Our Spanish Curriculum

We are happy with the curriculum we have developed. It works!

We searched a long time for a text that would suit what we were trying to accomplish in our courses and, when we couldn't find one, we decided to create our own.

Our curriculum consists of:

• Six levels, each of which is a 16-hour course, divided into eight 2-hour periods
• Conversation courses that supplement the curriculum
• Beginning conversation follows Level 3 (two hours per week),
• Intermediate conversation is designed to follow Level 4 (four hours per week)
• Advanced conversation follows Level 6 (two hours per week)
• Students who already speak some Spanish should take our placement test to see which level we recommend.

We provide CDs as part of our curriculum, so that students can practice vocabulary, pronunciation, and short dialogues on their own. We also encourage our students to expose themselves to as much use of the language as possible— conversation classes, and films, listen to foreign language TV and radio, read newspapers, magazines and books, and explore the internet -- blogs, podcasts, radio broadcasts, newspapers and more are easily accessible. We recommend some links.
 
We have designed our program to cover all important grammar issues while emphasizing speaking and listening. Classes are very small, participatory, and interactive; teachers speak in Spanish from the very beginning classes; some homework is included. The curriculum can be modified to include occupation-specific vocabulary and phrases.
 
Although students do some reading and some writing, the focus of our curriculum is on the spoken language. As is the case with any language course, grammar is an important aspect of learning a foreign language, but unlike some other methods, we teach grammar with the idea that you use it as you learn it.