Rosetta Stone for Spanish

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  • August 19, 2012 at 10:47 pm
    melindab72
    Member

    I just purchased RS and it’s on it’s way. For those of you who use this resource, I’d love to hear your advice on what works best applying it to CM. Thanks! Oh, my girls are 8 and 10, so I suppose it will be oral only.

    August 20, 2012 at 1:15 am
    missceegee
    Participant

    Melindab72 – I purchased 3 levels of Rosetta Stone LA Spanish a few years ago when my kids were 7 and 4 or 8 & 6. It was a HUGE waste of money and a terrible disappointment. We had it on speak and listen only and the most lenient pronunciation allowed. There were so many times that no one could satisfy the speaking part, even my Mexican brother-in-law. I could never recommend it based on this. We gave it a good 6 months, but it was worthless only than learning a few vocabulary words. My money would have been better spent on a tutor.

    August 20, 2012 at 2:31 am
    jmac17
    Participant

    We are using it, but just started about 2 months ago, so don’t have long term experience.  We haven’t had the problems that missceegee described.  It occasionally has trouble understanding my DD, but she has lost several teeth recently and so speaks with a bit of a lisp.

    I’ve been using it, as have my DD7 and DS5 (and DD3, with assistance, but only because she wants to be included).  We are using it on the “Full Curriculum” setting.  This gives lots of review and practice of all the words and concepts.  Both my kids are reading fluently in English, and seem to have no problem with transfering that to Spanish.  From what I’ve seen, I would recommend doing the full program even with non-readers (or at least the Standard, which includes all the lessons, but doesn’t review quite as much.)  I think you would miss quite a bit by only using “Speaking and Listening,” as much of the instruction is in the other lessons. 

    I have the kids spend some time on it about 3 or 4 days a week.  They enjoy it, and it has us talking about vocabulary words.  My DH speaks Spanish, so they enjoying telling Daddy about the words they learn, and asking him to tell them more words.

    I don’t know that there is much to do to make it ‘more CM’.  It is what it is, you can’t really adapt it much, other than choosing which plan to follow.  As with any language course, you will get the most out of it if you can find opportunities to use the language, preferably with someone who speaks fluently already.  A computer can give you the vocabulary and grammar, but actually conversing is how to truly learn a language.  DH doesn’t have time to teach us all everything, so for us this is a good mix.  We get the basics from the computer, but eventually will be able to use our knowledge in real life.  I also plan to devise some play activities to use the vocabulary and sentence structure that we are using, such as playing restaurant or store, or putting on simple puppet plays.

    I know the reviews are very mixed, some being extremely positive and some very negative, but so far it has been positive for us.  I’m glad I got it.

    Joanne

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