Spanish IA

Full-year course. This introductory course is designed to excite students about the language and cultures of Spanish-speaking countries and give them a foundation for continued study in high school or at the college level. Students will use skills in the following areas and build global competency skills for future careers and experience based on the World-readiness Standards for Learning Languages from ACTFL: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities. 

Students will develop basic competencies in the four modalities of language learning: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. At the conclusion of the course, students will be able to introduce themselves and answer simple questions about topics covered in the class (speaking), provide basic biographical information with accuracy (writing), be able to recognize and understand a few spoken expressions in conversation (listening), and can understand short, simple texts that convey simple information (reading). 

A note on our middle school offerings: students in the logic stage (grades 6-9) benefit from different instructional strategies, and benefit from spending additional time with grammar instruction. This course moves through the same core textbook as the high school course, but at half pace. When Foundational Spanish 1A is taken along with the other middle school Spanish course, Foundational Spanish 1B, students have covered all the topics necessary for moving into Spanish 2 (high school level) at the Well-Trained Mind Academy for their third year of language study.

We recommend that students enrolling in Spanish IA be comfortable with the topics covered in Grammar I. Grammar instruction is not a pre- or co-requisite, however we have found that students are more successful learning a new language when they have a strong understanding of grammar rules. Use the placement tests found in our grammar course descriptions to find the appropriate grammar course for your student.