Rosetta Stone

Whew.  I just finished my first “live session” on the Rosetta Stone language learning program.  I got Level 1 for Mother’s Day because, as I’ve said, nothing else has been working for me.  Classes are expensive, time consuming, far away and only moderately useful.  With Rosetta Stone on my computer I’ve been able to sit down every day after the kids are in bed and practice for 30-45 minutes.  It’s almost like an addictive video game.  I listen, speak, write, read stories and play games (solo or online).  Once a unit is complete I can sign up for a live session.  For 50 minutes I see and talk to a Rosetta Stone “teacher”, a real person, on the computer.  She shows us pictures, asks questions and makes us speak to the other 3 students enrolled in the session.  It’s all total immersion.  No English allowed.  Exhausting, but exciting.  Unit 1 was mostly review for me, though, so it’s definitely getting more challenging.  I still haven’t downloaded the smart phone apps included in the package or listened to the CDs in the car.  (Since I have the kids with me most of the time, I really can’t mess around with a phone app or listen to anything but child-babble while driving.)

I’ve finished almost half of Level 1 and feel pretty comfortable with what I’ve learned so far.  I even noticed that I understood more of the conversations at a recent party we went to hosted by a friend from Mexico.

It turns out that AISD is offering Rosetta Stone for a really reduced price to parents of kids in the DL program.  We jumped on that so we can continue studying after Level 1.  After all, we can install the program on all the computers in the house.  Rob is going to study and Violet has already started.  She actually loves it.  Since she won’t be writing Spanish until 2nd grade, I disabled the writing section of the program and she is whizzing through it.

Bueno.  Must go study.