Excelerate SPANISH ~~ A New TOS Review!!

My eldest daughter wants to learn multiple languages before the end of high school so when we learned that we could review a curriculum that could allow her to learn Spanish fast we jumped at the chance. We've been graciously blessed by Excelerate SPANISH with a one year membership to Excelerate SPANISH Streaming with acces to Level 1 and Level 2. To say that Arianna was excited would be a slight understatement. 😀

Excelerate SPANISH Streaming was created with the homeschooler in mind. It can be used with your whole family from appriximately age 7 and up. There are no textbooks or workbooks required or needed, but we had access to Quizlet where there were vocabulary word flashcards, games, and even quizzes that we could use to help strengthen the learning from each lesson.

There are 24 lessons in both Level 1 and Level 2 of this unique homeschool Spanish program. You join in each lesson as if you were in a classroom with Miss Caryn as the Spanish teacher. The lesson begins first with vocabulary that are spoken as well as written on a whiteboard. The students will also see a gesture that was created to match the word or phrase. This is called Total Physical Response (TPR for short) and has been scientifically proven to help learning languages. As the lesson progresses previously learned voacbulary is added in to help with review. The student is also not pressured to start speaking so that they can absorb and hear the language and speak it once it 'clicks'.

Once the introduction has concluded the students hear the words again, but this time in context within a short story of shorts  - that is how my daughter described them. They are encouraged to do the gestures of each vocabulary word or phrase as the teacher reads the story. Once they have seen it acted out, the student is encouraged to act it out on their own. I have walked by my daughter many a time with her waving her arms and mumbling something in response to what she's watching on the computer. That's how I've figured out she was working on Spanish during the day. LOL!

Dong the gestures

Taking notes on the vocabulary

Each leson has a theme or set of activities that the lesson is built upon. And Caryn Hommel begins staright away with speaking in Spanish. She repeats the voacbulary word two times and then translates it to English all while writing the word on the whiteboard. These are the words Arianna has been adding into her notebook.  She pauses with the voabulary section to review. Then she also calls out prior words they have learned and the students are to add in the gestures when they remember. No pressure to talk, unless they want to try which helps with the anxiety you have learning a new language.

At the end of the lesson the teacher acts out the skit as the children call out the Spanish words or phrases. She then goes through the vocabulary one more time. The student then hears the words and phrases many times. As the lessons progress into Level 2 they get longer (about 40-45 min is what we've seen) and harder with more useage explained - like personification, subjective form of words, etc.

Here are some thoughts my daughter had on this homeschool Spanish program.

So far most of the words she has been using are in the third person. I am currently in Lesson 7 of Level 1. The one thing I don't like about this is that I can't use them in everyday language. There are a few that are in first and second person so I'm trying to piece those together in my notes. I looked ahead to Lesson 21 in Level 1 and I noticed that the language is getting more difficult. The motions are also a bit longer. The teacher does and says everything a little faster than she did in the beginning. 

I had hoped to do about 3 lessons a week to complete Level 1 in 8 weeks, but my History 101 class at the community college was harder than I anticipated and took more time. I've been doing more lessons over this week on break and I hope to continue doing several a week so I can finish before the holidays. I want to know multiple languages before I graduate college and this program has been fun and is easy to use. You just login, pick the level and lesson and watch the video. While I watch I pause the video to write down the vocabulary words. Then when I need to study them I cover them up with a post it stickie and if I know it I can uncover it. If not, I keep it covered. 

I also use the quizlet access that we get to study, review, and take tests. That has helped a lot. As you progress into Level 2 it seems they are in a different location and the camera angles are different. Even on full screen some of the words are a bit cut off so for me that made it hard to pause the video and write down the vocabulary. They also seem to be done in a slightly different order than in Level 1. But in the Level 2 lessons I perused it seems that we will be learning a lot more words and phrases and then the motions or gestures are also for everyday situations, but the techniques are the same as Level 1. In Level 2, Lesson 3 she was going over masculine and feminine, past and present tenses.

All in all I like that she speaks in Spanish almost the entire time. It helps me to understand how the words or prhases need to sound and how they fit into sentences. I feel I have learned a lot in the few weeks I've been working on it. I plan to hopefully finish Level 1 by mid November and then start on Level 2. That's my goal! Thank you Excelerate SPANISH for helping me to learn Spanish fast!

 I hope you have gotten a better picture of what Excelerate SPANISH Streaming can offer your entire family. I took Spanish for 2 years in high school and 2 years in college and I have lost most of it, but I have watched a few of these videos (on my own since my daughter's schedule is so different than mine) and I've enjoyed the learning structure with the gestures and immersion of speaking in Spanish almost all of the time. But don't just take our word for it, check out the other reviews of the Homeschool Review Crew by clicking the link below. You can also find  Excelerate SPANISH on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest!