Jackie We started with French because my dh has to learn it for some schooling that he is taking. We wanted to learn it as a family so that we could help out our kids. It's fun because it is a family project! My hubby already knows enough Spanish to keep him out of trouble, so he will probably have to help the kids with that when we get there. I also have a brother in law that is from Puerto Rico, so anything we just don't understand, he will!
lovinhomeschool, I think she meant what programs are you using to help your kids, and you, learn French.
Well, don't I feel dumb!!! Jackie We are going to be using PowerGlide (THANKS TO DEENA) for the kids. We have been using the Brainy Baby French DVD. I am learning as I go and dh is using RoesttaStone (which is AWESOME, but VERY intense!) Also, as dh learns words, he teaches them to the kids by using them in their everyday lives .
Lovin', Deena and I both bought Power Glide at the same time. Both of us did NOT like it, lol! Am SO GLAD it's working so much better for you than it did for either of us! We do have partial access to the Rosetta Stone online, and have done some of our French with that.
Jackie I LOVE rosetta, but I think it's way too intense for my kids ages. When they are older, I hope to put them into Rosetta. Why didn't you care for Power Glide?
I'm sorry, I meant to respond but got busy! I'm not sure I can tell you what I didn't like about Power Glide. I think to me it was more teaching French Vocabulary with English sentence structure. I think my children learned very specific stories, but had no idea of what they were doing. And I couldn't see, continuing in the program, that they would EVERY learn what they were doing!
I would encourage you to do a year of Latin before you do either one. It will make the transition into learning any foreign language easier.
I did Latin with the boys, and they are picking up on their other languages very well (ds15 is doing German, and ds13 is doing Greek). I only did a little with dd, then we started Spanish. It just hasn't clicked with her. She's wanting to do sign language, so I'm looking into that now instead. lovinhomeschool, the Power-Glide was fine for awhile. It was just one of those things that didn't click with my kids. One of my problems was that my oldest decided he wanted to learn French, so to make it easier, I was basically "forcing" my other two to learn it also. They really weren't that interested, and my oldest decided he didn't like French that much after all. So it came to a standstill, and we moved on to other things. I do know that Power-Glide has worked well for many people, so I'm hoping it works well with your children! They already are getting some background in French, so by the time they get to the Power-Glide they will be able to move through it fairly easily, I'm guessing!
I think Deena said that very well. It did NOT click with my family, but neither did FIAR, and EVERYONE loves FIAR, lol! So just because I didn't care for it, doesn't mean you won't.
