25.6.12

Homeschool Spanish Academy

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     Do you know a foreign language? I learned bits and pieces of French, German, and Spanish, but never enough to really communicate with a native speaker who doesn't understand English. When I did my internship at a large hospital in Houston, they provided us with a brief Spanish class so that we could communicate with Spanish speaking patients. When I did need to communicate with patients and their families, however, the hospital provided translators.

     My girls have tried various Spanish programs in the past, but with me not knowing much Spanish I have not provided the best support to help them follow through. Homeschool Spanish Academy is different from anything that we have used before. Imagine if you had unlimited resources and could invite a native speaking Spanish teacher into your home for tutoring sessions with your children. HSA is the next best thing, in my opinion. If your internet is slow, this program may not work for you.  There are specific requirements to access this program including high speed internet and Skype. We actually increased the speed of our internet service from ~.5 to 1.5mgs and downloaded Skype to be able to use this program.  Read their specific requirements here: http://homeschoolspanishacademy.com/howitworks You are also required to sign up with Schedulicity which e-mails reminders of your scheduled class appointments.




     My girls worked together in a joint lesson, the Middle School one designed for ages 12-15 (Schedulicity indicated ages 10-19.) They sat in front of a computer and interacted with their teacher through Skype. Their teacher had each of the girls respond both  in unison and individually to the lessons. We have had the same teacher for all four lessons so far, and I continue to appreciate her encouragement. She responds cheerfully to each of my girls' comments and easily engages them. 


     Pricing varies depending on your needs. For the "two on one" version like my girls experienced, prices are shown in the following chart:


     After completing each lesson, the girls have assignments e-mailed which they complete and return. The assignments are actually the same material as what they cover with the teacher during class. 

Emily shared "I like the Spanish because Ms. Nora is very encouraging and makes it fun and easy to learn. I enjoy learning the Spanish words my favorite one was cat which is gato. The homework is fun to answer all the questions. When we do the class Ms. Nora goes through it all with us then we do the assignment again on our own."

Heather's opinion: I like doing this Spanish because by doing it with a live person if you mess up when saying a word, she corrects you and knows that you need to practice it again. Nora is encouraging when we get a word right and she helps us if we don't say it correctly. We go through a list of words and look at pictures describing some things then we sort of quiz ourselves by looking at pictures and describing the person in them or what is happening, or the time of day that it is. Basically the homework that we do is everything that we have done in class but we type the answers onto the sheet without her help because we are doing it on our own later. I've learned about the names for times of daylight (morning is buenas dias.) And we also learned greetings. We learned about people: lady, man, different for young lady or man, boy, and girl.

     The girls didn't work on pronouncing the words without being cued to- "I think it is more that we are supposed to work on remembering what each word means." Two attachments with each homework lesson- one has the questions or pictures that we do in class and the other is numbered so that we type the answers to the questions from the other attachment.

     Even after the fourth lesson, I do continue to hear hesitancy in both girls' pronounciation of the words that were new to them, but I like the opportunity for them to do this together as they can continue to practice and challenge each other. Though I see this as beneficial, with only four lessons I don't yet see a firm grasp of the language.(That would be an unreasonable expectation.) They need a lot more to become fluent. We have not completed our trial, but even after our 7 lessons end, I can see the benefit of continuing this for a while. 


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     We received an extended trial of 7 lessons equal to one-half semester of Spanish lessons for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own. See what other crew members shared in their reviews here.


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Jennifer

5 comments:

  1. I have heard some great things about this - but just in the "we like it" type of comments - thanks for breaking it down, it really does look like something that would work!

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  2. Hmmm... I think this sounds interesting. We do not have compatible computer requirements so it would be quite expensive for us to make this work. Great review!

    Amy B

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  3. Angie, I was pleasantly surprised.

    Amy, When we initially signed up for our trial they called and consulted us over the phone. Their recommendation to check and see if a higher speed was available from my isp actually led to a better connection and a discount on our monthly internet fee!

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  4. This sounds like a lot of fun. Thanks for the review!

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  5. Great review! Thank you for posting. I may consider this for the future. I love that a native speaker presents the lessons and is positive throughout the experience. I wish I had all the computer requirements for this program. Alyssa was too young for us to review it and we did not meet all the requirements.

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