How to Use Your Guide & App for the Homeschool Phrases

TRANSCRIPT: HOW TO USE YOUR GUIDE & APP

So now I'm going to show you how to use your guide, how to use the app, and how to teach yourself and your child a phrase. So this will be a very practical start for you.

So, first things first. We're keeping our list narrow and we're choosing one phrase to get started with.  In your guide, you want to go to it, and you want to find your phrase.

I have chosen, "Do we have to get dressed?"

I'm choosing this phrase because it's something that my kids will say and I know they're going to say it right in the morning. And so, I feel like this is a really good phrase that we can just start using. 

I have found this phrase in the Starting School section. So, now I'm going to go over to the app so I can hear the audio for the phrase.

The audio is really important, even if you know how to say things, just so you can continue to hear a native speaker saying it and it can also help your children. If you're the native speaker and they just need to hear someone else also. 

If your kids are younger, I would encourage you, if you would like, for you just to listen to the app and you to say it to your kids. Or, you can have your kids listen to it with you, whatever works better for you and your family. 

So in the app, you'll find the book at the bottom here.  I have too many books, so I'm going to actually go to the book tab here on my phone. I'm scrolling down to The Homeschool Phrases in Spanish. 

I'm just going to open that up there. Then I'm going to go to, The Homeschool Phrases.   Now, my phrase that I chose was, "Do we have to get dressed?" That's under Starting School.

So, at the top here are all the sections listed, so I'm going to click on starting school.  Then I'm just going to scroll down to the phrase. "Do we have to get dressed?" 

And here it is. I'm going to heart that phrase because that's the one phrase that I want to start using. I'm just going to click on the heart and it's going to turn teal for me.

Now, if I go out of the book and I go to the home screen, I can click on that teal icon, with the heart and the text box, that says "Learning" and in there, I will see that phrase that I hearted.

Here it is. "Do you have to get dressed?"  Now this is going to be really helpful.  For what you're doing, I just want you to know, that there is no such thing as cheating.   If you forget how to say something, I want you to look at it on your guide.

So have your guide out where you can see it. If you forget how something is said, I want you to hear it again. The more times you hear it and see it and listen to it.

Like I said, hear it, the better that connection is going to be made in your brain. And so, I really want you to have that exposure.

So, now that you know where to find your phrase, and where it's at, let's practice saying it with the native speaker. 

At the bottom, we have autoplay on and off. I would encourage you to have it off so you can just do the one phrase you're focused on or if you're in your hearted section, you can just play that phrase there.  

So, what I do is I'm going to announce to my kids. I'm going to say, "We're going to learn the phrase, 'Do we have to get dressed,' because you guys say that.  Let's hear how it's said, and we're going to say it with the native speaker."

So in English, I announce what the phrase is. This is very important.  If we just had the English in the app your kids would just tune out what they're learning and they wouldn't retain as much. 

You really need a person there in front of your kids telling them what it is so that they can retain a lot more. This will help you a lot. 

So you tell them what it is."Do we have to get dressed?"  Now, let's hear it. So we'll say it with her. You guys do it with me.

All right, let me make sure I have this audio nice and loud for you. Okay, here we go. Oh sorry, hold on real fast. "Tenemos?" It is not nice and loud. Making it louder. Okay, here we go.

"¿Tenemos?"   "¿Tenemos?" "que"  "que"  "vestirnos"  "vestirnos"

"¿Tenemos que vestirnos?"  "¿Tenemos que vestirnos?"

"Do we have to get dressed?"

So, I often say back to my kids. Let's say they say, "Oh no, we have to get dressed." I would say, "Oh you guys can say it in Spanish." Then I would help them with it.

"¿Tenemos que vestirse, er, vestirnos?" sorry, "¿Tenemos que vestirnos?"

And then, what I can do is I also can sandwich it.  So let's say the phrase is something that I say often to my kids.  So it's like— "We're doing a full day of school."

If I were to say that in Spanish and they didn't understand me, I would say it in English, and then in Spanish again, and I would sandwich it, so that they could hear the phrase being said.

Okay, so now I have the phrase and now the next step is to just use that phrase. To get there though, you might want to practice it.  You might want to say,  "Okay, you guys are coming out of your room and you come up to me and you say this phrase."  

Practice saying it like that.  Then when you practice it in the situation, it's so much easier to use it in the actual situation. As you start adding this phrase into your life, I'd encourage you to go and find another phrase that you want to start using. 

So that's how you can start using the phrases with your kids.

Keep in mind that when you start, it takes a couple of weeks to a couple of months to hear the sounds being said.  So if your kids don't sound great when they start or you don't sound great, it's not a problem.

I want you to focus on having fun, rather than focus on sounding perfect. And by doing that, you're going to make way more progress.

Because as you have fun, you're going to start hearing more and then you're going to start getting better and better.