Reviews wanted for Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason and Francois, Volume 1

We started earlier this year.  I think it is low pressure and simple!  My boys are 7 and 9.  We spend no more than 10 minutes 3-5 times a week learning a series.  The series are getting longer as we progress, so we are breaking them up a bit more.  Basically, I read to them the english sentences and verbs several times, acting it out.  For instance, Take the pencil.  Put the pencil in the pencil case.  Then I read the sentences in spanish, highlighting the verbs, and act it out again.  Then I have the boys say it and act it out a few times.  We repeat the same series all week.  By the end of the week, we can usually switch it up a bit by changing nouns.  Using the same example as before, I might now say, Put the pencil in the backpack (since we learned that noun in another series).  The boys will often start to play around creating their own sentences, using English were they don’t know the Spanish yet.  For instance, Pongo the shoe en la caja de lapices.  Then they’ll giggle and try to make up an even funnier sentence.  But it reinforces the words they have already learned.  Hope that makes sense.  I think this can be a fun way to learn and the acting out of it (while it took some convincing them at first) makes it easier to remember.

The book itself is well made and since there is no writing involved, will last for years.  Both volumes are meant to be used to several years.   I think it’s really important to read about how to teach using the Gouin series (The Teaching Languages with Miss Mason book).  If you know Spanish, then you can come up with your own series using the teaching book.  I don’t know Spanish, so I have Volume One and the audio of the series to help my pronunciation.  If I’m really off in my pronunciation (I can’t roll my r’s!) then I play the MP3 snipet for my boys, but usually I just use the audio so I learn how to say it properly.

Hope that helps!

I think an older child could do much of this on her own.  In addition to each series, at the bottom of the page there is usually a recitation that can be learned.  Sometimes it is a Bible verse or the days of the week or a short story or something like that.  All of these things could be learned independently.  However, there are some questions/comments listed that the teacher (or other student, I suppose) can ask the student.  For example, in series 5, one of the sentences is “I see the grandmother”.  The teacher can ask “Who do you see?”  The teacher can also use commands such as “Listen” or “watch me”, so that the student gets used to hearing questions or comments.  

Like Jamilannette I’ve not read anything recent on how people are enjoying this series or if they have stuck with it now that it has been out for awhile.  I would love to read some genuine feed back as to ease of use, effectiveness, etc.

I am glad you bumped this. I was just looking at adding this to our school this year. We are looking at French as well.

It crashed at our CM co-op in 2014-2015. This was in great part due to differing commitment levels by families at home and we discontinued it. I did not try to continue at home. I’m now looking for something for dd10 to do mostly independently for the coming year. I’m considering this and Classical Academic Press’ Spanish for Children.

Bumping again 😊.  I am also wondering how to use this with a wide age range of children.  My niece and nephews with participate in this with us next year, but two will need high school credit. What should I add to achieve that?

Bumping.