Spanish ยท Curriculum
The Spanish curriculum, in one view
Twelve chapters. The first three lay the foundation: word order, the top hundred lemmas, and the present tense. Chapters four through twelve drop a new band of high-frequency vocabulary every hundred ranks, weave in the AQA Foundation grammar that activates each band, and end with a graded reader you can finish using only the words you've learned so far.
- Chapters
- 12
- Lessons
- 114
- Grammar primers
- 25
- Story milestones
- 11
The grammar arc, chapter by chapter
Every chapter from 4 onwards interleaves grammar with the rank batches, so a learner alternates between drilling words and unlocking the construction that turns those words into sentences. This is the arc:
- 1
Word order in Spanish
Also: Spanish articles: when to use which
- 2
Top 140 words foundation
Ranks 1-140
- 3
Conjugating -ar verbs
Also: Conjugating -er verbs, Conjugating -ir verbs, Conjugating reflexive verbs
- 4
Demonstratives: este, ese, aquel
Also: Possessive adjectives, Negation: no, nunca, nadie, nada · ranks 103-192
- 5
Adjective agreement
Also: Ser vs estar, Basic prepositions and contractions · ranks 201-300
- 6
Direct and indirect object pronouns
Ranks 301-400
- 7
Reflexive verbs
Also: Comparatives, Question words · ranks 404-499
- 8
The present perfect: he hablado, has comido
Ranks 501-600
- 9
The preterite tense
Also: The imperfect tense, Preterite vs imperfect: which one when · ranks 601-700
- 10
Talking about the future
Ranks 702-800
- 11
The conditional tense
Ranks 801-899
- 12
Commands: the imperative
Also: Impersonal verbs: hay, hace, se puede, Relative pronouns: que, quien, lo que · ranks 901-1000
What you can do when you finish
- Read the rank-1000 graded reader at the end of Chapter 12 with no lookups - every content word is from the chapters you've just worked through.
- Hold a present-and-past tense conversation: ask questions, talk about routines, narrate something that happened yesterday.
- Hedge a request politely with the conditional ("I would like...", "could you...").
- Recognise (and partly produce) the AQA GCSE Foundation grammar inventory - the formal benchmark for the curriculum.