Glogster is cool!

Here is a project example of what my homeschool students will be doing in a couple of weeks.  Glogster is a lot of fun, for the creative-at-heart!

How best to tackle an online Spanish class

An online class is the most flexible way to learn a foreign language.  You literally can structure the class around your busy life!  But here are some tips for successfully tackling this type of project!

• Try to set a schedule and do your best to stick to it.  If your weeks vary, as they do for many folks, sit down with your calendar at the top of each week.  Decide what days and times you are going to work on Spanish and then do your best to stick to it.  Routines are best, so if there is a way to always spend the same hours on the class each day, then do so.
• Secondarily to that, things happen that change schedules.  If you needed to spend an hour in class both Monday and Tuesday, but had to miss Monday... make sure you build two hours into Tuesday.  Don't short cut your studies, your learning will suffer.
• Realize that because online classes are very independent in nature, you must first orientate to the technology and the structure of the course.  If you are just getting started with Croghan Language Academy, it is going to take you a while to orientate, know where to go, what to do, make sure your technology is compatible...  This can feel frustrating and overwhelming.  Be patient, spend as much time as you can learning your way around.  It will all come together soon!
• Make sure you know how you can get in touch with the instructor.  A quality online class will have an instructor that is available for feedback and answering questions.  Find out when open office hours are and spend some quality time with the instructor then.  At CLA, the instructor is widely available via phone, email, text message, and depending on what curriculum you are enrolled in, computer instant messaging.
• Print as much of the course material as possible and keep a notebook.  Keep the notebook with you at all times, just in case you find a few minutes to scan it.  While waiting for an appointment, while riding to your destination (if you are a passenger, of course), during television commercials, etc.  Find small opportunities to engage in the content.
• Have fun!  Remember what you are doing is really cool, and that if you stick with it, you will one day have opportunities for more friends, travel and careers!

Why CLA instead of Rosetta Stone or others?

Rosetta Stone has a great reputation as a software company offering technology-based language-learning systems.  There is other quality software out there for learning languages, but Rosetta Stone is the most widely-known today.  I often have students looking for supplemental resources to help in their learning, and they ask me about Rosetta Stone.  Although I have no hands-on experience with it, I have asked some students who have used it exactly what they like about it.  From what I've been told, the program does it right as far as immersing you in the language (as much as a computer program can, after all you will have to back away from the computer eventually).  Plus, it's nice that once you purchase the software, it's yours forever, whenever you would like to come back to it.  More importantly for some, the price is right.  But I've been looking at the Rosetta Stone website to learn more about it, and here is why I think Croghan Language Academy will function better for many students.

For homeschool students, the parent is the teacher.  Purchasing Rosetta Stone provides the lessons and the content.  It also provides data as far as exercises completed, scores and time spent on exercises and assessments.  I did not find availability of a Support Team as far as learning goes.  There is technology and sales support.  But what happens when you are in the curriculum and your student has a question, but YOU (parent) are the teacher and you don't know the answer, or feel insecure?  Even if instructional support is offered by Rosetta Stone (maybe it's just not mentioned in the advertising, but I would think that would be important information to share), you will not be assigned to one instructor.  You would be calling, emailing or chatting with different Rosetta Stone call center experts.  While they certainly would be able to answer your question, they won't know you as a student... what you've already mastered, what you are struggling with, what you are on the verge of grasping but just need a little push, etc.  I personally don't enjoy when I have an ongoing situation requiring support and I have to call in and re-explain from the very beginning.

With my courses, I am (or any instructor that I might employee is) yours for the duration of the course.  I get to know you as a student and can provide more time-efficient help and feedback.  In fact, students in my courses receive periodic elaborations on their learning... where you were, where you currently are, and how best to continue.  (And by the way, my courses also provide parents with data as far as exercises completed, scores and time spent.)  Having a living, breathing instructor helps inspire confidence in students.

For businesses, Rosetta Stone also offers some nice options.  They do offer live sessions with a native-speaking "Studio Coach" in a small group format.  But the curriculum is not specific to the needs of the company.  You may be taught to speak in contexts that are not useful.  Croghan Language Academy custom-develops it's Workplace Spanish courses to fit the needs of employees.  Additionally, the live sessions might not be convenient.  Croghan Language Academy offers both synchronous (live meetings) and asynchronous (when it fits your schedule) learning experiences.  We will work in collaboration with your company to determine the ideals for the learning experience, what content will be taught and time frame.

If your only point of comparison is price, Rosetta Stone will win.  But a hypothetical question comes to mind...  is it worth the small investment if confident learning is not achieved, you are not taught what you need, or it is inconvenient for you?  

Young Amigos Online Resource Center

Young Amigos, here are some screenshots of the resources and activities available in the Online Resource Center for our course.  Going to be a good time!

Hear the vocabulary in Spanish as well as see and learn the sign language for each term.


Read/Hear the phrases, audio is included for each phrase.


Learn words and practice pronunciation by practicing with the online flashcards.

Watch age-appropriate skits.




Play fun learning games.

Preparing for those Young Amigos!

I received my teaching materials and curriculum today, and am so excited to get going with this class!  Who wants to learn Spanish with Bella?  She is my almost-6-year-old daughter, who has a seat in the course (with her 7-year-old brother, if I can get him to stick around!) that starts on October 1.

In this next photo, you can see another view of some of the materials.  That stack on the left contains 10 Activity Workbooks that I will be mailing out to participants.  I have about half of them spoken for already, but would really like to have 10 families for this class, if you know anybody who may be interested!

Here are a couple more looks at the curriculum, including a glance at the Online Resource Center, which each family will also have access to as a part of this class.  The second photo is a shot of one of the games...  whoever can find the "tocino" first, wins!

This class starts in just a few weeks, so I will dive into planning and production shortly.  Here's what I can tell you:

• It will be an asynchronous class.  In online learning language, that just means that there are no specific meeting times where we have to be online together.  It will all be completely on your own schedule, and I will provide the directions and all instruction in Spanish.  Your family completes the work when it best fits into your schedule.  I would aim for about 2-3 hours per week, but if participants are really enjoying the "work," do more!
• Each family will receive one of the Activity Workbooks.  If you have more than one participant, you will want to either photocopy the workbook, or I can direct you to the website where you can purchase additional workbooks for $7.  
• Participants will receive lessons recorded by the instructor, play games, sing songs, view skits and videos, complete fun workbook exercises, read popular children's literature, play games and do simple language-related art projects.  All will require differing levels of assistance from parents, depending on the age of the students.  
• Participants will receive copies of certain materials from the photographs, so that they can play games and cut out flashcards.
• Participants will receive and respond to oral prompts using a computer microphone.  This is primarily how I will assess performance.

This is a 10-week course.  The cost is $130 per family which includes tuition, materials and shipping and handling.  If you are interested in joining the learning and fun, or have further questions, please contact Krista at croghanlanguageacademy@gmail.com.  Looking forward to working with my Young Amigos!!!

Day 1 was an absolute success!

So, today was the first day with my VHSG online Spanish class.  It really is the epitome of all of my professional experiences combined into one, mixing the online platform with high school and middle school ages.  I cannot tell you how excited I am about the upcoming year with this group!  I have been teaching college students for so long now that I forgot how much fun younger students are.  What energy, what zest!!!  And I finished my two live sessions with them today feeling completely energized and even more enthusiastic about what this experience is going to be for me.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE teaching college students... I just enjoy the variety I'm adding to my professional portfolio.

A few highlights, but no names will be mentioned to protect the innocent:  :)

• I held my online office hours this afternoon in Blackboard IM.  It is an instant messaging platform, but it is a special virtual office space where students can see I am holding office hours because it's posted on the "door."  So if I am already with another student, others enter the waiting room queue (where they can chat if they'd like) until I am ready for them.  Pretty neat deal! Anyway, I had a student pop in and ask a quick question.  Later on, I saw he was holding office hours of his own!  LOL!!!  So I popped into his office to see what was up.  He was just having fun with the new technology.
• I have a personal contact of my own who is not homeschooling, but just very interested in Spanish.  As it turns out, I taught her during a summer program when she was in the first and second grades.  She joined the class because she wants to, not because she was getting credit for it.  And now come to find out... her mom found out that this experience MAY potentially count as high school credit for her, since I am a certified instructor in her state (Nebraska).  That was a very cool revelation, and I hope it works out for her!
• The discussion area where students are introducing themselves is taking off like wild fire, I can't control it.  They WANT to be part of a collaborative, social group as they are learning.  This is much different than teaching adults, who are just more interested in getting to the business of what they are there to do.  I stopped setting up virtual hangouts where students can socialize, because college students don't use them.  I had better get one set up for this class!
• I greeted the 9:00 group with the text ¡Hola!  One young lady immediately inquired "How did you do the upside down exclamation mark?!?!"  I did the same thing in the 11:00 session.  This gal's sister happened to be attending that session and she actually asked the EXACT same question!  It was bizarre and hilarious!!!

Stay tuned for more...  I have a feeling it will be interesting!

Starting with the home schoolers

Tomorrow marks my first day with a group of about 20 online Spanish high school (and academically mature middle school) students.  They range from 6th to 12th grade.  I could never imagine having a group in a traditional classroom setting where I have such a wide age range of students.  But in an online format, this is going to work!  Because online learning is so individualized, each student who is capable of learning the content can do so, if they put forth the effort.  Age is not going to be that big of a factor.  I can push more advanced students to go further in their language while allowing the ones who are just trying to grasp the basic objectives of the course to meet those goals.

I believe this will be a positive learning experience for these students for several reasons.  First, there is a sense of anonymity when students are in a class together online.  They don't even have to share their ages with classmates if they don't want to.  This anonymity often causes higher confidence levels in shy or insecure students.  Not to say that younger students always have to feel more insecure than older students, but it would be natural if they do.  Being behind the computer screen can provide a huge ego boost.

Second... there will be little-to-no chance for tomfoolery, mischief or bullying in my classroom.  Cases of multiple siblings in a class sharing a web conference session may be different, but at least I don't have to discipline them! (And I do have a couple of sibling pairs taking the class.)

And third, these are home school students.  They tend to be some of the most mature, well-behaved, focused, polite students in our country.  Coming from a public high school teaching setting, I look forward to this change, this voraciousness about learning, this desire for knowledge.  When talking to a mom about whether or not her 6th grade son could handle this course, I asked her to tell me a little bit about him as a student.  When I learned that he has already studied Hebrew to translate the Old Testament from it's original language, I knew that this is a kid that will probably teach me a thing or two!  I expect him to do very well in Spanish.

I can't wait to see how this is going to work out... I anticipate it will be GREAT!