Learn Spanish Fast with Excelerate SPANISH
My high school son and I are trying to learn Spanish fast this fall using Excelerate SPANISH Streaming from Excelerate SPANISH. This was provided to our family as part of the Homeschool Review Crew. As always, all opinions are our own.
Foreign language is an elective area that some homeschool families flock towards while others shy away.
Sometimes the shying away is really more of the homeschool parent feeling ill-prepared to teach a subject without mastery on their own part.
Thankfully, there are many options out there for different foreign languages.
Spanish is still a top pick for homeschoolers.
And Excelerate SPANISH is a program worth considering.
About Excelerate SPANISH
Unlike many foreign language programs out there, Excelerate SPANISH adds Total Physical Response (TPR) to the learning experience. TRP, in this case, means to model a gesture for each word or phrase.
This program was originally developed for purchase on DVD with an accompanying text and workbook.
Excelerate SPANISH Streaming, which we are reviewing, provides just the video instruction. On the website, there are links to additional resources that can help.
Your instructor is Caryn Hommel, who brings years of classroom experience to the table.
If you visit the website’s blog, you’ll find that she has not been a fan of the traditional textbook approach for quite some time. Instead, she found that TRP greatly improved a student’s ability to learn and retain the language.
There are two levels available for purchase. Each level has 24 lessons.
How to Learn Spanish Fast with Excelerate SPANISH Streaming
Excelerate SPANISH Streaming is JUST the videos and does not provide textbooks, workbooks or answer keys.
It can be accessed on any device with a web browser and is a monthly membership.
The video instruction is set up in a pattern to help you learn Spanish fast.
You begin with an introduction to vocabulary words.
Rather than all the words at one time, they are presented in clusters throughout the lesson.
For each group of vocabulary words, they are:
written on a whiteboard
spoken with proper pronunciation
given a gesture to model what the word or phrase means
As you progress through the video lesson, students are encouraged to try their hand first with making the gestures to model the vocabulary.
Saying the vocabulary words comes as they are ready.
New and previous vocabulary groups are woven together throughout the lesson.
Each time, the gestures are used to help the brain embed the meaning.
Everything is done in context similar to how we learned our native tongue.
A few question sessions are done to allow for additional practice and checking on comprehension.
The sequence of questions is found in the text.
Near the end of the lesson, a skit is presented with different children taking part.
Each skit has something funny, zany or otherwise memorable. (For example, the phrase “el stupido” is presented in lesson one which gets a chuckle out of many students.)
The video lessons are not meant to be seen just one time.
Rather, they can be used a few times to help develop that vocabulary and gain comfort with it.
Watch a Video About Excelerate SPANISH and How it Works
This video is produced by the company. It talks about how the program is different with clips of the lessons shown in the background.
Thoughts on Using This Program to Learn Spanish Fast
I’ll start off by saying that I had high hopes for this program.
However, it just isn’t a great fit in our house.
Why Excelerate SPANISH is NOT working for Us
There are a few reasons why this is not a great fit for my son.
Video Only Streaming
Whether he’d like it better with the workbook and text is hard to say as I did not order them as I originally intended to do for this review.
However, just video instruction is not enough for him. And it is definitely not enough for high school credit.
One thing I do agree with him is that the site seems to lag on playing back the videos.
That is rather frustrating to have a video continually buffering. If we hadn’t been using it in Alaska with 1 Gig streaming, I would of said it was our internet service. But, it wasn’t that as all other streaming services were playing higher quality (4K) videos with no need to buffer.
He’s told me he’d prefer the traditional method of learning with a book. Which is ironic as he doesn’t like that much either.
Honestly, I feel that he is just super reluctant to learn a language and doesn’t understand why it is important.
Lesson Format
This one is a personal preference.
He did not want to be an active participant in doing the motions during or after the lessons.
When you look at the ‘class’ she is teaching, the kids are on the younger side.
While many homeschool students are fine with a variety of ages, I have found my teens tend to want to see kids like them in videos.
Otherwise, they have a perception of it being for younger students.
What I DO Like About Excelerate SPANISH as a Home Educator
This program can be used as a family.
One subscription and everyone can learn together.
This means both a savings of financial and time resources.
Using the motions helps you to connect the actual vocabulary word to the meaning more quickly.
Activating your body in the process truly does help it ‘solidify’ in the brain in a way oral and visual inputs fail to do.
What is your approach when it comes to homeschool foreign language curriculum?
Do you have someone in your life who would benefit from Excelerate SPANISH Streaming and their approach to learn Spanish fast?
Don’t just take my word for how we found this to be. Visit the Excelerate SPANISH review post on the Homeschool Review Crew website to see what other homeschooling parents thought about this book.
