Has anyone ever used the easy french? http://theeasyfrench.com/ What we are doing right now is not working, and this looked good. Am open to suggestions for a french program, bearing in mind that I don't speak any french
Karen, can't help you here not learning French but after looking at the books might take it up. We can learn together. LOL
I took French for about 5 years, but since we are now moving to NM I am scrambling to learn Spanish instead... I found some reviews on it online: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/ClassicalEducation4Me/75222/ http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/Homeschool_Reviews/reviews.php?rid=1052 Hopefully that will help you decide.
RR I saw on one of the links for Francais that there is Spanish as well! I printed some out for my kids to get a feel for the language as I am making them take it in fall even though Je Suis parlez Francais ... en petite Pue!
Yeah, I saw. I think we will do Rosetta Stone for Spanish (grown-ups too) as we already have that program for Italian and it works great!
We got the sample and my daughter 14 did not see how it would work as to teach her Spanish. How does it work, I mean is the a program to follow or do you just go with what words you want to choose?>
AussieMum, this looks really good. Ditz was doing German for which we were using a tutor, which worked excellently. Then Ditz decided she'd prefer French, which I speak very badly, but we have not found a curriculum to suit. I've downloaded the free sheets & will see how it works for us; I think it actually will, so we might be joining you on this one. Let us know how it goes if you do purchase it as I have just purchased new curriculum & anything else will have to wait a bit.
hi celtic, haven't seen you for a while.... I have looked at others, and I think this is the one for us. Rosetta stone is just too expensive,this looks a bit flexible and I like that it is christian and has hands on activities. I think we will get it soon, when finances allow. Will keep you posted.
I'm around. I sneak in & read a lot, just don't often have anything much to contribute to the posts. Ditz is with Vocal Manouevres for singing this year & they are semi proffessional so we have been really tight timewise all year. I'm exhausted & we have months to go yet before we can rest. lol. I've managed to stagger Ditz's curriculum so we don't get a huge bill all in one hit but I'm doing her history & English with Sonlight which we both love but it is very, very expensive & though this time around I got everything on sale the bill was still *quite large*. I do really want her doing a language again but look like I need more music curriculum ...& on it goes. I looked at Rosetta Stone but also decided it was far too expensive for what you got.
That's a good idea to stagger the curriculum purchases. Looks like we will be the same, but totally by accident, lol. I looked at tell me more french this week also, and sat down with dd to test out the free trial - it was harder even than what we already have, uggh! Then I showed her the sample lessons from the easy french - she was excited by those. So we are going to do a sample lesson this week, and if it goes well, we will buy the program over the school holidays as this is our last week of term. That's very exciting to be singing semi-professional, you must be very proud. What do you use for music curriculum?
Music is Ditz's *thing* so she is doing her grade 3 MBA with flute (Oct this year) & violin (early next year ~ staggering music exams as well ). She sings with vocal manouevres; you can see them at vm.net.au & I am hoping to swing the History of Music from Beautiful Feet as well. It's a jolly good thing she loves it. VM may audition for the *Battle of the Choirs* that's just gone to air next year. It will depend on whether the choir conductor thinks it will be benefical to the kids' development or not. The choir does an hours theory a week, which is including some language, for obvious reasons. If we were smart we'd do Latin but neither of us is keen. Ditz liked German but wanted a change & French is what she's opted for. I just haven't got it together because I have no idea what I'm doing & everything looks like too much written work & it's the sounds we really need ~ for the music aspect. Sorry to ramble on so badly but we aren't terribly academic as a family & very few people get that the music is as important here as the rest of it & sometimes we cop huge amounts of flack for it. Not on here I hasten to add. People here are great.
What is MBA? We do loads of music too, dd learns cello, and has just passed grade 4 AMEb, to my immense relief. She also plays with the junior string ensemble, junior orchestra & chamber music groups at the local branch of the conservatorium, and sings with the central coast childrens choir. They auditioned for the battle of the choirs last year, for this season, but were not accepted. In many ways I am glad, as we are already soooo busy. ds also takes flute lessons, drum lessons, and piano lessons. But other than studying film music once every 2-3 weeks, we don't really have and curriculum, or music history as such. I toy with the idea of adding it in, b/c they both are into it and I think it would be good. I will check out beautiful feet - haven't seen any thing that I really want so far, but always on the look out.
I shouldn't post when I am tired What I meant to write was MBE & what I mean is AMEB. No wonder you were confused. I confuse me. Yeah, we go over for the Shire's community band every week. Ditz plays flute in that. I won't do it for strings as well because she goes over for choir & then I have to take her sister over for soccer. I have to survive in this too. And at the end of the year the kids have a whole string of Qpac engagements plus Jupiters on the Coast so we will be travelling for that. I haven't done much really except try & gear her history towards studying the art/music more than the politics, which has been interesting but I really want Ditz to start getting something of the flow of Western music & it's development so hope the Beautiful Feet stuff will do it for us even if some of it is a little young. I also have tapes coming from Sonlight. I've been cautious about the Battle of the choirs. It seems pretty harsh for kiddos but Ditz has been watching avidly & critically & has picked all the winners & losers so far ~ with running commentary. :lol: I think her tutor has wisely opted to see what the standard is & how it works before committing the kids & she will drill them accordingly. She's pretty cluey that way & they have other commitments within the industry so it mightn't work anyway.
Are your kids elementary aged? A lot of Canadian homeschoolers use Nallenart to teach French, it's the program we'll be using this year.
no dd is in year 7, so that would be middle school? I looked at Nallenart, but it looks a lot like what we already have and designed for a teacher who can actually speak french to work with....I can't....did i get the wrong impression?
Hey just wanted to let you know that we went ahead and bought the easy French. I love it! It is quick, easy and fun. And it seems to be working. And ds has even agreed to give it a go - woo hoo!
how does it work? we are doing Seconday Spanish, for dd, and ds 11 is starting out with this year will probably take a couple years to complete it but who knows.. he also wants to learn French and since I have a working knowledge of it I want to do that next year.. so looking around for an "easy" one( Pun intended).
it is set up so it is mostly listening. There is a dialogue with each 'lesson', that they listen to every day. We are taking a week to do a lesson, but you could do it faster or slower. They use what they call French weave, which is partly english, partly french, in a conversation so you can understand the conversation without knowing any prior french and without looking up all the words in a dictionary (what a relief). So we listen to the audio story, and read along with it, listen to the vocab list and practice saying it. Write the vocab. Learn the phonograms for French with flash cards and listening/speaking practice. There are Bible verses to memorise, and songs, and loads of activities & worksheets, which we are doing a selection of, not very many, maybe 1 or 2 each week. You just pick however much and which ever activities work for you. I reckon we are spending about 10 mins on this each day. And there is French being spoken spontaneously in our house! Well, French weave really, just little bits. And it happens whenever - in the car, at dinner, anytime. I love that it is so quick, and it seems to be actually working. Hurrah!
For French we're using Bob Jones. It has tapes or CDs too. My dd likes it so far. We tried Rosetta Stone free from the library but I think to really benefit from it you need to order the workbooks and grammar book you can use with it. Otherwise, you're just memorizing pictures with words.
