Q: Can Calico Spanish be used in a World Language, SLD or FLES class?
Yes. The curriculum provides a plethora of visual aids, tips for dramatizations, activities and games to create an enrichment experience for beginning language students. The Level 1 program is optimized for use in K-5 Spanish classes. In these settings, teachers usually need at least two years to present all of the material available in Level 1. The resources in Level 2 are perfect for students in 2-6th grade. Level 2 moves students from novice language proficiency to intermediate-mid language proficiency " using literature and thematic lessons.
Please note: Calico Spanish is often modified for use with students from preschool through middle school. Teachers of high school and adult classes have also included Calico Spanish in their classes and reported positive responses. Our resources are truly appealing and effective regardless of a student's age.
Q: Can Calico Spanish be used in a dual-immersion setting?
Yes. The curriculum is designed to be presented 100% in the target language which makes this an ideal program for use in a dual language classroom. For native Spanish speakers and children taught at least 50% of their academic day in Spanish, Level 1 program is most appropriate for students in K-1 classrooms. The Level 2 program is perfect for students in 2nd through 5th grade classrooms in dual-immersion settings.
Q: When will Calico Spanish Level 2 be available?
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Q: Does the program include assessments or methods to test the students' progress?
Yes. Both the Level 1 and Level 2 classroom sets include assessments.
The Level 1 program is organized into 15 chapters with an assessment to be given at the conclusion of every third chapter. There is also an oral assessment guide and rubric that can be given at any time to track the progress of individual students throughout the program. Furthermore, the assessments are leveled with a version for non-readers and a version for readers. This allows you to assess younger students' knowledge without requiring them to read or write in Spanish.
In general, for language learning at the introductory level, you want to grade comfort and participation. If students are responding appropriately to instructions given in the target language, you can verify that they are acquiring the language.
Level 2 assessments are designed to be given following each of the 6 thematic units. The Level 2 oral assessment rubric can be given at any time and is designed to evaluate students' proficiency development in speaking and listening.
Q: Can children younger than 5 or non-readers use Calico Spanish?
Yes. The program is very visual and interactive, so a non-reader can participate and learn successfully. Preschools have used the program with modifications because they love the visuals, games and music so much. The visual aids are well designed so that students can comprehend the meaning by the images regardless of their reading skills.
Q: What topics are covered during the program?
The goal of the Level 1 program is to develop receptive language skills and allow students to begin producing in Spanish in response to questions. They will cover the first 15 letters of the alphabet, learn their numbers through 50, with the goal that they really know the number names, not just how to count in sequence.
You will teach simple verb constructions and practice creating phrases using poder, necesitar, querer and gustar (to be able, to need, to want and to like). You will expose students to a range of action verbs taken from the Verbos flash cards. You will study colors, practice counting coins in Spanish and learn many calendar concepts. Students will begin to learn opposites towards the end of Level 1. Parts of the body are introduced, as well as a number of basic question formats.
Calico Spanish Level 2 is built upon 6 thematic units: Routines, Family, Food, Community, Celebrations and Traditions, Climate and Geography. Students will be exposed to a wide variety of vocabulary, grammatical structures and cultural themes as they explore the topics through literature, activities, research, authentic resources, and discussion.
Q: How many lessons are in the Teacher's Manuals?
The Level 1 Teacher's Manual has 15 chapters. Each chapter has between 9 and 12 lessons segments. The lesson segments include Songs, Calendar, Questions, Numbers, Alphabet, Games, Verbs, Money, Opposites, Zoo, Activities and a Closing. Most lesson segments will be repeated once or twice during the course of a given chapter to ensure children have adequate exposure to the topics presented.
The Level 2 Teacher's Manual features 45 lessons. Each lesson contains several elements and should be covered over the course of several class meetings.
Q: What do the Teacher's Manuals include?
The Level 1 Teacher's Manual includes a lesson plan for either a 30-minute or 60-minute class schedule. If you follow our 30-minute schedule, you will teach 160 days worth of lessons to complete Level 1. If you follow the 60-minute schedule, it will take you 80 days to complete the program and you will have less review/repetition of the individual lesson components.
The Level 2 Teacher's Manual allows teachers to quickly skim lessons and detemine the best order and amount of time needed to cover topics to the depth and breadth appropriate for each class group.
Q: Do you have supply lists for lessons?
There is a supply list at the beginning of each chapter.
Q: How do you adjust lessons for children of varying skills and ages?
The images and visual aids allow non-readers to make connections with the language as you present lessons. For older children, extension activities are frequently recommended to provide additional opportunities to explore various lesson components and give students more practice with writing and reading in Spanish. Teachers are trained to meet the needs of all learners. Calico Spanish supports teachers in this endeavor by recommending a variety of activities that appeal to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners.
Q: Why do you provide scripts in Level 1?
In the Level 1 Teacher's Manual, each lesson component includes a script that you can use as a guide to present lessons to students. Calico Spanish presents certain concepts repeatedly through each chapter and the scripts provide reminders to frequently include those concepts in your lesson presentation.
For example when teaching students the verb, "necesitar," the scripts will show you how you can repeat that verb throughout your lesson to give students lots of exposure to that verb. You can see a sample of the teacher's manual at this link.
Q: How long does it take for teachers to present all of the material in Level 1?
Every language class is different, so the curriculum was designed to be flexible for a variety of schedules. For the most part, if Spanish is taught everyday for 45 minutes to 1 hour, it will take approximately one year to complete Level 1. It is more usual for classes to meet less frequently, in which case it takes two years to cover all of the materiel available in Level 1.
Q: Can I add my own lesson content to the program?
Absolutely. We have built a flexible curriculum so you can easily incorporate your favorite games, resources, and unique cultural insights throughout the program. No curriculum can possibly contain all of great ideas and activities that make learning Spanish fun and effective. Use this curriculum as a launch pad and allow your students to benefit from your creativity and wisdom.
Q: What level of language should students acquire with this program?
The primary goal of Calico Spanish Level 1 is to develop a student's receptive language skills. This means the students will begin to understand messages spoken to them in Spanish. Once a student has a basic framework for understanding a language, they can begin to build confidence in creating their own messages in that language. Initially, you will expect your students to respond to the Spanish language, and eventually, you will assist them in creating their own simple sentences to communicate their own ideas in Spanish. Upon completion of Level 1, students will have basic communication skills and should be at the Novice-Mid to Novice-High range on the ACTFL proficiency scale. Upon completion of Level 2, students should be at the Intermediate-Mid level on the ACTFL proficiency scale.
Krashen and Terrell advocate building this type of language comprehension prior to rigorous grammar studies. Calico Spanish follows this approach and you will not find any formal grammar studies in this program though you will present simple sentence building exercises. Once students have completed Calico Spanish Levels 1 and 2, they will be ready to begin studying Spanish grammar.
Q: What is expected from students during lessons?
Calico Spanish Level 1 focuses on comprehension. You will use Spanish as much as possible, but you do not need to require students to limit themselves to Spanish during the program. Allow students to ask questions in English. If your skills are sufficient, you can repeat the question back to them in Spanish and then answer them in Spanish.
Whenever you can, encourage your students to use the words they know in Spanish, but don't expect fluency or frustrate them by expecting them to immediately be able to utilize the new vocabulary as fluently as you might be doing with the scripts and your own Spanish knowledge. These abilities build gradually, and the initial focus of the lessons is to help children understand Spanish and practice pronouncing words through songs, reciting or repeating words from the calendar and answering simple questions with very simple responses.
Students participating in Calico Spanish Level 2 will actively participate in all aspects of the language class using a great deal of Spanish to do so. Students will learn to read and write in Spanish. The culminating project of Level 2 gives students an opportunity to develop and present information about a Spanish-speaking country's culture, climate, and people in Spanish.
Q: Does the program include a workbook?
Yes, it is called a Student Activity Book. Our program is not workbook based; however, there are many opportunities for students to do independent work. The Student Activity Book includes reproducible work-sheets for various pre-planned, printed activities. In addition, Calico Spanish includes numerous opportunities for students to do independent work that is not worksheet based. For example, students will create their own books about colors in Level 1.
Q: What type of activities are included in the Student Activity Books?
The Level 1 Student Activity Book is primarily a set of worksheets with the song lyrics so that students can create their own song books. There are 30 songs on the Mi guitarrí music CD and every song has an individual page in the activity pack. In addition, there is an activity for farm animals (color and cut), parts of the body (cut and paste), and an activity to create signs for use in a Red Light, Green Light game. The creation of the Student Activity Book gives students an opportunity to express themselves creatively and also provides a key literacy building activity.
The Level 2 Student Activity Book has a wide range of paper-based activities including graphic organizers, Venn diagrams, stories with comprehension questions, maps, and much more.
Q: Can I make students copies of all the resources?
Yes. The classroom versions include the Student Activity Book pages as well as the assessments on a CD-ROM in PDF format. These resources can be saved on your computer so that copies can be made year after year and for different classes.
Q: What is the methodology for Calico Spanish?
The curriculum relies predominantly on Tracy Terrell's Natural Approach to language instruction. Other key language instruction theories utilized throughout the program are Stephen Krashen's language acquisition theories and James Asher's Total Physical Response (TPR) methods.
The key concept in the Natural Approach is that students learn language only when they are exposed to messages in that language which they can decipher and understand. Calico Spanish is designed to use visual aids, activities, songs and mini-dramatizations to equip you to present lessons to your students so that they can understand the basic concepts you are attempting to communicate.
Q: Does the curriculum include stories?
Although Calico Spanish Level 1 is not story based, a story book is read aloud to the students throughout the year. Calico Spanish Level 2 includes 17 picture books and additional short stories as a foundation for the lessons.
Q: How is the book !Corre, perro, corre! (Go, Dog! Go!) used?
Go, Dog, Go (Corre, perro, corre) is read aloud to the students during the program as a method of introducing very simple literature. Students feel a sense of accomplishment when they realize they are learning enough language to comprehend a storybook. The book illustrates opposites, colors and more.
Q: What words are included in the Calico Spanish Flash Cards set?
The Calico Spanish Level 1 Flash Card Set goes with the program and includes an image and word for each letter of the alphabet, eleven colors/shapes, eleven faces to answer the question "How are you?" greetings, four sets of opposites, 21 animals and the numbers 1-15.
In addition, we provide you with present tense verb conjugations of the verbs poder, necesitar, ir, querer and gustar (to be able, to need, to want, to go, and to like). There are a few additional images that are useful during various lessons such as the clock, Señor Reloj and a beautiful little farm scene titled La granja. In total our flash card set includes 149 flash cards.
The Level 2 Flash Cards include family members, opposites, prepositions of location, occupations, and more.
Q: What verbs are included in the Verbos Flash Card set?
The Verbos flash cards are published by Trend Enterprises, Inc. We don't have their permission to issue a complete list of included verbs, but there are a total of 93. Some of our favorite verbs in that set are correr, comer, abrir, bailar, cortar, dar, dibujar, escribir, leer, llamar, limpiar, ir, pegar, nadar, reír, tirar, tomar, voltear, servir, plantar, and empujar. The images on the cards do a wonderful job of illustrating what each verb means.
Q: Why aren't capital letters used for each word in the titles of your Spanish books and resources?
In Spanish, titles are written with a sentence case. In other words, only the first letter of titles is capitalized.
Q: Why is the music CD called Mi guitarrí rather than Mi guitarra?
We named the CD after our version of a traditional Spanish singing game of musical chairs. In an old Spanish textbook from the early 1900's we located a poem and the instructions for this wonderful game in which students play musical chairs while listening to the sound of Mi guitarrí (a pet name for the singer's guitar).
Students listen closely until the singer says, "…to the rhythm of my guitarrí-CO!" and upon hearing the addition of the syllable, "-CO," students scramble for a seat!
Q: Is there a money-back guarantee?
Yes, there is a 100% money back guarantee. Please read the specifics of our policy on our legal page.
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