CLEP Spanish: Best way to learn for someone with ZERO prior knowledge

[jamshid666]

I think the OP is gone, or at least this thread may be abandoned, but I'm just going to say it:  it can't be done.  

I'd love to be proven wrong- but for someone starting from scratch with zero language- if there is a curriculum that takes you from 0 to 9 college credits in Spanish in 1 month, I want to know about it because I have 13,000 homeschooling parents who would pay thousands of dollars to incorporate that into their homeschool TODAY.   I'm rarely so definitive, but I'm going all in- it's impossible.

The Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA is one of the premier language schools in the entire world.  Students there spend 8 hours per day doing nothing but learning their selected language, not to mention the additional hours spent after class doing homework, studying for the weekly tests, etc.  The basic Spanish course is about six months long.  If DLI can't get it done in less than six months, I don't see any other program doing any better.  Note that the end goal for classes at DLI is a high level of fluency, well above what the CLEPs are testing for.  One month is probably unlikely, I think three to four months is a more realistic target, especially if you have access to a long-haired dictionary and be willing to dedicate several hours per day focused on studying.

Actually, let's do the math.  At the time that I went to DLI for Persian Farsi, it was a 47 week course that awarded 22 SH of credit.  So, assuming 40 hours per week:

47 weeks * 40 hours/week = 1,880 hours.  22 SH / 1,880 hours = approx 85.5 hours per SH.  So, a realistic amount of study time for a 9 SH CLEP would be around 770 hours.  If you study 3 hours every week night, and 5 hours each Saturday and Sunday, that would be 25 hours per week, which would come out to just under 31 weeks.

As far as learning materials, I would start with DuoLingo or MangoLanguages for the first couple weeks to get a feel for how the language sounds and feels on your tongue. Once you clear those, I would find college-level Spanish textbooks from a used bookstore and set my TV to play the Spanish broadcasts or watch Spanish movies on Netflix. The Netflix option would likely be the better choice, since you can pause it and look up words in the dictionary. Make sure to record yourself reading passages from the textbooks and play them back to see how your accent compares to real Spanish speakers and work on matching their accents and speed.

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Yeah the FSI says 575-600 hours spread over 23-24 weeks. But I was taking into account someone being able to eliminate choices and make some guesses without being fluent or close. Personally, I think someone might be able to pass with only about 300 hours of studying, if they had great study skills, reading comprehension skills, and test skills and they focused on what the test wants. Especially if they use language study advice. They would not be very good at the language.

I think you are correct, if you only care about passing the CLEP instead of obtaining actual fluency, about 300 hours would do it.