And what about high school?

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

My son is 11. In Québec, high school starts in grade 7. In France, where he takes long distance classes, it sorta starts in grade 6 - they call it college. But then they have the lycée later on. Anyway, all this to say that I'm thinking about higher level classes coming my way soon enough!

 

I'm wondering if anyone here has a bilingual child at the high school level? What do you do for language arts? Do you study literature in both languages? Do you plan two complete courses, or two half-courses (assuming two languages here).

Are they separate courses? Or mixed in together?

 

In grade 11, I had a nice English lit class. Our teacher gave us, over a year, the class she had taken at Oxford in one semester. So it was quite a lot! And it was also considered English as a First language class. At the same time we had French literature, also as a First language obviously. We did some literature but not much, in Spanish, but it was still considered Second language.

 

My current plan with my son is to go with Sonlight. He's already doing Core 6 this year, and enjoys the readings, just not having to discuss them. He does want to continue with it. Next year, he's going back to 3+4 so I can match him with his sister. But after that, he's moving to the higher levels, core 100 and up.

 

At the same time, he'll be taking those long distance French classes, with a heavy emphasis on literature.

 

I'm worried about burning him out. He's an avid reader, but does not seem to enjoy discussing and dissecting his books. He's a math guy and a science guy.

 

Just looking for wisdom from people who have been there.

[Matryoshka]

Hmm - I'm kinda hoping by the time they get to high school, they'll be past the grammar learning stage (though I'm sure review will be in order), and on to reading things as the core of their language-learning experience. At least for me, when I got to upper level languages, it was mostly literature - it was counted on the transcript as language, but we mostly read and talked about books.

 

I hadn't really thought of this as doubling-up on literature, but kind of getting out of a foreign language course in high school. :001_smile: I'm sure I'll require them to read a lot more in their native tongue, but have a book going in probably each of their foreign languages, at a slower pace.

 

But I'm still a few years from managing those logistics yet - I'm sure it'll be some serious trial-and-error getting the balance right when we get there...

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

Hmm - I'm kinda hoping by the time they get to high school, they'll be past the grammar learning stage (though I'm sure review will be in order),

 

 

Well, French speakers work on grammar till the end of high school, and it is *not* review. There are some nasty rules in advanced French :) But language arts are not limited to grammar.

 

I'm mainly wondering if I should have my kids do double the work in Literature, or if they should be exposed to half the lit but in two languages...

[Nan in Mass]

I really, really think that if he is a math/science person, he should not have to do two full literature courses. I think getting him through 1/2 + 1/2 might be hard. As you pointed out, liking to read and liking to discuss literature are two different things. My science/math guy is a bit ahead of yours (14) and happily doing literature, but it is because I am very careful of the focus of the discussions. We don't wallow in sappiness, we don't do nitty gritty speculations about what an author might or might not have meant, and we don't read long modern novels or the stranger plays (I'm leaving those for when he can appreciate them, if ever). My son is rather perceptive about his own motives and inner workings (having been encouraged to be honest with himself his whole life), but he has very little patience with introspective literature. He considers it whiny and self-indulgent. So - I intend to pick his literature carefully and although he'll be reading in at least two languages, he will just do "great books". He can read them in whichever language is appropriate. If it takes him extra long to do it in something other than English, then so be it. In the end, I will divide the book list into courses and assign credits. I'm guessing that he will have read at least two year's worth of English literature and a year's worth of scifi, and enough history and government to give him a credit of US history and 1/2 a credit of government (at least). That, together with a credit of writing (sigh) will give him his required 4 years of English. Then we'll see how much French literature he has read and I will give him 1 or 2 credits of French literature. And he'll possibly have a 1/2 credit of Latin literature of some sort. I'm hoping he has Spanish in CC, so I won't need to count his French as his foreign language requirement. Or if he doesn't want to do Spanish, he can read more French and have another French literature credit. We'll get more French by doing history/geography in French. Hopefully, that will give him at least a credit of history and a credit of geography, even if he moves at 1/4 speed. And he'll have a credit of peace studies. That will give him about 4 years of literature, 4 years of social studies/history, and at least 2, if not 4, of foreign language. I just have to fill in 4 years of math and 4 of science, both of which we are definately doing in English LOL. So - as far as our daily school schedule goes, he will have "great books" every day, continue to work on his writing, have history/geography every day (in French), and continue to do lots of extra reading in the summer (something we've done all along and everyone likes - no discussions involved). That is managable, I know, because my older one did it in English.

HTH

-Nan

[jellogirl]

I would suggest double courses in general language-- composition, grammar, etc. You can included lit in here if you want. On my transcript, Norwegian is counted as a foreign language, or at least, it looks like it. :D

 

At the high school level in the US, lit is usually divided into genres like "British Lit" or "World Lit." You can try fitting lit into these areas, or you can go with generalized "French Lit" type things. While you should plan on reading a variety of languages, I would suggest sticking to a moderate amount.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Just for a different viewpoint, I don't think that I'd plan on doing heavy duty literature study in high school. The basics of plot and character and why does this paragraph work well to get across what the author intends is great. But I have had more books ruined by over analysing them than I can count (I have a degree in English literature, fwiw).

 

If there is one or two must reads, then fine. And if the goal is to get credit for a literature class, then I guess you have to. But if the goal is to develop language fluency and keep him reading, why not do more non fiction? Biography, history and even science writing are more and more available in all kinds of languages. You could probably center a class on articles from National Geographic (which has a bunch of different editions in various countries) or similar magazines.

 

I remember reading several works in German in college. When I was an undergrad, we spent so much time on one play (6 weeks to read and disect it) that I not only lost any enjoyment in the work but spent a long time avoiding German literature. I would have been far better served by reading lots and lots of newspaper articles and issues of Der Spiegel. They would have helped me develop fluency and allowed me to read articles on subjects of interest.

[Nan in Mass]

Sebastian - Have you seen TWEM literature questions? We're using those and I like them very much. They don't spoil the book for us or seem useless. I also am picking the books very carefully. We are not going to read Waiting for Godot (or however you spell his name) or St. Augustine's Confessions, for example, because I know my son won't like them.