purchased this to use with my 4th and 1st graders this year along with Getting Started with Latin (there is a similar feel to the programs). I love what I see in the book (not to mention the book itself is pure lovelines) and I am so eager to see the teacher’s guide and audio.
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