Catherine Posted September 28, 2009 Share Posted September 28, 2009 DS just announced he'd like to do a cultural exchange next year, his senior year. I'd love for this to happen, and will support him if he sticks with the idea. He took German in sixth and seventh grade, and still remembers some. He's an excellent language learner. Can anyone recommend a language learning program with this goal in mind? I think speaking would be very important, but he'll attend a German school so writing and reading would also be important. Thoughts? Catherine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted September 29, 2009 Share Posted September 29, 2009 DS just announced he'd like to do a cultural exchange next year, his senior year. I'd love for this to happen, and will support him if he sticks with the idea. He took German in sixth and seventh grade, and still remembers some. He's an excellent language learner. Can anyone recommend a language learning program with this goal in mind? I think speaking would be very important, but he'll attend a German school so writing and reading would also be important. Thoughts? Catherine I would seriously try to overdose on language. It is hard to have too much exposure. I have had good luck finding snippets of German TV shows on iTunes. Die Sendung mit der Maus, Wissen Macht 'Ah and Galileo are some of my favorites. You can also watch some German shows in their entirety on the internet. Loewenzahn is a favorite with my kids (although it isn't a little kids show). My husband likes Die Rettungsflieger (more grown up, but we let the kids watch it. Think of something on the level of ER or Third Watch.) Pimsleur has a good heavy dose of German speaking. Rosetta Stone was useful for us when we lived in Germany. I'm also a fan of lots of reading. You might start with small news articles. Deutsche Welle is a good resource. Then move on to reading longer pieces. I have worked my way through the first six Harry Potter books. That is quite a bit of language exposure once you're done. Tangram is a typical program for German as a second language courses in Germany (Deutsch als Fremdsprache). There are also some texts that are more teen friendly. German in Review is the standard work in college courses for grammar. This would be worth taking along for reference. I know that I have a couple of books that give good writing models for things like a proper letter etc. If you want I can try to dig them out. Is he thinking of a particular exchange program? Or is this something you're arranging privately? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Posted September 29, 2009 Share Posted September 29, 2009 Find a German speaker to tutor and converse with him. We did a crash course in French before moving to Belgium. We didn't have much time, but it was helpful right from the start. Put an ad in a newspaper, contact the local college, put out the word. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catherine Posted September 29, 2009 Author Share Posted September 29, 2009 No program in mind yet-do you have a recommendation? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catherine Posted September 29, 2009 Author Share Posted September 29, 2009 Bump Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted September 29, 2009 Share Posted September 29, 2009 No program in mind yet-do you have a recommendation? My German isn't bad, so I'd be tempted to pull a bunch of stuff together myself. However, for an outside program, I've heard good things about the German distance learning course for middle school/high schoolers through Oklahoma State University. There were several posts about it on the high school board about a year ago. Goethe Institute offers language programs. The best would be classes or a tutor with a good plan of attack. But Goethe also does some distance learning. Something else that you might want him to consider is doing something that quantifies his German ability coming out of an exchange program. This might be one of the Goethe Institute exams or taking an AP exam in German. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musicmommy Posted September 29, 2009 Share Posted September 29, 2009 No help on best way to learn German since I speak it pretty well and we're teaching the boys using Rosetta Stone and then I just use the phrases they are learning as we go through our days. (hm...pretty sure that was a run on sentence) I went to Germany as a foreign exchange student through AFS. It was an amazing program! There was quite a bit of paper work involved because they really try to make good matches between student and host family. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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