Although we may rail against it somewhat, Spanish is obviously becoming the second language of the United States. Only English is spoken in more countries of the world than Spanish. It thus behooves us to at least become familiar enough with it to navigate in Hispanic corridors within our land. We use the book Spanish 1 for Christian Schools Student Textbook (2nd edition) ISBN 978-1-60682-061-2 AND the accompanying Spanish 1 for Christian Schools Student Activities Manual ISBN 978-1-59166-169-6. You are not required to buy the CD’s, but rather pay a small rental fee of $5. They have to be returned to us (in the event of a lost CD, the replacement charge is $15).

In the course of 30 weeks, the student is introduced to phonetic pronunciation, everyday vocabulary, the most common verbs, the use of past, present and near future tenses, and the main tenets of grammar and syntax. The use of Spanish as a means of sharing the gospel is greatly emphasized. The student will also learn some Spanish hymns and spiritual songs, not only as a means of remembering vocabulary, but also as a tool for witnessing. Since the class only meets once a week, the student is expected to do all the assigned work in a minimum of three separate sessions throughout the week, lasting approximately one (1) hour per session. Most of the written and aural homework will probably not take longer than an hour,so the remainder of the time should be spent in memorizing the vocabulary and the verse that accompanies each chapter. I recommend that the student not do all the exercises during the first session, but rather spread them out over all three homework sessions. There will be weekly quizzes. Please allow me to do the correcting, as sometimes answers will be correct, but they are not written in the teacher’s book or manual. I would also ask the parent(s) to not buy the teacher’s edition of either the textbook or the activities manual, or at least not allow your child to use them.