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do you do bilingual subjects?


cmarango
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So, I am thinking a little bit ahead for my young dd, but I was wondering what you did for your bilingual children when teaching subjects.

 

Some background: My dh is from Colombia so he is the spanish speaker while I am the english speaking American. We try to go to Colombia twice a year and have his parents visit once a year so that my dd has the immersion experience. I am slowly expanding my spanish abilities at the same time.

 

Now, what to do when we are playing math games and eventually starting to do history and all that other stuff. Do you alternate the language you instruct in or do you tend to pick a time of the day for each language?

 

Math: should be simple to alternate

Language Arts: how do you do schedule this for multiple languages?

History: I could do Latin American/Colombian history from books we pick up down there.

Science: I already have some books in spanish.

 

I have just started thinking about this and don't know if there is a *better* way.

 

Thanks for any input.

 

Christina

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Sometimes we do. It really depends on what you mean. For example, each kid does one math program in French and one in English. My son does CNED (France long distance education) and Lial Introduction to Algebra. My daughter does Math-U-See Gamma, and Défi-math grade 3.

 

Each language gets its own language arts. French and English are 'first language' and Spanish is 'second language'. They're not up to speed in Spanish yet.

 

Latin is done with an English program, but we do it in French. I expect my kids to be able to give me the translation in both English and French. Any grammar notion is compared with both languages.

 

History is done with mainly English materials, (Story of the World, Sonlight) but discussions are done in French. Quebec history is obviously done in French.

 

Science is usually done in English. I'm always looking for French material, but I can't find anything that we like.

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I've been chewing on this for quite some time.

 

Like Cloe I've found that some subjects I just can't find good resources in German (or whatever other language you speak), esp. when compared to the English ones. History for grammar stage is one good example, SOTW is unbeatable in my eyes. But even supplementary books were a pain to find. Can you believe that I found nothing on Gutenberg in German for children, nothing. A little bit on Luther, but not much there either. History gets taught from grade 7 in Germany and hs is illegal, so there's no market.

 

For other subjects there are resources, but I've been reluctant to teach them in German so far, because then I'd have to reteach them in English for them to get the vocab, or they would just miss out on that one. It's quite likely ours will head for an English University, so it would make sense to teach all subjects in that language.

On the other hand, all my own primary and secondary education was in German and I did well at English University. I had some catching up to do to begin with, but over all the language wasn't an issue at all (I did a science).

So maybe I could/should do some subjects in German? Maybe my children will pick up sufficient vocab from their general German reading and specifically teaching it won't be necessary? I'm not sure. :confused:

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aren't following the high school boards,

 

here is the thread where we were discussing history and geography in a foreign language....it seems like there were some other discussions as well but I can't remember key words to search..

 

My resources are all in French so I can't help with Spanish or German much...

 

Bilingual programs here frequently do the less intense subjects in the other language....geography, sometimes science at the lower levels, history, gym, art...

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Bilingual programs here frequently do the less intense subjects in the other language....geography, sometimes science at the lower levels, history, gym, art...

 

Oh, and some bilingual programs here will do two years in one language then switch.

For example, you'd have 2 years of math in English with sciences in French. Then two years later, those would be switched. A few weeks are needed to go over vocabulary and that's it.

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For example, you'd have 2 years of math in English with sciences in French. Then two years later, those would be switched. A few weeks are needed to go over vocabulary and that's it.

 

Does this mean that in Canada they are basically using the same math program and therefore sequence, just translated, so that they would be that interchangeable? I know that even in American math progams if you switch around too much you risk missing concepts because they are taught in different years in different programs....

 

In the Swiss Romande (French speaking part), they do the mixture approach in jr hi and later ( little algebra, a little geometry, a little trig). And in grade school, they didn't teach fractions at all. So my daughters fifth grade friend didn't know simple fractions like 1/6, etc. When my oldest son went to start Algebra the American way (coming out of the Swiss school, his experience with fractions was so limited that it was a detriment). This means that it would be hard to abandon one program for the other here. I teach the American math and then supplement with the Swiss materials for anything that looks interesting or necessary for an exam.

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I just can't find good resources in German (or whatever other language you speak), esp. when compared to the English ones. History for grammar stage is one good example, SOTW is unbeatable in my eyes. But even supplementary books were a pain to find.

 

Caveat here - I am only beginning to understand a little spoken German. So to get this book, I used the Google translator and put in History 6th grade. Then copied the translation into the amazon.de site.... I have no idea if this is a good book, but from the cover it looks like it covers ancient history. But maybe you can get some ideas and find something better...I agree that it is nothing like SOTW, but it might offer something interesting. I know with the French books they have a lot of copies of original pictures and documents in color which the children find interesting.

 

http://www.amazon.de/Geschichte-Gegenwart-Sch%C3%BClerband-Klasse-Neubearbeitung/dp/3140249152/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236172177&sr=1-3

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Does this mean that in Canada they are basically using the same math program and therefore sequence, just translated, so that they would be that interchangeable? I know that even in American math progams if you switch around too much you risk missing concepts because they are taught in different years in different programs....

 

 

First, a clarification, this bilingual program is not throughout Canada. It's basically only available in the western tip of the island of Montreal. :001_huh: Quite smaller, huh?

 

Then, in Quebec, the ministry of education controls completely who learns what when. School books have to conform to be approved. It's quite totalitarist. No wonder they don't like homeschoolers! So yes, it would be quite interchangeable, even from one school to the next. All kids learn the same thing at more or less the same time (at least within the same school year!) Hurray for cookie cutter education!

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Then, in Quebec, the ministry of education controls completely who learns what when. School books have to conform to be approved. It's quite totalitarist. No wonder they don't like homeschoolers! So yes, it would be quite interchangeable, even from one school to the next. All kids learn the same thing at more or less the same time (at least within the same school year!) Hurray for cookie cutter education!

 

This seems similar to the French school system which is all centralized - though there is a little variation within examples of certain topics... Is the Quebec system following the same topics as the French system?

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Like Cloe I've found that some subjects I just can't find good resources in German (or whatever other language you speak), esp. when compared to the English ones. History for grammar stage is one good example, SOTW is unbeatable in my eyes. But even supplementary books were a pain to find. Can you believe that I found nothing on Gutenberg in German for children, nothing. A little bit on Luther, but not much there either. History gets taught from grade 7 in Germany and hs is illegal, so there's no market.

 

 

 

Gombrich's Little History of the World was in German originally.

 

http://www.amazon.de/Eine-kurze-Weltgeschichte-junge-Leser/dp/3832176543/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236346803&sr=8-1

 

I've found tons of materials (designed for afterschooling but would work for homeschooling too) in German when I was in Germany and Switzerland last summer, just not names I was familiar with from the US. Amazon.de does have them but it requires a bit more searching - and is kind of pricey. I came home with hundreds of dollars of books just for German!

 

You can also order books directly from the publisher. There was a thread awhile ago about a Deutsche als Fremdsprache series from the publisher (also pricey).

 

I haven't looked for books on-line (still fond of paper) but that's a great idea. I have noticed that if I'm looking something in German, I get more hits if I type it in in German to start with. I think it uses a different search engine.

 

Hope this helps.

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In the Swiss Romande (French speaking part), they do the mixture approach in jr hi and later ( little algebra, a little geometry, a little trig). And in grade school, they didn't teach fractions at all. So my daughters fifth grade friend didn't know simple fractions like 1/6, etc. When my oldest son went to start Algebra the American way (coming out of the Swiss school, his experience with fractions was so limited that it was a detriment).

 

Dd did 7th in the German speaking section (near Thun) last year and all math was done in German. They did some algebra, which she continued without a problem when she returned this year (she's still in school). I'm curious as to when they do fractions? I did notice that her host family had a book called Mein Nachhilfe-Lehrer Mathematik for 1 - 5, that had decimals and fractions in it and they were definitely done before 7th.

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Dd did 7th in the German speaking section (near Thun) last year and all math was done in German. They did some algebra, which she continued without a problem when she returned this year (she's still in school). I'm curious as to when they do fractions? I did notice that her host family had a book called Mein Nachhilfe-Lehrer Mathematik for 1 - 5, that had decimals and fractions in it and they were definitely done before 7th.

 

All the cantons have different educational systems here. And then the next big divide is between the French, Italian and German speaking cantons. EG in Geneva you finish high school after the 13th year (15 if you include 2 years of kindergarten). In the next canton over, they do only 12.

 

So it is quite possible that in the German speaking part they learn fractions earlier. It is possible in the neighboring canton as well, so I should have just qualified my phrase with here in Geneva.

 

This is one of the things about living in Switzerland...the French Swiss gets lots of their books from France, and so it is possible that the German Swiss get their books from Germany. So was that a book published in Switzerland or Germany? That would help you know what ages were learning those concepts in the German speaking part or that canton.

 

In the bookstore here, there are math books from France which parents buy when they want to supplement their children's education. But the concepts taught are not necessarily taught in the same order or in the same grade as in Switzerland. This is not saying that necessarily that was the case of the book you saw, but it is possible also.

 

My oldest did leave primary school 11 years ago and I think they have worked a lot on their math program since then. But the friend was definitely in 5th grade and hadn't learned fractions yet. That was in the first half of the year, so maybe they learned in the second half, I don't know. I don't even bother dipping into the workbook part of their program in the primary school any more since my 3rd son, following Saxon through Algebra I in 8th grade, did quite well on the canton wide tests here in 7th and 8th grade. I do use their primary grade word problems books occasionally as those are quite different than the Saxon program. I guess that is not quite fair because I did use their workbooks a lot to prepare him for the 7th grade test, for the vocabulary in French and for the way of presenting and working on problems and because they do a lot of geometry in 7th grade which they don't do so much in Saxon....

 

My experience was with my oldest coming out of the Swiss system in 9th grade, who was not able to test out of an Algebra I exam and so had to do it in 9th grade, and even then he did only fairly (and he is quite bright). And one of his problems seemed to be fractions. He had done 2-8 in the public school here.

 

Maybe some years are better to do in another system than others. In seventh grade math, normally there aren't any major new aspects presented in the US, so your daughter wouldn't have been missing anything and would have instead had an advantage of having a little algebra (well she might have gotten that in pre algebra as well) and looking at math from a different perspective.

 

I think people have made the same point with different math programs in the US, that switching back and forth between Saxon and others (not just switching from one to another to stay) can cause problems, and that was my point about switching between programs from different countries.

 

So how did your daughter end up in Thun?

 

 

Best,

Joan

Edited by Joan in Geneva
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So, I am thinking a little bit ahead for my young dd, but I was wondering what you did for your bilingual children when teaching subjects.

 

Some background: My dh is from Colombia so he is the spanish speaker while I am the english speaking American. We try to go to Colombia twice a year and have his parents visit once a year so that my dd has the immersion experience. I am slowly expanding my spanish abilities at the same time.

 

Now, what to do when we are playing math games and eventually starting to do history and all that other stuff. Do you alternate the language you instruct in or do you tend to pick a time of the day for each language?

 

Math: should be simple to alternate

Language Arts: how do you do schedule this for multiple languages?

History: I could do Latin American/Colombian history from books we pick up down there.

Science: I already have some books in spanish.

 

I have just started thinking about this and don't know if there is a *better* way.

 

Thanks for any input.

 

Christina

 

 

 

My husband is from Mexico, and I'm American, although fluent in Spanish. We weren't planning on homeschooling in the beginning, we just kind of fell into it :). My daughter's birthday was after the cut-off, so we decided to Spanish Kindergarten at home, before placing her in school the following here. She is completely bilingual in both languages.

 

Well, we never put her in school. This is what I've done, am currently doing, and have been advised to do from bilingual homeschoolers who've graduated a child or two.

 

Our first year was K Spanish. I had Shiller math at the time which I translated to Spanish, I taught her reading in Spanish, and supplemental science was in Spanish. I say supplemental, because at the time, she was really into plants, and most resources were English. If I found info in Spanish, it was a bonus. We spent our days in Spanish. But, remember, we didn't plan to continue homeschooling, so our goal was a good solid base in Spanish before moving to English.

 

We didn't enroll her in school for kindergarten the following year :tongue_smilie:. We were having so much fun, and she was learning so much, we decided to continue. Besides, she had social issues and we weren't ready to put her in a classroom with 20 other fools, I mean children, with no real adult guidance. I used SL for half the year, which was English, but started to alternate English and Spanish math daily, which confused the crap out of her, so I just stuck with Spanish. I had materials for Spanish language arts, which I had copied while I worked as a bilingual educational assistant 2 years prior, plus purchased a couple of other books (look up Trillas publishing, Amazon carries some of their stuff), so had Spanish language arts. This was her "official" K year, and we did no English language arts.

 

She's in third grade now, so, instead of relating all of our mistakes the following two years (first and second grades), I'll tell you what I've learned. Firstly, we still do math in Spanish, although she is almost equally comfortable doing it in English (at least counting, and many of the basic arithmetic terms). That's simply because my supplements are English (if she needs extra help), and sometimes I've been lazy about translating. However, I have her Spanish math and teacher guides up through fifth grade for her, and we'll do that, then switch to English completely in sixth grade. I purchased it through Santillana USA (http://www.santillanausa.com), but they no longer carry Mundo Matematico. It was interesting what Cleo said about the schools there switching the language every two years. I would suggest something like that, or just one language, before alternating math languages daily. I found out it's a bad idea, and have been confirmed by others the same thing. Some way, some how, they get it in both languages anyway, especially when each parent speaks a different language. Here's what one woman wrote to me on another homeschool board 2.5 years ago that I've found to be true now: "You're right not to switch languages back and forth in one curriculum. It will just make it more confusing. There is also vocabulary linked to math and she needs to learn it in 1 language. Eventually, she can go into the other language and will pick it up quickly. When my dd was in immersion and the kids had to take the state tests, the teachers would wait until 1 child asked for the word, then put it on the board. They were always asking, "How do you say perpendicular or parallel in Spanish?" ROFL! When she switched into English math (grade 6), there was no language problem whatsoever."

 

 

The curriculum I have is integrated (Bible, science, history/geography), and in English. Whatever supplements I find, whether books or videos, in Spanish we use. I have readalouds that are in both languages. I purposely purchased both sets so we could do the English reading in the day, and the Spanish at night with dad. We also have atlases, encyclopedias, dictionaries (not bilingual), and science books in Spanish. Have Spanish dictionaries and English dictionaries, we are not teaching our children to translate from one language to another, but how to think in each respective language. It's also a good mind-stretcher for we second-language-speakers.

 

Language arts is in each respective language. The first three years (K-2), I concentrated on her Spanish. I tried each year, beginning with 1st, to introduce English reading. She just was not ready. Some children do fine learning both, and that's ok. Just make sure they have their own time. For example, doing Spanish in the mornings and English in the afternoons. I am just currently switching English to mornings and Spanish later, simply because of certain goals we have in mind for her. In Spanish, she's reading on grade level, and doing writing, spelling, and some grammar. I have native Spanish materials for the most part, although I am using R&S lectura. I'm considering Santillana (native) or Hampton-Brown for next year's writing. Or just continue adapting Classical Writing for Spanish (which is more probably).

 

In English, she's finishing phonics (will be done next week!), 2nd grade spelling, and doing some writing that is integrated in her phonics work. She's feeling more comfortable writing in English now, although her spelling is atrocious. She also does Bible copywork in English, and geography vocabulary (two words a week). I use SL readers as a guide, and she's currently at the end of the Readers 1 schedule. She'd be finished by now, but... she's had so much other stuff to do, ya know? I also periodically pull out Hooked on Phonics for reinforcement. However, I suspect she has dyslexia, and we're having her evaluated. As quickly as she picks up everything else, the reading has been veeerrrrryyyyy ssssslllllooooowwwww.

 

 

 

This is what it looks like for us:

 

In English:

Bible

Geography

Phonics

Spelling

Reading

Music

Art

 

In Spanish:

Math

Spelling

Writing

Reading

Grammar

 

In both languages:

Read alouds

Book basket (science and geography topics, but mostly English)

Pledge of allegiance (when I remember :))

 

There's probably more, but I can't remember anything else anymore, and I've already written a book. I think I probably have some of this information in my blog, too.

 

Hope this is helpful.

 

Renai

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So how did your daughter end up in Thun?

 

Dh's father's family is from the Berner Oberland. She was in Uetendorf. She wanted to learn Swiss German, which I can understand about half of (but not speak at all.)

 

I don't know where the books were printed, but there are definitely different versions/editions for Germany and Switzerland.

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Thank you so much! I will certainly keep in mind your advice about doing math in one language.

 

Christina

 

 

While math is the subject...this reminded me of an anecdote from WWII....

 

One of the ways of finding out whether the person was a German spy or not was to ask them to explain math problems aloud. Evidently it is extremely hard to do that in a foreign tongue (I presume providing that you weren't raised bilingually) so it would become obvious that they weren't natives even when they had the accent down.

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This reminded me of something that I heard yesterday from a friend who is currently in the police academy. He was saying that when dealing with people that they suspect are pretending not to understand English, he says casually, "By the way, you are standing on an ant pile." Since we have so many fire ants here the "pretenders" move rather quickly.

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While math is the subject...this reminded me of an anecdote from WWII....

 

One of the ways of finding out whether the person was a German spy or not was to ask them to explain math problems aloud. Evidently it is extremely hard to do that in a foreign tongue (I presume providing that you weren't raised bilingually) so it would become obvious that they weren't natives even when they had the accent down.

 

My two younger ones still struggle with maths, so even though I never speak any English with them out of schooling hours, I do give them numbers in English, after I said them in German, to make sure they get it right. Esp. when it comes to telling the time, since I want them to get when they have to be home :001_smile:.

However, when the little one gets too lazy and keeps asking me about numbers under ten, I tend to have him count up in German and figure it out himself.

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Funny about the fire ants! Where do you live?

 

My two younger ones still struggle with maths, so even though I never speak any English with them out of schooling hours, I do give them numbers in English, after I said them in German, to make sure they get it right. Esp. when it comes to telling the time, since I want them to get when they have to be home :001_smile:.

However, when the little one gets too lazy and keeps asking me about numbers under ten, I tend to have him count up in German and figure it out himself.

 

You might find this thread interesting about discussing math...

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We just started this year (3rd Grade) to implement subjects in both German and English. So far, ds 9 is doing Math in German, as well as Reading and copywork, ad at times Science. Since we are studying Latin as well, I don't want to go overboard with languages, especially since he wants to learn Italian as well. HELP!!!!! Any good Italian courses out there? I do speak Spanish, my Mom was fluent in Italian, but she is living in Europe!!!! So no help there.

 

Hopefully, I can implement more subjects in German at a later time, but for right now, I am happy where we are.

 

Sonja

______________________________

Homeschooling JUST ONE - ds 9

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You might find this thread interesting about discussing math...

 

Thanks for the thread, interesting, but rather daunting. I'll try some more and then I'll just do what I've done so far, get dh, the math genius, to talk to them about it. The math enthusiasm is virtually visible, when he talks about numbers and concepts :lol:. :confused:

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In my experience, there aren't a lot of materials available for Norweigan homeschoolers, at least not compared with the U.S. market. You may have to come up with other options. Pick out the best curricula you can find, regardless of the language. Use the "foreign" language at home, especially if a lot of your school is in the language of your community.

 

As far as language arts, in my experience (I grew up bilingually homeschooled) do two separate subjects. It isn't necessary to do a full grammar program (or any other strand, for that matter) in both languages, but be sure to mix enough. For example, do some writing assignments and sentence diagrams in Norwegian to make sure the ideas are cemented.

 

Study the history and geography of both cultures. Teach math words in the other language when the child is old enough. Expect him to read books.

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