YsgolYGair Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 I am struggling with homeschooling and life and getting it all done. I teach three languages - I teach through the medium of two, and the third is on its own at the moment. They are integral parts of our family dynamic, and I am required to teach them. It is expected that over the course of home education, they will all be taught to the same standard. If we memorise an English poem, we must memorise a Welsh poem and a French poem. In fact, if I want to get rid of something, the only one I would be free to eliminate would be English, but I'm not okay with that. There are plenty of other subjects that I feel are an important part of a good education besides languages that I am just not sure I could let go of. I have a math degree, so I want them to get a stellar math education, and then there's history and science and all the lovely arts and enriching life subjects. I feel that I'm caught between the two options of school being life (for me and the kids) or our kids being poorly taught in three languages. American children may spend an hour on English each day, but if my children only spend 20 minutes, they'll be two-thirds behind other English speakers. I'm just not sure I can do that to them. I think it's scheduling and life management advice I need, but philosophical thoughts will be appreciated, too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Did you ever read the Chalet School books? They had days assigned to each language instead of activities/tasks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loesje22000 Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 We do not an hour English LA. A subject in a language is sometimes just as effective. I like the idea of rose of focusing on certain days on certain languages. you might go for a 6 day schoolweek so you have 2 days per language. a homeschool collegue alternated the languages. Week A had a focus on English, Week B a focus on French Week C on German. this way she didn't drown. she continued the languages in every week, but at a lower pace. Multiple Languages ask effort, time and finally also money as our libraries are not multilingual. So we had /have to buy readingbooks for every language. We chose for languages. So dd has not time for 2h math per day. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 I am struggling with homeschooling and life and getting it all done. I teach three languages - I teach through the medium of two, and the third is on its own at the moment. They are integral parts of our family dynamic, and I am required to teach them. It is expected that over the course of home education, they will all be taught to the same standard. If we memorise an English poem, we must memorise a Welsh poem and a French poem. In fact, if I want to get rid of something, the only one I would be free to eliminate would be English, but I'm not okay with that. Who is requiring you to do that, and whose expectation is it? Equal mastery in the languages does not mean one has to keep an even tally for every single activity. If your DH insists on the Welsh, he should take over the Welsh instruction so that not the entire burden rests on you. I recall your post in another thread about the drastic measures he takes to ensure that the kids love Welsh above all else... I don't think it is feasible to enforce something like this without sacrificing a lot of other stuff. (Actually, I don't think it is feasible, or desirable, to influence kids to such a degree at all, but that is another topic) You live in France, so I get the French part - but wouldn't that take care of itself with greater exposure to the environment? Are your kids participating in group activities? American children may spend an hour on English each day, but if my children only spend 20 minutes, they'll be two-thirds behind other English speakers. I'm just not sure I can do that to them. That is not a sensible comparison. The amount spent on a language in school says very little about the quality of the instruction. A child growing up in a language rich environment who is exposed to books, books on tape, adult conversation will require comparatively little formal instruction. Much can be done in an informal way. Our children's education in the parents' native language was greatly aided by read alouds and audio CDs. If English is your native language, you can simply speak with them and provide the kid with reading material and CDs; then 20 minutes per day is ample instruction time. Think beyond "school". Evening read alouds, books on CD during car rides, films in the weakest language... all activities that are not formal schooling, just "life", that greatly enhance language skills. And for school, you can simply select different subjects to be taught in different languages, and then maybe rotate every once in a while. I don't think you mentioned your kids' ages. How old are they? 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 American children may spend an hour on English each day, but if my children only spend 20 minutes, they'll be two-thirds behind other English speakers. I'm just not sure I can do that to them. For your 1st grader and a K4, they probably absorb French by immersion. Actually your 2 year old as well. For K-2, my kids finished whatever the daily dose of English work their public charter expects of them within 20 minutes even though the time allocation is 1 hour. One on one work gets done so much faster than in a classroom situation where my oldest had to wait for 29 other kids to be more or less done. I am assuming math is done in either English or French or both so it is not just 20 mins a day of language exposure to any language. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YsgolYGair Posted October 11, 2015 Author Share Posted October 11, 2015 We are in a similar position with four languages. I'll be honest and say that school takes us a long time to complete each day. I try to make maximum use of non-school conversation time. Yes, I do feel like we're drowning sometimes, but this is important to me. I appreciate the honesty about the amount of time it takes. It is taking alot of time for us, and I'm not so worried about that as I am feeling like I'm doing school all day and still not getting everything done. I have tried putting together a specific plan for this week, estimating the amount of time each thing will make and creating a schedule for each day. I'm specifically trying out keeping each study period no longer than an hour, incorporating lots of small breaks, and changing format regularly - such as 15 minutes memory work up on our feet with motions and all, then a 20 minute video class, then 15 minutes of instruction, then a break, etc. It's worth a try anyway, and probably will be much more effective than the "let's just jump in somewhere and hope we get every subject covered" method I've been using lately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted October 13, 2015 Share Posted October 13, 2015 I have noticed in your blog that you use A Beka for English. Please search some threads on it on the board. It's notorious for causing burnout for many homeschoolers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahW Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 YsgolYGair, I feel your frustration. Every language is pretty much an additional "subject" and there's so many languages in the world! And then there's everything else to do too! I've come to the philosophy that in elementary education, languages are the most important. There's a reason why in the old days elementary was called "grammar school." It was where you got taught your languages (then mostly Latin) and then when you were done with languages you were free to do all the good stuff - history, science, etc. in upper school and college/university. Back then language skills were a prerequisite to learning the "good stuff" since most of the good stuff was in a different language. These days, most critical information is in English so it's easy to miss the importance of language study. Even so, to those who are aware, the "best" book on a subject may not be in English, but it may be in German. Or some other language. A student's understanding of a subject is greatly enhanced when he or she has access to the best scholarship. This is why grad schools usually still require foreign language exams. Access to information, by way of having knowledge of the language it is in, offers far more content than anything offered in elementary history or science or art appreciation or what have you. I focus on languages (and also math, of course, which is something of its own language with its own set of skills) and in general LA try to target areas which apply to all languages, handwriting and grammar and so on. I'm finding that with multiple languages going a comprehensive ELA curriculum can get redundant. Hit a skill, apply it, and let the languages practice it. So no, I don't think it's necessary to spend an hour every day just on English. Space it out. Write in French one day, English the next, Welsh the next. Same with poems. Exposure to history and science and all is great. But for now the focus is on building great skills to truly study those subjects later. I think it will all come together great in the end. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YsgolYGair Posted October 22, 2015 Author Share Posted October 22, 2015 YsgolYGair, I feel your frustration. Every language is pretty much an additional "subject" and there's so many languages in the world! And then there's everything else to do too! I've come to the philosophy that in elementary education, languages are the most important. There's a reason why in the old days elementary was called "grammar school." It was where you got taught your languages (then mostly Latin) and then when you were done with languages you were free to do all the good stuff - history, science, etc. in upper school and college/university. Back then language skills were a prerequisite to learning the "good stuff" since most of the good stuff was in a different language. These days, most critical information is in English so it's easy to miss the importance of language study. Even so, to those who are aware, the "best" book on a subject may not be in English, but it may be in German. Or some other language. A student's understanding of a subject is greatly enhanced when he or she has access to the best scholarship. This is why grad schools usually still require foreign language exams. Access to information, by way of having knowledge of the language it is in, offers far more content than anything offered in elementary history or science or art appreciation or what have you. I focus on languages (and also math, of course, which is something of its own language with its own set of skills) and in general LA try to target areas which apply to all languages, handwriting and grammar and so on. I'm finding that with multiple languages going a comprehensive ELA curriculum can get redundant. Hit a skill, apply it, and let the languages practice it. So no, I don't think it's necessary to spend an hour every day just on English. Space it out. Write in French one day, English the next, Welsh the next. Same with poems. Exposure to history and science and all is great. But for now the focus is on building great skills to truly study those subjects later. I think it will all come together great in the end. Thank you very much for this great advice!! I hadn't thought about the fact that we don't notice the importance of language because so much of the world's knowledge is available in English. Being mostly English only, I have struggled with the language pressure on a personal level. I have seen it as quite a burden, even though I know it is good to be multilingual. I am, after all, basically learning along side my oldest son. (As others have mentioned, the pressure comes from my husband who is a natural linguist, and speaks / studies many languages. Let's just say - Welsh, English and French are only the beginning. Italian's definitely next, then maybe Dutch, or German, or Latin, or ancient Greek, who knows. Either way, I get to be the teacher, lol.) I really appreciate your "grammar school" perspective. I have wondered at the necessity of teaching history, science, art and music, all of that, in the early ages, but I have done it because my children seem to enjoy it so much, and because the WTM says to, lol. With so much language pressure, though, perhaps just getting those done in these early years, along with math, would suffice. As long as we stay in a place that does not have homeschool requirements, we should be okay. (We normally live in Wales, not France.) As far as a focus on general language arts is concerned, I do try to piggy-back learning off of one language to another, so that there is not too much redundancy, but I am probably not doing it enough and need to re-evaluate each assignment. Do I really need to do Writing with Ease copywork separate from handwriting instruction, for example? Probably not. Either way, if I remove the pressure of history, science and other peripheral subjects off of myself, and only peruse them as we really have time - or perhaps just institute a 30 minute / day "activity time" for non-language-and-math stuff - we might actually manage okay. Thank you so much again!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BabsLee Posted October 30, 2015 Share Posted October 30, 2015 I am struggling with homeschooling and life and getting it all done. I teach three languages - I teach through the medium of two, and the third is on its own at the moment. They are integral parts of our family dynamic, and I am required to teach them. It is expected that over the course of home education, they will all be taught to the same standard. If we memorise an English poem, we must memorise a Welsh poem and a French poem. In fact, if I want to get rid of something, the only one I would be free to eliminate would be English, but I'm not okay with that. There are plenty of other subjects that I feel are an important part of a good education besides languages that I am just not sure I could let go of. I have a math degree, so I want them to get a stellar math education, and then there's history and science and all the lovely arts and enriching life subjects. I feel that I'm caught between the two options of school being life (for me and the kids) or our kids being poorly taught in three languages. American children may spend an hour on English each day, but if my children only spend 20 minutes, they'll be two-thirds behind other English speakers. I'm just not sure I can do that to them. I think it's scheduling and life management advice I need, but philosophical thoughts will be appreciated, too. Oh your post resonances with my experience. We are a South African family (My husbands family is German) living in China for already 10 years. I am homeschooling in Afrikaans, English and Chinese. The kids need to learn German to speak to their family members. Sometimes juggling all the different languages just drive me crazy, and then being faced by my own inadequacies is too awful to bear. I also am a mathematician by occupation and want them to love and excel in Math. I often wish I can be in a community where more people can share my situation with me. Just reading about your struggle was an encouragement! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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