Homeschool Spanish Academy

What can I say except "WOW!" I was extremely impressed with our experience with Homeschool Spanish Academy. www.homeschoolspanishacademy.com. Emily (age 14) had one-on-one Spanish lessons with her teacher "Profesora Nora." Each week, I would log Emily into my Skype account, and she would wait for the call. Then she and Nora would have a personal, 50 minute session. You can use a headset, or your webcam's microphone (if you chase everyone else out of the room first!)

It was an asset to both Emily & myself. I had 50 minutes to get other things done, and she got the one-on-one attention she needed to learn not just vocabulary, but how to correctly pronounce the words in Spanish. Nora was extremely patient, and friendly. Each session would include time to talk about what Emily had been doing, and the vocab words related to it, and then the set lesson. Before the session, we received an e-mail with the PDF of what they would cover in the lesson, and the homework for Emily to fill out & e-mail back to her teacher. This gave her the chance to review as often as needed before the next lesson.

Emily did the Middle School level sessions, which last 50 minutes. Since Emily had no prior experience learning Spanish, this was a good time limit, enough to review, and cover new material each time, without it being so long as to stretch her to mental fatigue. A half semester Middle School course lasts 7 weeks (one lesson a week) and costs $104.99. That works out to only $15 a class, definitely a bargain for what is covered! Homeschool Spanish Academy also offers 2-on-1 lessons if you have 2 students who are near the same age & at the same place in their learning. Those run $154.99 for the 7 sessions. HSA offers a lot of options, from ages 7 to adult, and once, or twice a week sessions. The sessions for the younger children are about 25 minutes and cost less than $9 a lesson. You can pay by paypal. If you want more sessions per week, or more weeks ( a whole semester or more) the prices become even more economical.

I also enjoyed the flexibility of choosing our class times ourselves. You can choose to have the same instructor each time, or switch between their different ones. Because of Emily's personality, we chose to stick with the same teacher each time (she likes to know what to expect!)

The results? In seven sessions, Emily went from knowing NO Spanish, to knowing some basic conversational Spanish. She learned that Spanish nouns have genders (which we Americans can have a hard time with!) She also learned some basic information about Guatemala, where Nora lives. How cool is it that through modern technology, she learned Spanish from a native speaker, who still resides in her home country!

I have to give kudos to Ron Fortin, the founder of HSA (and their tech support guy!) I am not tech-savvy, but he worked with us the day before Emily's first class to make sure I had Skype correctly installed, and all the settings ready for a seamless start. Ron is quite patient!

If you are wanting your children to learn Spanish, this is the place to go! They have a High School program that would be perfect for those looking for Foreign Language Credits. Parents, stop stressing out about it, and schedule your free trial lesson, you have nothing to lose, and a lot to gain!


As a member of the TOS Crew, we received this service at no charge to us, in exchange for our honest review. All opinions are mine.