Breaking the Barrier Spanish for middle school teaches Spanish from both conversational and grammatical approaches, incorporating reading, listening, speaking, and writing. Breaking the Barrier first produced their high school program for learning Spanish (and other languages). The new, two-level program for middle school Spanish, with courses titled ¡Vamos! Beginner “A” and ¡En Camino! Beginner “B,” covers essentially the same content as does the first year of their high school program, but at half the speed. The inclusion of the online component provides a much wider range of learning activities that are likely to make language learning easier for middle school students.
Students can start ¡Vamos! Level A with no Spanish language background, but it will be much easier for those with a prior introduction to the language. These are academically challenging courses, even if the pace is slower. Each course has eight lessons, but each lesson has many parts and will take about a month to complete.
Level A covers both present and preterite verb tenses, irregular verbs, articles, pronouns (subject, object, and indirect object), adjectives, and prepositions. Level B adds topics such as the imperfect tense, the progressive tense, verb forms for conveying the immediate future, the verbs saber and conocer, adverbs, comparisons, and formal commands. In addition, students learn sentence structure, pronunciation, and a huge amount of vocabulary along with other skills. Both courses include plenty of practice and continual review.
The middle school coursebooks are printed in full color and feature many illustrations and maps. The courses are dependent on online material, so you purchase either a book plus online access, or the homeschool program that includes the book, online access, an Answer Key, Vocabulary Quizzes (one per lesson), the Test Program (one test per lesson), the Spanish Oasis travel vocabulary guide, and the six-page Homeschool Pacing Guide. The Answer Key, Vocabulary Quizzes, and Test Program all come as packets of pages in a sheet protector. The Homeschool Pacing Guide is also available free online.
The online material repeats much of the textbooks’ instruction and examples and then adds audio pronunciation by native speakers, interactive exercises, vocabulary flashcards, readings, and occasional short videos. Some online content is not included in the textbooks. Conversely, the textbooks have some material not included online, so students need both. Some online questions can be answered in writing offline (on paper or in the textbook), but many answers can be typed into the program, which checks them immediately. The online program requires students to sometimes answer orally or carry on conversations, but the program cannot evaluate those oral responses.
Lesson Content
The first two lessons in Level A teach basics such as pronunciation, beginning vocabulary, and frequently used questions and answers. These two lessons aim to build conversational confidence based on everyday vocabulary and expressions before beginning a more formal study of the language. The first two lessons in Level B review vocabulary and some basic grammar, so students who have studied Spanish previously might be able to start with the second course.
After the first two lessons, the other six lessons follow a common pattern. Lessons open with a map of one of the many Spanish-speaking countries in the world along with images and information, such as typical food, key products, and the capital city. Many of the exercises later in the lessons present cultural information about the featured country or countries, so students learn about geography and cultures as they learn Spanish.
Next are two pages with images of famous people and places in the country, and then students are presented with new vocabulary words. Mastery of these words is critical for completing the rest of the lesson, so students must use the online flashcards or practice the vocabulary in another fashion.
The instruction and exercises that come next are divided into either three or four sections, each focused on a particular grammatical concept, such as “Adjectives and the Idea of Agreement” or “Prepositions.” Instruction on each concept is followed by examples and a few practice exercises that vary in format, such as filling in the blanks, oral practice (requires a partner), editing paragraphs written in Spanish, completing conjugations, and translating sentences from Spanish to English and the reverse. Online exercises mirror this variety, and students can immediately check their answers. They can also reset exercises to try them again. The program does not retain answers or scores.
The content is practical, generally including vocabulary and usage students will likely encounter. One exception is that the courses teach vosotros for the second person plural pronoun, along with its appropriate verb conjugations, and these conjugations differ from those for ustedes (for the second person plural), the pronoun used more commonly in Mexico and many other Spanish-speaking countries.
The courses frequently refer to cultural icons who are (or have been) famous in culture, sports, or politics, such as Shakira, Pedro Almodovar, Ricky Martin, and Lionel Messi, a feature likely to interest students. After the first two lessons, the online program includes cultural or geographical reading passages during the fourth week of each lesson, followed by comprehension questions. Students can listen to these passages being read aloud by a native speaker.
The coursebooks I reviewed were from a first print run, and they do not have an appendix with conjugation charts. However, the publisher has posted conjugation charts online and will be adding them to the next print run in 2025.
Scheduling
If you follow the recommended lesson plans for four days per week, it should take about a month to complete each lesson. Students take a vocabulary quiz at the end of the third week or the middle of the fourth week. Each lesson concludes with a test. Quizzes and tests are in the packets that come with the homeschool package, and answer keys are provided within the packets.
The Homeschool Pacing Guide should help parents and students avoid any confusion about when to use which components as well as the rate at which they need to work to stay on schedule. It also includes occasional activities--neither in the coursebooks nor online-- that refer students to the “Other Resources” page on the publisher’s website for additional practice related to each lesson. These are shown on the website as warm-up activities, and they might also be used for that purpose.
Summary
I like the high school Breaking the Barrier courses, and the middle school courses do a great job of breaking down the content of the first year of high school into manageable lessons for a younger audience. Students completing the two middle school courses should be ready for a second-year high school course.
