Martha Allison – Foreign Language

Estimados Padres y parientes,

Welcome to First year. We have leraned a lot already! We have learned greetings and farewells, numbers to 100, colors, simple sentences, expressions of courtesyand the verb SER ( to be). We have only learned 3 subjects with this verb; yo, tú, and él or ella. We are also learning about nouns and articles, definite and indefinite as well as agreement of adjectives and that Spanish adjectives ” usually follow“. Students are learning to put most answers into Spanish in a complete sentence.  There is very little English in the textbook, so regular study of the new vocabulary is essential. It is considered “intuitive” in that the pictures and the sentences are supposed to make sense — without translating everything. Please encourage your student to use a translator as a last resort and not the main “crutch” . The translators are VERY unreliable and your student will most likely not meet with success.

Do encourage them to describe themselves in complete sentences. On of the tasks they are asked regularly in both the text and the workbook is to write a post card describing themselves . Help you student to think this through, using complete sentences.

Discourage a “we’re right and they’re wrong” approach. Help the student see that different is neither better nor worse. For example, Why do we say White House and they say:”Casa Blanca“? This should be value neutral.

Thank you for your cooperation and encouragement as they learn. Many students respond well to “Flash cards”. There are many online flashcards availabel and online games, including one that correlates well with our text. Please check out the www.spanish.glencoe.com  site. There are also audio and video tapes for each Chapter there. For the overacheivers, there are online media sites to 20 major international newspapers and current events in Spanish – all available from that same site.

Thank you in advance,

Sra Allison