Announcing My Online, On-Demand Spanish 1 Course!

Click ↑ to go to my new YouTube Channel!

It's here! I'm teaching my "Jalen Waltman" standards-based high school Spanish 1 curriculum on YouTube and have published a Spanish 1 workbook to go with the videos!

Meet Your Instructor

I'm a certified K-12 Spanish teacher currently holding professional teaching licenses in both Colorado and Oklahoma. I was Nationally Board Certified in World Languages Other than English in 2003, and I have a Master's degree in Teaching from Colorado College. I've taught every level of Spanish from Spanish 1 through AP Spanish Language and Culture. I've been writing and selling Spanish lesson plan curriculum for all of those levels since 2005 all over the U.S. and Canada, on Amazon as well as on Teachers Pay Teachers.

It's Spanish 1, Online and On-Demand!

Students can access my YouTube videos from any device, anywhere. They can pause my instruction, re-watch segments of it, come back to where they left off later, and they will grade everything themselves in their own workbook by following along with me in the videos.

There is also no need for schools or students to buy software, pay a subscription fee to a program, create an account, log in, or participate in video calls with a Spanish teacher. All of my instruction is free on YouTube. The only cost is the 281-page, $35 student workbook. The student workbook contains my syllabus and ALL the work for the course - there is no need to copy anything else to hand out to students or supplement the workbook with any additional assignments. 

Paperback only - now Available on Amazon

How to Use my Spanish 1 Online Course

Schools or families can use my online Spanish course with students in a classroom setting (with or without a "highly qualified" Spanish teacher) or as an at-home, individual online learning foreign language course.

My workbook covers all the vocab and grammar taught in a mainstream Spanish 1 textbook and is aligned with novice-level ACTFL standards. I teach and lead students through exercises in all 4 skill areas of Spanish: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing.

The scope and sequence is exactly what I taught at the high school level in my own classes since 2009. The only difference is that on YouTube I was able to cover ALL of it more thoroughly and reach the end of my first semester lessons since I wasn't being interrupted by assemblies, special testing days, school events, snow days, delayed starts, going over the student handbook, giving absent students their makeup work, etc.

Students taking my YouTube Spanish course can go at their own pace, pausing the videos as needed, re-watch any segments that they didn't quite understand, and review any material they so choose.

Students will work in their own workbook as they watch my video instruction, pausing the video and writing in their own handwriting as I direct them on the videos, to prove that they did the work themselves. They will also evaluate and grade all their own practices and formative assessments throughout the workbook, with me, on the videos.

(Note: my Spanish 1A workbook is copyrighted and not for copying and distribution as handouts or online. If you want or need copies of my curriculum for a Spanish teacher to use for handouts in class or post in his or her Google classroom, that would be my Spanish 1A Supporting Docs bundle on TPT.)

Pacing

There are 32 videos in my Spanish 1A course, averaging 60 minutes start-to-finish. They should be watched at the rate of about two per week. Since students must pause at various intervals in each video in order to complete an assignment in the workbook before going over it with me, the total instruction time would be more or less equivalent to four to five 45-minute classes per week or 1.5 to two 90-minute blocks per week.

Grading

I would give a completion grade for completing all activities and quizzes in each of the 4 major sections of the workbook:

• First Day - Lesson 8/Essay Uno
• Lesson 9 - Lesson 17/Essay Dos
• Lesson 18 - Lesson 24/Essay Tres
• Lesson 25 - Lesson 30/Final Reading and Essay

There is a writing pre-assessment at the beginning of the workbook, a 10-minute essay prompt at the end of each of the first three sections, and a final 20-minute essay prompt at the end of the fourth section. The essays could also be graded separately if desired and assigned letter grades. (Student progress in 10-minute total word count can also be charted from the pre-assessment to the final essay if desired. I usually have students keep a chart of their word count progress in my in-person classes.)

For a final grade in the class, a student must have completed all activities in the entire workbook in their own handwriting as well as pass a final exam, placement, or proficiency test with a 65% or better. You can assign letter grades according to how they score on the exam combined with effort and completion of the workbook. (More on testing below.)

For students scoring below 65%: I personally allow re-takes of tests if students wish to study the videos again and try to take the test again for a passing grade, but that provision is up to the school or institution granting credit.

Testing

Since the course is being taught online by a certified, highly qualified Spanish teacher with 19 years of experience, it can be used for foreign language or world language credit.

After completion of my Spanish 1A video course and workbook, there three options for schools or institutions in certifying credit for one semester of Spanish 1:

1. There is a proficiency-based summative assessment at the end of the workbook, which I direct and explain in the Lesson 30/Final Lesson video on YouTube. The two skills assessed at the end of the workbook are Reading and Writing proficiency.

2. Institutions can give their own first-semester final exam, proficiency test, or placement test to verify that students have acquired the skill level to progress on to Spanish 1B, the second semester of Spanish 1.

3. I can send school administrators a new multiple-choice test (that's not in the workbook) with study guide and answer key upon request. (You will receive a mailing with details about that.)

Timeline for Spanish 1B

I intend to have my Spanish 1B workbook ready to ship by November 1, 2020, and videos will be coming out weekly during Spring semester 2021.

Click here to order!

Spanish 1 for Middle School - Now Live in my TPT Store

Wow, the skits in this book are...weird.

Okay, at long last, I have created the packs of lesson materials for both of my older 2005 Middle School Spanish 1 books.

I confess, I have not looked at these skits for years. Years and years. So as I was going through each page creating the products for TPT, I got the pleasure--if that's the right word?--of reacquainting myself with my "masterpieces" contained in these older books.

The Spanish 1A 2005 for Middle School skits cracked me up. I made that product yesterday and laughed the whole way through while I was updating the formatting. I see why that book still sells well after all these years. (yay, me!)

Today, however, I did my Spanish 1B 2005 for Middle School word docs product. The skits in that book are stunningly weird, dark, and odd...lots of strange purse situations, monsters, mean people, and eating. Eating of mud, paper, sickening dishes cooked by a controlling girlfriend, and a vacuum cleaner that eats the evil stepmother. Who lives to tell about it from the belly of the vacuum cleaner.

I'm like, hm, what was going on in my life in the Spring of 2005 when I wrote these bizarre skits??? All I can say is, I was teaching middle school then and you kind of go a little crazy when you spend your entire day with 12 and 13-year-olds. So, if you are in the mood for dark, gross, and strange, my 1B 2005 lesson plan book is your ticket.

An oldy but a goody.