|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Full color, 10 weeks of lessons! 40 minute CD Oct 22, 2008
I am always on the look out for interesting products to keep my Spanish classes fun and lively. The full color cover peaked my interest, and the CD, of course.
I don't think I'll be able to ever use this item in my classes, but I can give some feedback for those that would like to use it at home. First, the pros:
- It is FULL color! - I personally like my worksheets and such to be void of color so the children feel free to add their own color, and those that need to doodle while they learn have the space to do so, but I was impressed, nonetheless.
- The ten units are pretty well laid out, and there are probably enough activities for each unit to last about a week.
- The CD has songs and speaking integrated, and is clear. It includes 18 tracks of sometimes less than a minute, sometimes up to three or four minutes.
- Culture (labeled Interesting Fact) is included in the lessons! A nice surprise for this age range!
- the topics are presented orderly:
greetings, numbers 1-10, colors, school, family, body, food, numbers 11 to 20, farm animals, birthday. There are about ten to 16 words per unit, which is a good number.
- the activities are varied and interesting (this is a consumable workbook, meant to be written in)
The Cons:
- There is no phonetic spelling at all. If a child or student doesn't have access to a CD player at the moment (which we often do not) they will most likely pronounce the new words incorrectly. This is a huge sticking point for me, and the main reason I deducted a star.
- The CD is WAY too quiet. If I have on my headphones and turn it ALL the way up, I can hear it fine. For the living room or car, I can't use this at all, as it is too quiet for anyone to hear without straining and listening very closely.
- The CD is set up oddly - There is a little ding to tell you to turn the page, and you can listen to the narrators. But there lacks any time to repeat the words. If I were to play a song for my class, I would have to wait about 30 seconds into one of the tracks before the song plays, and anyone who has taught elementary students knows, that isn't a good thing. At home, this will work fine though, I think.
- Very few translations exist in the book, meaning, no actual LIST of words, which I think is probably their intent. If there were an alphabetized glossary, this would be fine, but the glossary is divided up by unit, rather than by word.
So, all in all, this is absolutely worth the money. Aside from a few personal preferences (and lack of phonetic spellings), I believe it's more than worth the list price, and motivated students ages 7 to 11 will learn from it easily. Parents without a background in Spanish should be able to guide their children through with relative ease.
Oh - and I wish the CD had a pocket or envelope attached to the book somehow. I'll be finding a CD envelope somewhere and taping mine in tonight. Again, not a big deal, just a minor improvement.
Sra. Gose
Teacher and Author
Flip Flop Spanish: Ages 6-9: Level 1 (Book + Audio CD)
Spanish Fun Activity Calendar
|
| | |
