Children Spanish facts and ideas

• Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world (after Mandarin Chinese) with 500 million native speakers.
• 12.2% of USA households speak Spanish.
• Juan Carlos I is the current King of Spain.
• Instead of the Tooth Fairy. Spanish cultures have Ratoncito Pérez. A mouse!
• As well as a birthday, the Spanish have a “name day”. This is when they celebrate the feast day of the Saint whose name they share.
• Bullfighting is one of Spain’s national sports. The most famous was Pedro Romero who was said to have killed 5,000 bulls!
• The coat of arms of Madrid (Spain’s Capital) is a bear eating a strawberry bush.
• Children in Spain don’t receive Christmas presents until the 6^th of January! This is known as the day of the Three Kings (Los Reyes).
• Tapas (the Spanish style of food) means “lid”. This is because the custom originated from bar customers putting plates over their beer to keep flies out. Soon food was served on the plates and that’s how the cuisine started.

Some practical points to check are:

• Do you need to provide stationery or equipment? Do these need to be purchased before the lessons start?
• Are there any text books that you need to order or pay for in advance?

There are three examination boards accredited by Ofqual. These are:

AQA – One of the leading provider of GCSEs and A Levels. Used by most secondary schools and colleges in the UK.

Edexcel – Considered the UK’s largest awarding organisation, they offer both academic and vocational qualifications and testing to schools and colleges.

OCR (Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examinations) – Over 13,000 centres choose OCR for their A Levels and GCSEs.

Children and Young Adults

GCSE – Generally involves most aspects of the language such as writing, reading, listening and speaking. Vocabulary is centred on the kind of conversations your child might have on holiday in Spain.

A/AS Level - AS (Advanced Subsidiary) and A (Advanced) qualifications will still focus on the skills learnt at GCSE yet to a higher level. It will also encourage deeper knowledge of the Spanish culture and promote fluent Spanish speaking, rather than speaking Spanish as a visitor.

Adults

Spanish can been taken into many areas at degree level. As well as Spanish Language and Literature, Spanish will be useful for European and South American history as well as South American studies.

Qualifications of teachers/tutors

There is no minimum qualification required to tutor Spanish at home in the UK at present, however we would recommend you ask to see copies of qualifications held.

• Focus
• Memory
• Cultural Awareness

There are lifelong academic benefits to knowing two languages and transitional benefits gained during the learning of a new language. Studies show that at every level, bilinguals perform better in intellectual tests. Children who study a second language do better at logical reasoning, mathematics and English verbal tests. They get better exam results and adults who are competent in more than one language do best in both verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests. Knowledge of Spanish will also help with the other Romance languages such as French, Italian and Romanian.

There are, of course many non-Spanish famous people who speak Spanish - some of our favourites are:

Matt Damon, Emma Thompson, Will Smith, Ben Affleck, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lindsay Lohan, Tommy Lee Jones, Sharon Stone, Rachel Welch, Jessica Alba, Bon Jovi, David Beckham, Barack Obama, Kate Bosworth and Gary Lineker.

Horrible Histories - the Spanish Armada.