Teaching Spanish To Kids

[incarnatewordsister]

[quote name='Ed Normile' timestamp='1347322023' post='2481142']
Take them to Taco Bell so they have the basic knowledge of food names. Then when they are older get them summer jobs in the lawn care profession and they will pick up tons of spanish.

ed
[/quote] I find this incredibly racist

[incarnatewordsister]

Music always helps.

Cri Cri songs are really good. And I think you can find them on youtube and animated. Songs such as "El raton vaquero" (The Cowboy Mouse) or "La Marcha de las Letras" (The ABC's march) filled my heart with beauty and a love of reading and learning.

You could also find Jose Luis Orozco's "Diez Deditos" CD on amazon. "La Pulga de San Jose" is a song that teaches them the names of instruments and sounds. Kids love to sing them. Even the seminarians I teach sing it because it's fun.

Good luck and PM me if I can help you. I used to teach elementary, so I have plenty of material.

[Groo the Wanderer]

[quote name='Ed Normile' timestamp='1347322023' post='2481142']
Take them to Taco Bell so they have the basic knowledge of food names. Then when they are older get them summer jobs in the lawn care profession and they will pick up tons of spanish.

ed
[/quote]

epic fail amigo.

i managed taco bells for 9 years. not mexican food. also learned a bit of spanish there from my employees but not enough to be worth anything now. 'wash hands, take out trash please, no onions, here or to go' doesn't take me very far now.

[PhuturePriest]

Taco Bell? Really? That's the worst food on the planet. Plus, they have Pepsi, not coke, and we all know Pepsi smells of elderberries (My dad was a manager for Coke and I can't tell you without getting in trouble what he calls it). At least have some decency and send them to a Playa Azul, a sit-down Mexican chain with amazing chicken fajitas...

I would recommend Spanish Masses, as I am sure others have already suggested. There is actually a camp Father Mitch Pacwa recommends where everyone speaks nothing but Latin. Confession is in Latin, Mass is in Latin, everyday speech is in Latin. He said you can go even if you don't know any Latin at all because after a few days of hearing nothing but Latin you begin to understand it and by the end of the week you will know tons of Latin, so perhaps going to a daily Mass in Spanish every week will force you to learn Spanish rather than formally teach you in the traditional sense? Your kids probably won't be able to understand it since they probably have a difficult time paying attention to Masses in [i]English[/i], but it's always easier to teach something to children if you understand it yourself.

Edited September 13, 2012 by FuturePriest387

[Winchester]

[quote name='incarnatewordsister' timestamp='1347504948' post='2481895']
I find this incredibly racist
[/quote]
It's not sensitive, but how is it racist? Is "Spanish speaker" a race? Does this imply racial superiority or inferiority? Do you find the jobs mentioned demeaning? Is it possible that the vast majority of people this man has encountered in these positions are Spanish speakers? Does that mean his life experience is 'racist'?

Certainly, one could guess from life experience that a person making these statements has some kind of racial prejudice, but the statements themselves cannot be interpreted as racist. Well, not reasonably, anyway.

[Era Might]

Taco Bell is great, Chipotle is greater.

I didn't learn Spanish until I was an adult, so I don't know how it works for kids, but I imagine it's easier to learn a language if you have some interest or some need (e.g., wanting to translate Latin or Greek texts would make it a lot easier to learn the language than just some vague desire to do so).

Edited September 13, 2012 by Era Might