Middle School
Buenos Amigos
Our acclaimed Spanish program aims to prepare and inspire our students to become active participants in a global society by connecting, empathizing, and understanding cultures beyond their own. Your child will learn to ask questions about events, places, celebrations, and beliefs.
In the process, she will discover that understanding other cultures promotes peaceful coexistence and that cultural competence is an essential 21st century skill. With a curriculum that incorporates high-engagement games and activities, your child will study Spanish in the way children learn best. In eighth grade, students may take Spanish 1A, Spanish 1B, or Spanish 2 Honors. Wherever your child may be on his Spanish language journey, we hope he will embrace some of the many spontaneous opportunities in Houston to use Spanish in a meaningful way.
According to college counselors, America’s most selective universities want applicants to have taken four years of the same foreign language in high school. At ROBS, our curriculum lays an exceptional foundation for advanced high school Spanish. Most ROBS students complete Spanish 1A and 1B, and many complete Spanish 2 Honors. After high-school placement tests, the majority of our students place out of Spanish 1, and many score well enough to place out of Spanish 2. Some high schools accept incoming freshmen into Spanish 3; others do not allow freshmen in junior-level classes and thus create classes such as Honors Spanish 2 or Native Spanish 1 for freshmen with advanced Spanish skills.
Spanish Language Offerings
Spanish 1A covers about half the material in a high-school level Spanish 1 class. This pace allows students to establish a solid base of knowledge from which to grow as language learners. The goal is for students to achieve novice speaking and writing skills in Spanish. We cover the topics you might expect such as offering greetings, sharing personal information, describing family members, reciting numbers, telling time, discussing school life, asking questions, and talking about hobbies—and we do so in inventive ways. Your child will write a web profile and blog in Spanish; create a family tree and introduce family members to the class; make a video teaching someone how to tell time; and present a favorite topic to the class through an original work of art such as a song, comic book, or puppet show.
Spanish 1B covers the second half of the material in a high-school level Spanish 1 class. The goal is for students to achieve comfortable conversational skills and intermediate writing competence. By the time students have completed Spanish 1B, they should be able to communicate about how they feel; talk and write about the seasons and other weather; describe clothing; express preferences in a store; negotiate and pay for items; describe their daily routine; order and discuss food in a restaurant; and discuss and plan a vacation. Students in 1B prepare oral presentations in which they talk about their daily their lives. They are encouraged to speak spontaneously as well as prepare scripted remarks. Filming their work product, sharing their videos with each another, and offering and receiving feedback add creativity and fun while accelerating the learning process.
In the Spanish 2 Honors program, students will continue to develop their proficiency through an engaging and relevant curriculum. This course covers the full year of a high-school level Spanish 2 class, reinforcing previously mastered concepts in reading, writing, and speaking, and introducing different tenses. These skills are further developed through storytelling, project-based learning, and more. For example, your child will become a “travel consultant” for ROBS, planning a virtual trip to a Latin American country complete with itineraries, flights, hotels, restaurants, and activities. The goal is for students to achieve mid- to high-intermediate fluency in speaking and intermediate proficiency reading and writing in Spanish.
