Skip to content

Spanish Series Overview

The inaugural series, Breaking the Spanish Barrier has helped students achieve their language goals for over two decades.

The all-in-one textbook/workbook is the centerpiece of our language curriculum. The workbook teaches essential vocabulary, grammar fundamentals and up-to-date cultural information. The core text is everything you need for a full year’s course. 

Featuring thoughtful exercises, an exciting adventure series, authentic audio from native speakers, and a comprehensive testing program, our curriculum offers everything needed for language mastery. Upon completion of the three-level series, students will have practiced every important topic in Spanish and have the confidence to read, write, and speak fluently. 

Breaking the Spanish Barrier is available in both print or online formats.  Many students purchase both to access the audio, flashcards, and cultural articles.

Online Access is the online version of the print textbook. It integrates audio, video, cultural articles, answers, beautiful pictures of sites of interest, and notable people from Spanish speaking countries. The exercises are interactive. A student can click on any single answer, see immediately if he/she is right or wrong, and view the correction. There are also responsive flashcards with audio, oral questions, and video instructional capsules. The content -- explanations, exercises, dialogues are exactly the same as the print book. Online Access provides students tools that may appeal to different learning styles, especially auditory and visual learners.

¡Vamos! Beginner (A) Overview: 

 

The STEPS Section:

Students begin their journey with our heralded “STEPS Section,” ten essential building blocks (greetings, family, telling time, numbers, weather, days of the week, home and school vocabulary, etc.) that help students begin speaking immediately.

Topics Covered:

After STEPS, students learn the following new material in subsequent chapters: 

  • Present and the preterite (past tense)
  • Subject pronouns
  • Object pronouns
  • Adjectives
  • Ser and Estar verbs
  • Prepositions and conjunctions

¿Recuerdas?

A special section in the middle of each chapter called ¿Recuerdas? focuses on concepts presented in earlier chapters, so that students can review prior material as they learn new ideas.

Cultural Content in :

Up-to-date cultural information from countries such as Mexico, Spain, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, and Ecuador is offered at the beginning of each chapter. Cultural articles with audio and video along with literary selections are also featured throughout the program.

You will find the tone of these pages to be welcoming and conversational – a one-on-one journey between teacher and student.

___________________________________________________________________________

¡En camino! Beginner (B) Overview:

In ¡En camino! (Beginner "B"), students will first review the major ideas from ¡Vamos! (Beginner “A”), including the present and the preterite, subject pronouns, object pronouns, adjectives, ser & estar, prepositions, and conjunctions. 

The learning continues with new material including: 

  • Imperfect tense
  • Adverbs
  • Saber & Conocer verbs
  • Progressive tense
  • Comparisons
  • Formal commands
  • Por & Para
  • Immediate future

¿Recuerdas?

Again, an important section in the middle of each chapter called ¿Recuerdas? focuses on concepts presented in earlier chapters so that students can easily review material as they learn new ideas.

Even More Cultural Content

Up-to-date cultural information will be introduced at the beginning of each chapter from countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Dominican Republic, and El Salvador. Cultural articles with audio and video along with literary selections are also featured throughout the program. 

__________________________________________________________________________

 Spanish Level 1 Overview: 

LEVEL 1 (BEGINNER):

The Level 1 book assumes no prior knowledge of Spanish. It starts from the very beginning by introducing simple words and phrases that can be used right away.
  • The “First Steps” lesson also presents all the sounds of the Spanish language so that students can develop an authentic accent. Theme-based vocabulary offers students opportunities to learn words relevant to their daily lives at home, school, and beyond.  
  • An action-packed dialogue series appears throughout the book offering students reading and listening comprehension practice.

  • Throughout the chapters, easy-to-understand explanations unravel these essential building blocks of language:

    1. nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions
    2. the present, preterite, imperfect, and progressive tenses
    3. formal commands

Review a sample print chapter of Level 1 and here to view a sample online chapter.

Click here for the table of contents of Level 1.

Spanish Level 2 Overview:

 LEVEL 2 (INTERMEDIATE)

The Level 2 text first reviews key grammar topics to ensure that all students have a strong grounding in the present, preterite, and imperfect tenses.
  • New lists of vocabulary further expand students’ ability to describe the world around them.
  • An adventure series also is featured in Level 2 as characters travel to exciting new places with unexpected twists and turns.
  • Written in the same student-friendly style as Level 1, the new material in Level 2 includes the following grammatical concepts:
  1. the future, conditional, present perfect, pluperfect, present subjunctive, and pluperfect subjunctive
  2. indefinites, demonstratives, and reflexive pronouns
  3. informal commands, comparisons

Review a sample chapter of Level 2 and here to view a sample online chapter..

Click here for the table of contents.

 Spanish Level 3 Overview:

LEVEL 3 (ADVANCED)

The Level 3 / Advanced book targets students in their 3rd or 4th year of Spanish. It is a text that highlights all they key grammar found on AP, SAT II, IB, or college placement tests. In, fact, author John Conner used to help write the AP tests!

  • Continuing the strategies established in the first two books in the series, the Advanced Level begins by reviewing the major present, past, conditional and future tenses. Cultural articles with comprehension exercises help students get to know stories from people around the world. You will also find:
  1. all perfect tenses, including the present perfect, pluperfect, future perfect and conditional perfect
  2. the subjunctive mood (with commands, verbs of emotion, hypothetical situations, adverbial phrases)
  3. comparatives, the passive voice, “if clauses,” punctuation, and uses of the infinitive
  4. intriguing vocabulary, with special focus on adjectives in early chapters, followed by nouns, verbs, and idiomatic expressions

Our Advanced book makes certain that every student – whether formally enrolled in school or studying independently – has all the rules he or she will ever need to know about the Spanish language. It fully equips students for a lifetime of pleasurable and authentic contact with the Hispanic world.

Review a sample chapter of Level 3 and and here to view a sample online chapter.  Click here for the table of contents.