Speaking with Miss Mason Books

Hi Daphne,

While I’m not familiar with the Pimsleur program, I am happy to help with the Speaking German with Miss Mason and Francois curriculum. My daughter and I began the German book last year. She is also a high schooler.
On average, you want to work through a series in about two weeks. You do not need to master it entirely to continue on to a new series.
The German is a bit tougher to navigate with us as well, so here’s how I’ve handled it.

I will say the English series while using hand motions to act out the verb portion of the sentences. I do this two times. The third time through I have my daughter do the actions with me while just listening, and then I have her join in with me saying and hand-motions together for the fourth time.

Next I move to just the verbs, me going through them once while she watches and then she joins me for a few times, saying and hand-motions together.

Then we move to the German verbs. Here is where we take our time. We listen to the pronunciation many times, pausing and repeating until we’ve got the hang of one of the verbs. Then we’ll practice just that verb with the hand-motions a few times. We’ll move through all the verbs in this manner, and stop at a 20 min. timer. If we don’t get to use the entire 20 min. on the timer from feeling like we’ve absorbed enough German verbs for that lesson, we stop and pick it up the next time. We move through the series that slowly, in order to make sure we’re retaining it. We recommend the lessons be done twice a week.

Besides the series, there are alternate lessons within a series that you can use to give a mental break. After a series is worked on for two-three weeks, take a break from series work by working on any of the Recitation lessons for two weeks, then pick back up with a series. Each book is designed to last two school years, however, you are free to hold that loosely. If you need three weeks to work on a series, it’s ok to take that time.