Opinions please: My dd14 is doing high school this year. She briefly took Spanish last year (only 3 mo through the Charter and then we disenrolled). We noticed that foreign language was a hard subject to take on your own. She would have benefitted from a classroom setting where she could hear people speaking it and having someone fluent (teacher) correct her pronunciation errors. My question is if it is necessary to take a foreign language? Sure, spanish would be helpful since we live in an area with a huge hispanic population, but how effective will it be to take it on her own? I guess I am wondering is it so very important that we: a) take the time to muddle through a year or two of Spanish and b) save up to purchase Spanish language software, like Rosetta Stone? I just really have a feeling, based on her (short) experience with learning Spanish, that this would be a waste of money and time. What do you think??
I am an English professor, and from my experience, I think we do a HUGE disservice to our children by keeping them monolingual. I speak French and Spanish (albeit poorly) and I think since we have the capacity, we should use it. Knowing a second or third language opens so many door, helps train the brain, and from an English standpoint, helps the student better understand language as a whole and how semantics work. If you don't want to do Spanish, you don't have to - pick a language the children WANT to learn. I *had* to take Spanish in high school, and while useful, since I didn't want to take it, I didn't learn it well. Conversely, when I had the opportunity to take French, my preferred choice, I learned it in less than a year. Knowing Spanish pretty well also made learning French so easy, as much of the structure of the language was the same. IMHO. Good luck in your foreign language decision making!
I personally LOVE languages and I hope to study linguistics and learn a couple more languages as I grow older. I am already pretty good in Spanish (although sometimes I wonder...). That being said, I don't think it that important for everyone in the world to take two years of a foreign language. I am going to guess that a HUGE majority of people who study it just to get their two years (to impress colleges) forget 90% or more of what they supposedly learned within a couple of years or sooner. Unfortunately sometimes we have to jump through someone else's hoops to get where we want to go. So, if you child wants to go to college and the college wants two years of a foreign language it would be a wise investment. Even if it is not retained and is a wast of time--it will be worth it just to have it on the transcript. My son is not college bound (or he isn't planning to be at this time). I don't know if I will require him to study a language or not. I would love it so much if he could really get something out of studying a language, but I know our interests are very different.
Another thing to think about is that many colleges require high school students to take at least 2 years of a foreign language. I would check into any college your child may be thinking of and see if they have that requirement. If you do not feel comfortable teaching a foreign lang. you could look into a community college and have them take two semesters there.
I think language is also very important. We're doing Latin and Greek, and while I really don't care whether he ever becomes fluent, I DO care that he learns root words and grammar structure, because so many of today's languages were built from Latin and Greek. He can go into any field he wants later, and he'll be able to pick up the specific language he needs for the job if he already knows the roots of the language. You already know that "pre" means before and "co" means with or together. There are many, many more words out there that anyone can figure out without ever having studied them if they know the root of the language. I'm not saying you should choose Latin or Greek. I'm just saying that language exposure is important. I took 2 years of French in high school, and it helped me zilch. However, I've been doing Latin with my son, and I'm AMAZED at how closely it resembles French!!! Things from high school are coming back to me now. Oh how I wish I'd been able to take Latin back then, because it would've made other languages so much easier. By the way, you don't need a group setting to learn a language. Look at the Classical Academic Press website. That's who we're using for Latin and will also use for Greek when we finish Latin. They have Spanish!! Look into "Spanish for Children". We're doing Latin for Children right now, and I know they're the same sort of format. Be sure you get the DVD/CD combo. That's the most important part. The primer is necessary, of course, but it doesn't do you a lot of good without the DVD/CD if you don't know how to pronounce the words, and it also gives you chants to help you remember them (not just memorize temporarily). Oh, and just because the title says "for children" and the recommended age is 3-6 grades, doesn't mean it's not appropriate for a 14 year old. It's not baby-ish at all. You just need to have appx 3rd grade English skills before beginning it.
A foreign language is helpful to better understand English, at least that is what I have been told. Many colleges want a high schooler to have two to three years of a foreign language. My daughter studied German using Power Point. She learned a lot and enjoyed it very much. She probably would have enjoyed just about any curriculum teaching the German language.
One more thought. I only think it is important or necessary to study a foreign language in high school. This belief may be due to the fact that I HATE learning another language. English gives me enough difficulty
Ok so I guess it doesnt matter 'if' she retains much, just that she completes a year or two of a foreign language. It looks good on a transcript. I like the idea of Latin and Greek because it relates to English words. I'll look into Classical Academic Press for that. Thanks!
I'm going to disagree here. The younger the child, the bigger the sponge. Children pick up other languages way, way faster than adults. (Even my 2 year old is picking up quite a bit of Latin, and I'm not even teaching him... he just hears it when we're working on it.) The older a child gets, the harder it is to learn a new language. Yes, it looks good on a transcript, but if I had my choice, parents who only want mild exposure to a foreign language are better off doing it in elementary than high school.
If you have to choose just one, Latin is probably easier because you won't have to start with a new type of alphabet. Look at "Code Cracker" on the site if you decide to do Greek.
Sue May, That is so funny. It is so cool that one person's passion is another person's burden. I would love it if I could study and learn 3 or 4 more languages in my life. I also think it is amazing to be able to understand my Spanish speaking neighbors and co-workers. I really think they should drop this requirement for college entrance (and maybe some colleges don't have it). It is silly to require someone to "learn" something that they don't use ever again. The students who do retain it are the ones like me who enjoy it.
I agree. Languages are best introduced at younger ages. They learn faster, easier, and it sticks better. While I didn't do any preschool with my kids, I did introduce a foreign language early on.
I guess I'm lucky that my boyfriend speaks fluent Mexican Spanish so he can help with pronunciation and whatnot as far as Spanish goes, and I took French so I can help with that. and my mom and cousin and aunt know German, so they could help with that...My kid will be speaking all sorts of languages I would say that a foreign language is pretty important though. I don't really think it matters which one or how many, but knowing a foreign language makes it much easier to pick things up in the future as well. The more languages you know, the easier a new one is to learn. It just opens up all sorts of doors if your kid gets good at it and remembers it. The most important thing I suppose is that most colleges do require it, and a lot of employers will LOVE having a bilingual employee(I wished I had known better Spanish when working, as I was a cashier and had a lot of hispanic customers that I couldn't communicate with effectively at the time) Even just a basic understanding of a language is good. The simplest conversation phrases, sentence structure, etc.
If you at least introduce listening/hearing different languages before the age of 2, they'll grow up to be able to pronounce the foreign words properly. I wish I could find the article I read at one time that explained how that works. Like if you don't hear any Russian words spoken at that young age, you may be able to speak the words properly as an adult, but will never be able to exactly capture the accent, etc. Sorry, just a little trivia for the day LOL Anyway, learning a 2nd language is very important to us. Canada has two official languages, English and French. We live in New Brunswick, which is the only officially bilingual province, so there is a huge French population here. Job opportunities are much more plentiful if you're bilingual. Plus, my family is French, with it being both of my parents' and all of my extended family on both sides first language.
My kids love how I can switch from English, to French, to Spanish. They think it's like a magic trick! I would love to learn a non-latin based langauge, so after we finish this year and next of Spanish, we are going to tackle either Korean or a Chinese dialect!
Question: Can I do Latin one year and Spanish another year or do you suggest 2 years of the same language? I just had the idea that it would be beneficial to learn Latin (to help with English) and Spanish (just to know some phrases to get by).
