Wow, is all I can say about the Rosetta Stone. About a month ago, I WON the Rosetta Stone Spanish, Level 1, Homeschool Edition from The Heart of the Matter Online contest. I had been wanting this for awhile and was so excited about this prize!
We started it last week. It is even better that I expected! First of all, the homeschool edition is great because you can create an account for each child and it track’s their progress. So far Grace, Luke, and John have all used it.
Rosetta Stone uses the “Immersion” method, which means you learn the language just as you did when you learned to speak your first language: by immersion. The computer shows you a picture of an object and says in Spanish what it is. There is no “translation.” The word is also written out in Spanish. After a series of repetition with different pictures, you are then prompted to match what is said to the picture. After some of those exercises, you are prompted to say the word into the microphone. If you do not pronounce it correctly, you are to try again until you get it correct.
I love how it slowly adds more words and phrases building upon what you have learned. I was absolutely amazed that in just a few lessons Grace is remembering so many of the words. Even John is remembering. The funniest part was today when little Ethan (16 months) was screaming over and over at the computer screen, “Hola!!!!!” And then the computer kept telling Grace she wasn’t saying the words correctly. Poor kid… 🙂
I am so pleased with the Rosetta Stone. I have always heard nothing but rave reviews about it from the homeschool community, and now I know why. The one downfall though is you can not resell it as we all do with so much of our curriculum. Rosetta Stone has pretty strict licensing rules. Other than that, I would HIGHLY recommend this program to anyone who wants to learn a new language, homeschooled or not!
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