Is learning Spanish (or other foreign language) early really worth it?

[Alexa]

I was all for starting DS on Spanish early (he's 4 now) since I've heard that's the best time to pick up a foreign language. We live in San Antonio, so the potential for exposure is definitely there, but as of right now we don't hear/speak Spanish every day.

 

I had heard Flip Flop Spanish was a good program, but to be honest, DS thinks it's totally boring and has no interest in learning Spanish after the lessons we've done together. I could certainly get a DVD/CD-based curriculum (like Whistlefritz or Puertas Abiertas), but would he really learn Spanish that way? As in, would he gain more than just a few vocabulary words?

 

And in the broader scope, this has me wondering: Is it really possible, without regular interaction with fluent speakers, or without a great deal of motivation on the part of the student, to learn Spanish at home? Over the years and years of study I see ahead, will DS's "progress" ever amount to much, or will it be like a few grains of sand in the big bucket? Or will he end up in about the same place as someone who started later?

 

I know I could look at getting a tutor, but again, with DS's lack of interest, is it really worth it? There are so many other things we could be doing now to spark an interest in the world and learning, and I can't help but think about the fact that DH became fluent in Japanese as an adult after only a year of living in Japan and speaking only Japanese. The learning curve was steep, but ultimately short and certainly more complete than any curriculum.

 

So, I'm here to find out what your experiences with teaching/learning a foreign language have been in the long term, and what the benefits and costs of spending time on it now in the early years will be. I'm all ears! :bigear:

Edited August 16, 2010 by Alexa

[Alexa]

:lurk5:

[Tammy]

and....I will say I will probably be the only one to do so here, LOL! Most of the arguments I hear for 'half way' learning Spanish is to learn the 'culture'....and frankly....I can do that without learning the language.

 

I asked everyone on the highschool board a long time ago.....how many of them took a foreign language in 'high school' or 'college'....and how many could still speak the language.....and not one of them could. I also do not believe any of them became fluent in the language.

 

If you can not become fluent in a language (speaking it everyday)...then I think it is a waste of time.

 

However....I do believe in taking Latin....of course not to speak the language but for all the added benefits it brings.

 

There....that is my .02 LOL!

 

.

[ilikemyhomeschool]

:lurk5:

[Dmmetler]

If your DC loves languages, the way mine does, yes, it's worth it. My DD is more thrilled with her language study than anything else we do, and was ecstatic when she saw the ad for Song School Greek in her Song School Latin book.

 

Will she be reading classics earlier than someone who started on Greek or Latin at a more "normal" age? Probably not. I'm expecting LfC A to stretch over the next couple of years, because it's such a jump from SSL. Will she be fluent in Spanish due to Sra. Cano on United Streaming? Unless DH takes a consulting position in Guatemala or something for a year or two, I doubt it. Will all those Twin Sisters vocabulary songs in German, Italian, and French she's downloaded from United Streaming really teach much of anything? I seriously doubt it. Will she remember any of the Arabic she's learning from a regular playmate? Almost certainly not-especially since her playmate prefers to speak English and her playmate's mother is having to struggle to get HER daughter to learn Arabic!

 

Is she having fun? Yes.

 

I can't claim to understand it (my memories of Latin include crying over the textbook because it was so hard, so having a child excited about Latin is not what I'd expected). But I don't think it's hurting her any, either.

[Rosie_0801]

Yes, if you learn it.

No, if you don't.

 

If your kiddie is 6, you have twelve years to teach him Spanish. There's no reason why a person can't learn a language pretty darn well in 12 years. Other than if their parents aren't interested enough to make them, perhaps.

 

If your kiddie is 15 and taking the necessary three years to put on their transcript, there are good reasons why they wouldn't learn it, even if they truly wanted to learn it.

 

 

If you want your kids to graduate, fluent in Spanish, then yes, start now and keep plugging away. You will get there.

 

If you don't care if your kids graduate fluent in Spanish, you aren't going to stick it out anyway, so pick another subject you feel strongly about and plug away at that.

 

A third option is to learn ASL. Signed languages have their own interesting peculiarities that are very different to spoken languages, but don't take as long to learn. You don't have to spend the time to become literate and the grammar is more flexible. There are right and wrong ways to sign, but if you use incorrect grammar, the person you're speaking to will be able to nut it out, whereas incorrect grammar with a spoken language usually renders you completely incomprehensible.

 

Rosie

[StephanieZ]

Progress is definitely possible. . .

 

Since you live in a place with plenty of Spanish speakers, there are probably Spanish language library times and other activities that you might be able to find to have regular exposure for free or nominal cost.

 

Spanish tutors are abundant and inexpensive in many areas, much more so than other languages. I find a tutor a worthy investment and my dc have definitely learned a great deal at a young age.

 

If you have any need for regular babysitting, you could find a Spanish speaking sitter and instruct her to only speak Spanish and to read various picture books, play Uno and other games, etc. . .

[Ester Maria]

We're quite a "worldly" family - language study is not only "worth it" in our family, but it is in fact one of key areas of study, emphasized as much as mathematics. Our daughters couldn't communicate with much of their family if they weren't trilingual (or bilingual and half, as my younger daughter says :D, alluding to the less than brilliant state of her Hebrew), and some of their extended family and our close friends abroad speak other languages (NOT Ita/He/En) as their primary ones and as their languages of education so they were also exposed to those, in addition to having travelled in places in which sometimes nothing else worked. What a big world out there - and not everybody speaks English as people in the anglophone countries often like to think, and even if they did, you would be missing a lot of fun and "insider cues" if you knew nothing but English. Languages connect people, and even with the existence of a more or less recognized lingua franca, something fundamentally changes once you're an "insider" as opposed to an "outsider", in any country and any culture.

 

I believe that we can distinguish two general approaches to the second language studies in schools.

The more "elite" approach has as its goal to have the person not only conversationally fluent, but also literate - by such an approach, a foreign language study would encompass culture, history and, especially, literature study, study of recorded human experience in a different context than your own. Ultimately, the student would end up fairly proficient in the language, able to conduct all of their daily business, but also able to function in an academic setting (able to make their way through books and scholarship, possibly to continue their studies in the foreign language, able to discuss more complex topics).

On the other hand, there is also a more "popular" approach, which is basically, to put it blunt, to fulfill your foreign language requirements. The basic objectives for a student would be to be exposed to rather than to master a foreign culture and a language, perceive how thoughts are formed and expressed in a different medium, and a learn a thing or two about the world outside of your safe little anglophone uniformity. The outcome would be a rather limited knowledge, but a bit widened horizons in any case.

 

To a monolingual anglophone it's impossible to describe the mental freedom that the second language allows and the impact of a true experience of the world being renamed and of thoughts being formed and shared in a different medium. Language entails a worldview of its own, and if nothing else, the study of it is worth for that goal only. People who speak multiple languages are almost by default more open-minded thinkers, operating with broader contexts, more globally aware, more sensitive to nuances of their own language. In fact, it's Goethe if I recall well, who said that those who don't speak a different language know nothing about their own. So true.

 

Regarding your husband's experience, while I absolutely give him the benefit of the doubt since I do not know him so I take your word here... I know many different cases, and I would be VERY careful about tossing around a word "fluency" after a one-year experience, even if it was immersion. I know a lot of people "fluent" in Italian that way, but who are in fact semi-literate and whose Italian is certainly good enough to communicate without being asked what they mean or being corrected all the time, but who have also picked up a surprising amount of mistakes that have, with time, fossilized. That's why learning must encompass a formal part in addition to the informal one, as well as include as complex literacy as possible, especially with languages with strong dialectal influences in everyday speech such as Italian.

 

It definitely is possible to learn a language at an adult age, and even with ease to do so... But where do you draw the line? They can, theoretically, learn everything as adults.

I'm still of an opinion that learning should be a structured process, and that within that framework a constant of a foreign language must find its place, regardless of other interests or potentially better time investments. My 13 y.o. has already learned all of maths she will use in her practical everyday life, but I'm not very keen on having her stop - because maths is a part of her framework, and learning, finally, serves also to some goals that go beyond practical utility. And just as maths encompasses a peculiar mode of thinking, so does the foreign language "rewire" your brain and is a type of learning experience that is done not only to master that specific area, but also as a "proxy" for some other things and mental processes we wish to expose our children to.

 

I cannot fathom an education without language study. Both for the "worldly" and for the "non-worldly" it has very good effects: for the former, it's a practical skill that represents their reality and that makes them understand the world around them; for the latter, it exposes them to the world they might never see, it allows them access to some things that they would have otherwise remained cut off from forever.

 

American language instruction is generally catastrophic (outside of the milieu of certain, usually private, schools), but I wouldn't consider it a waste of time. While I pity the students for the lack of quality of the education they receive, I still believe they're far better off with little symbolic knowledge than with no experience in that area whatsoever.

In Europe, however, one may still find many schools that know how to do their job and that will have the children reading literary classics - and if not, then linguistically simpler, contemporary writings - in foreign languages in high school. I remember the things I was taught pretty darn well, actually. And even if it was frustrating at times, on the long run, it was one of the best educational investments they did and also one of the most enriching one - that made us realize that there is a broader world out there than Rome, that what we consider "our" culture is far from isolated from the rest of the world, that there are commonplaces of human experience in written traditions that are differently tweaked by the language they were written in, and that one can learn so much not only about the other but also about oneself in the contact and familiarity with the other.

 

Even if your son does not end up fluent in Spanish, I would say all of the above are valuable reasons to learn it. Proficiency, after all, is not program-dependent or even method-dependent; at some point you'll have to throw away all of those and pick up films and books and other materials aimed at native speakers and just start somewhere. If it doesn't overwhelm you, the chances are you'll walk out quite enriched by that experience. And if it does overwhelm you, it's a healthy kind of overwhelming, like the one of difficult maths - even if you don't get through it until the end, the chances are you'll have learned something.

 

Concrete knowledge, after all, is not the only and ultimate goal. Sometimes a grain of PERCEPTION is worth a hundred pounds of dry knowledge that will be "concretely useful". Language study aims to influence your perception first, and then it offers concrete useful knowledge that not everybody builds up to.

[elegantlion]

I took 4 years of Spanish in high school, 25 years ago. The only Spanish speaking person I knew was the Spanish teacher. I remembered enough to get through a week in Costa Rica a few years ago among few English speaking people. It has also been helpful in teaching ds Latin.

 

I think there are several reasons learning a foreign language is valuable. At four I wouldn't even recommend a program. I'd simply get a Spanish dictionary and start with words, go around the house and discuss what is relevant to his life. Just like you do to teach a child to speak, we start with words, not formal grammar.

 

Why are languages valuable? Ester Maria stated it more eloquently than I can, but here's a few reasons language are important to me.

 

- to realize the world is bigger than your own language

- math is a language, music is a language. they can be equally as "foreign" but most of us wouldn't eliminate math from our schooling.

- see language studies as a way to build communication skills. Even though I don't use my Spanish a lot, it taught me how to monitor my speaking and make sure I was communicating what I REALLY want to say (even in English).

- the world is a lot smaller than it used to be. I think the 21st century student will have more reason to be bi-lingual.

 

 

Again at four I would look for informal ways to study language. Can you set your TV to Spanish or do they have Spanish programs? Something like Sesame Street in Spanish could be very helpful.

[Diviya]

Brava, Ester Maria!

What a fantastic post. I love your passion.

I wish I could just sit down with you for about, oh, eight hours, and talk about education.

And, of course, I totally agree with everything you said. Even though my Latin and French are rusty, and my German barely a memory, I still HAVE a lot that I carry about with me, if you know what I mean, and it sounds like you do.

 

Of course, Metamorphosis was incomprehensible to me in both German and English....not sure what I gained there :)

 

ETA: to the OP, the main reason to start very young is to get the accent. After about age 10, I think, they'll never sound native. But to get the accent, you absolutely need a live native speaker. Even once a week for an hour is valuable. Any program will be pretty worthless in this regard. Programs are fine for supplementing and reinforcing.

Edited August 17, 2010 by Diviya

[Alexa]

Thank you all for your thoughts!

 

I do want to say that I am in no way questioning the value of knowing a second (or third, etc) language. I'm just looking at my DS, who has no interest currently in learning Spanish, and wondering at the value of pushing it this soon. It might be the "right time" developmentally to learn language, but it also might kill his desire to do so. It's the "when" not the "if" I'm questioning.

 

I agree that my DH's experience might be exceptional. People he talked to on the phone thought he was Japanese before he told them otherwise, and it was more than just "yoshi, yoshi!"

[crowscreek]

I have a slightly different curriculum choice: We are teaching our kiddos Hangul/Hangeul (Korean) as a foreign language.

DH and I spent a combined 5 years in South Korea and we think the language is great.

 

Sure, Mandarin Chinese or Japanese may be easier, but we want to teach something outside Spanish (I am fluent), French, German, Latin (even though it's MUCHO importante).

 

In our area, Hangul/Hangeul is more applicable: the Athens/Atlanta, GA area. My DH is a store mgr @ Best Buy and he sees the language spoken on a daily basis. Sure, we can go to WalMart (even though they botched Dora's birthday and I will NEVER go back) and see a representative from EVERY hispanic nation, but we just want to follow our hearts.

 

(( Dora's 10th birthday celebration was SUPPOSED to be celebrated @ walmart on saturday the 14th. The 5 local Walmart stores decided it wasn't important and there were 100+ families rioting @ the WM lol. ))

[Jeanine in TX]

I moved to San Antonio last year.

 

Forest Hills Library branch has bilingual story time for preschoolers on Thursdays at 11:00 am. I think that it is on summer hiatus, but it resumes in September. Other branches have children's books in Spanish.

 

http://www.mysapl.org/location.aspx?id=for

[Alexa]

Thanks, Jeanine! I actually checked out a few Spanish board books a few weeks back from our branch, but I didn't know about the bilingual story time.

[Shifra]

I asked everyone on the highschool board a long time ago.....how many of them took a foreign language in 'high school' or 'college'....and how many could still speak the language.....and not one of them could. I also do not believe any of them became fluent in the language.

 

If you can not become fluent in a language (speaking it everyday)...then I think it is a waste of time.

 

I would like to respond to Tammy's comment and Paula's response. I took 2 years of high school Spanish (that's all the school offered; when some of us tried to get the school to offer a third year, we were rebuffed), and even though I graduated over 20 years ago, I can still speak some Spanish. In fact, I volunteer in a hospital, and I use the Spanish I know often. I even help some of the hospitalized teens with their Spanish homework! When I have access to Spanish television (we are TV free at home), I can understand most of the news and Plaza Sesamo (Sesame Street in Spanish). Am I fluent or even very good at Spanish? No. But to say that those two years were a waste? Absolutely not!

[cathmom]

What a big world out there - and not everybody speaks English as people in the anglophone countries often like to think, and even if they did, you would be missing a lot of fun and "insider cues" if you knew nothing but English. Languages connect people, and even with the existence of a more or less recognized lingua franca, something fundamentally changes once you're an "insider" as opposed to an "outsider", in any country and any culture.

 

To a monolingual anglophone it's impossible to describe the mental freedom that the second language allows and the impact of a true experience of the world being renamed and of thoughts being formed and shared in a different medium. Language entails a worldview of its own, and if nothing else, the study of it is worth for that goal only. People who speak multiple languages are almost by default more open-minded thinkers, operating with broader contexts, more globally aware, more sensitive to nuances of their own language. In fact, it's Goethe if I recall well, who said that those who don't speak a different language know nothing about their own. So true.

 

 

 

 

 

Wonderful post!

 

Of course, Metamorphosis was incomprehensible to me in both German and English....not sure what I gained there :)

 

 

I love love love Kafka!

[FairProspects]

I think if you are questioning it, it is too soon to start for your family. Language research was a hobby of mine during graduate school, and although the earlier the introduction of a language, the better chance for fluency, the window of early absorption is open for a long time. It doesn't start to taper off until adolescence, and even then, that doesn't mean you can't learn more languages. It just means that the skill won't come as easily as it would have at an earlier age. You could wait several years to begin language study with no loss :).