Textbook suggestions for High School Spanish 1-3

Hi all,

Does anyone have a Spanish program that they recommend for high school Spanish 1-3?

My department was using Ven Conmigo and then was so unhappy with the outdated materials and nonsensical order of the grammar, that they scrapped the book and created a list of vocabulary and grammar concepts. Needless to say, that did not work well, especially when we had new teachers in the department that had to create all of their own curriculum. NOT GOOD!

This year we have been piloting Descubre, previously Vistas, and have found the book to be more suitable for college than high school. The grammar is not chunked and there are very large amounts of vocabulary presented all at once.

We know that no book is perfect but we would like one to provide a solid base that we can build from, while not having to build everything.

Thanks for your feedback!

Rachel,
Spanish Teacher
Petaluma, California

Tags: descubre, realidades, spanish, textbooks, vistas

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Permalink Reply by Elias Hickman on November 26, 2009 at 8:26pm

I think I studied "Que tal?" in High School and that was okay. My spanish was a little bit better than the others, but I remember enjoying the cultural insights that it had at the end of the units. Mainly because I learned more Spanish.
http://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Course-Listening-Comprehension-S...
I'm looking at the reviews and 3 of them are poor BUT they're not offering any advice on what to purchase instead of this book.

I'm not a Spanish teacher anymore, and for the brief period that I was we didn't use a textbook. Having said that, I think any book will do, just advise your children in advance that you have or will create an errata. That would be an excellent way to introduce them to the concept of an "errata" and I think they would admire the fact that you've taken time to pour over the text, finding and making corrections. I would, depending on their level, also supplement any of the vocabulary presented with your own knowledge.