................... Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 My son is really struggling and we have had a conference call with the teacher plus numerous emails. I (knowing ZERO German) have been sitting with him to help translate numerous workbook and book exercises, as well as made new charts and study aids and guides. He has all his vocab memorized, all his present tense endings for verbs memorized, and he's working on memorizing irregular verbs. He is now memorizing word order for the three types of sentences introduced this year. And he has memorized the Nominative, Dative and the other case (can't remember it's name) He has memorized the plural rules Today they introduced Past Tense and now he has to memorize those And he is struggling with Present Perfect I am just wondering if other's kids are struggling, and if not, what have they memorized and studied so far that is helping them? This book is very whole-language based with grammar thrown in, and very complex sentences constantly thrown at the student to "Help the student understand everyday German the way it would be spoken to them..." so that translation is partly done using Grammar and partly using Intuition. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FriedClams Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 My student is enrolled in Frau Cruz's German 1 class at Fun Academy (? I think...) following the Landry Debacle. I think it's a good class. DD is doing well, but having a German grandmother to ruin your homework by and practice before tests helps a TON. Being a teen she didn't always use that resource, but has clued in that is worth it. I know it's a pain, but I'd try and find a tutor - live or on Skype. I think having a little practice or correction with a person can make a huge difference. fwiw, we're switching to OSU for German 2. Frau Cruz is great, but we need an asynchronous class. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
................... Posted March 24, 2017 Author Share Posted March 24, 2017 Thanks for chiming in. He got one entire sections marked wrong today for nof capitalizing. A simple error. In another section he struggled with conjegation. I sat with him and I don't know how he missed them because we worked so so careful through that one. He got most of another entire sections marked wrong for misspellings. It's been really hard. He is studying and studying and still getting such bad grades right now. I know he is studying because I sit with him and quiz him and he has all the charts pretty much memorized. Maybe we could think about a tutor next year but this year I just can't. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjand6more Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 DD is taking German 1 at Funcation also. At Landry, she had another teacher, but that teacher quit at semester break. (Then the Landry closing happened.) We had to switch teachers anyway, so we went with Frau Cruz mainly because she was offering grading and exams, etc. Sounds like the other teacher ended up doing that at Excelsior? We are sticking with Frau Cruz although she is moving to a different online school. We are really happy with her. I do think teacher continuity is super important. My dd had taken German 1 last year. We tried to move to German 2 in Landry. But, since it was a different book, different teacher it was not a good transition. She made many of the same errors you describe. We ended up bumped back to German 1. And it has been pretty easy for her(I guess she did learn a lot after all last year!) PM me if you think he would do well with a little help(from her, not me-I too know ZERO German) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrulySusan Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 My son is not with Excelsior, but is doing the "Landry German1" with Frau Cruz. He also struggles a lot. As a gifted student, he has never had to work so hard before. We also don't know any German speakers that can help. However, his teacher has been very helpful when he sends her emails. I really hate the text and workbook. The directions seem vague to both of us, and often he doesn't really know what's expected. I think a big part of the problem is that particular text and workbook. It is frustrating for sure. Why didn't he just take Spanish? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tess in the Burbs Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 My son is with Cruz now, but we are switching to Gleason at Excelsior next year. (Conflict with Cruz time next year) What teacher are you with? I thought Gleason wasn't grading this semester but just teaching b/c so many needed the classes. Gleason created the original Landry German program and slides that Cruz uses. You worry me now...my ds is doing OK this year. Have you spoken to the teacher about what she thinks the disconnect is? Can he speak it? Or hear when spoken? Or just read it? What was her suggestion to do better? I keep telling my kid: one more year... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tess in the Burbs Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 Thanks for chiming in. He got one entire sections marked wrong today for nof capitalizing. A simple error. In another section he struggled with conjegation. I sat with him and I don't know how he missed them because we worked so so careful through that one. He got most of another entire sections marked wrong for misspellings. It's been really hard. He is studying and studying and still getting such bad grades right now. I know he is studying because I sit with him and quiz him and he has all the charts pretty much memorized. Maybe we could think about a tutor next year but this year I just can't. Well nouns are capitalized. So if you don't capitalize it the sentence meaning may not be clear. And the spellings are odd sometimes, but I make sure my son can spell the vocab. Conjugations matter just like English grammar in regard to agreement. My son can get an A, then bomb the next test. I used to help conjugate things with him. Now he can figure it out without translating every word in the book. Is it the Deutsch Acktell book? The Leestruck section always has to be translated to do the section work after it. And the workbook pulls from there too. I'm doing Duolingo on my own to be better help....I'm 20%! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klmama Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 We find the conjuguemos.com website helpful for practicing verb conjugations. It has a number of languages available. Here's the German. https://conjuguemos.com/activities/german/verb/1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TarynB Posted June 23, 2017 Share Posted June 23, 2017 (edited) DD is taking German 1 at Funcation also. At Landry, she had another teacher, but that teacher quit at semester break. (Then the Landry closing happened.) We had to switch teachers anyway, so we went with Frau Cruz mainly because she was offering grading and exams, etc. Sounds like the other teacher ended up doing that at Excelsior? We are sticking with Frau Cruz although she is moving to a different online school. We are really happy with her. I do think teacher continuity is super important. My dd had taken German 1 last year. We tried to move to German 2 in Landry. But, since it was a different book, different teacher it was not a good transition. She made many of the same errors you describe. We ended up bumped back to German 1. And it has been pretty easy for her(I guess she did learn a lot after all last year!) PM me if you think he would do well with a little help(from her, not me-I too know ZERO German) In light of another thread currently going on the HS board re: German curriculum/classes, and the bolded above, I just wanted to bump up this thread . . . . . . and give an FYI to anyone who may be interested to know that Frau Cruz will be teaching German with HSLDA Online Academy and also with Big River Academy for 2017-18. After reading lots of feedback here on the forum and also via PM, we've decided to enroll DS in Frau Cruz's German 1 class at HSLDA Online Academy, which meets on Mondays. (Her Big River class on Thursdays just didn't fit our schedule.) So glad to have finally reached a decision. Many thanks to all who helped. Edited June 23, 2017 by TarynB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
................... Posted June 23, 2017 Author Share Posted June 23, 2017 Yay!! Congrats!!! We've had online teachers we adored and it makes ALL the difference (thinking of Mrs. Fowler at Apologua academy) Hope your dd enjoys her experience :) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dereksurfs Posted June 24, 2017 Share Posted June 24, 2017 (edited) My son is really struggling and we have had a conference call with the teacher plus numerous emails. I (knowing ZERO German) have been sitting with him to help translate numerous workbook and book exercises, as well as made new charts and study aids and guides. He has all his vocab memorized, all his present tense endings for verbs memorized, and he's working on memorizing irregular verbs. He is now memorizing word order for the three types of sentences introduced this year. And he has memorized the Nominative, Dative and the other case (can't remember it's name) He has memorized the plural rules Today they introduced Past Tense and now he has to memorize those And he is struggling with Present Perfect I am just wondering if other's kids are struggling, and if not, what have they memorized and studied so far that is helping them? This book is very whole-language based with grammar thrown in, and very complex sentences constantly thrown at the student to "Help the student understand everyday German the way it would be spoken to them..." so that translation is partly done using Grammar and partly using Intuition. Calming Tea, forgive for asking. But I have been following these threads since I am planning German for our dds. They have actually asked to learn it. I noticed the last German course your son took seemed to be a completely different experience. Here is a quote from an earlier thread: My son takes German through a former Landry teacher at Excelsior, Frau Gleason and she is the one who actually designed the courses in the first place. It's a good course and he devoted about an hour per day. So I guess I wondering, what is the major difference you are finding in this course? Could it be the teaching style, textbook, assignments, or something else? We are actually looking for the opposite of what you are describing in this course above. I mean something not as intense, stressful, or rigorous. Does learning German or any language really need to be this painful? Can that pain be spread out more evenly over time? I have to ask myself these questions because I know it will crush my dds' desire to learn the language after getting slammed with the load of work and associated expectations described within a relatively short period of time. Thanks, Edited June 24, 2017 by dereksurfs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.