Our Spanish Plan, This Year

This summer I sat down and read the first few chapters of Barry Farber's book "How to Learn Any Language". I made notes on his suggestions for how to begin with a foreign language (because although we've been working with Spanish for several years, I still consider dd to be a beginner). The part with suggestions begins in Part II, "Gathering Your Tools", although the previous chapters help you to understand what you are trying to accomplish and why you are using these methods.

After I made my notes, I pulled out my bin of Spanish resources and chose what would best fit my needs. I scheduled out a term's worth of work, written work from a textbook and audio work with Pimsleur. I have a whole collection of Spanish textbooks, some of which we've dabbled in before, but based on Farber's explanation of our goals I chose one I picked up at a homeschool booksale on a whim, "Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish" by Margarita Madrigal. With Pimsleur, we're still working through their inexpensive 8-lesson set. I'm not in a hurry with it, and when we finish that I've got Learning Spanish Like Crazy we can work through (also with their cheap 8-lesson CD set).

When this term ends (in only 2-1/2 weeks for us! Ahhhh!) I will need to make a new plan for the next term. We'll add in work out of a Spanish-language periodical or maybe from a Spanish-language Bible--I'm not sure yet. We'll still be following Farber's guidelines, just moving on to the next phase.