Spanish: Beginners to Advanced Beginners

Last week I wrote my complaint about the lack of good foreign language programs for younger children. We tried several resources not listed below which ranged from ineffective to miserable, but that's not for this post. This week, I'm going to write about what has worked for us.

Little Pim. This is great for preschool aged children. It is vocabulary only, but there is quite a lot of vocabulary in each episode.

Vocabulary-focused books. We started with the My First Bilingual Book series and then moved on to the English-Spanish Foundations Series. The My First Bilingual Book series is one work per page, translated with a clear picture. Great for just starting on vocabulary. The English-Spanish Foundations Series is a bit variable on how much vocabulary and sentence structure is in each book, but they have quite a bit more than the other series.

Salsa Spanish. This program is deceptively simple and merits many viewings. We used it initially for solidifying basic vocabulary - colors and numbers are often emphasized within the episodes. However, once you have those down, go back and rewatch paying more attention to the words that aren't emphasized. They speak in full conversational sentences, with common verbs and verb tenses, and a lot more vocabulary than what they emphasize. We are still using this as more advanced beginners.

While I was doing the above with The Kid, I was also working in DuoLingo for myself. DuoLingo is not appropriate for young children due to the fast pace and requirement for strong reading and spelling skills. But it gave me the skills to use the vocabulary we were learning in the children's programs and work on using Spanish in our speech.

Immersion. This would be what moved us from "beginner" to "advanced beginner". There is simply no substitute. For us, immersion was three weeks in a Guatemalan homestay while I took Spanish language classes and The Kid went to a local Spanish-language preschool.


Next week, I will write about our plan to move from "advanced beginner" to "intermediate" level.