Your experiences with foreign language instruction?

[Perry]

My 8th grader is dual enrolled and takes Spanish 1 at the local ps. After the first day of class, the teacher is speaking *only* in Spanish to the students. I am curious whether anyone has been in a class like this. I think I would find it frustrating, but apparently this is the way many foreign languages are taught now. Do you have experience with this? How did it work out? So far my dd is liking the class.

[Alyce]

Many of our homeschool foreign language program use this method. My kids never liked the method so we chose something else but to answer your questions, yes it is pretty normal nowadays.

[patchfire]

Thankfully, no one ever tried this when I took Latin in high school. :lol:

 

OTOH, yes, I believe it is growing more and more common for living languages, yes.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I've taught English as a second language. Yes, teaching only in the language to be learned is called immersion teaching. The teacher should be showing enough hand motions, pictures, etc. with lots of repetition of key phrases so that the kids start to understand. ie. They might say - "Repeat after me" but then gesture to the students that it is their turn. After awhile, the student has learned that phrase. If your dd likes the class then that's a good sign!:)

[Mergath]

I took some French in college, and it was something like that, though not as rapid of a transition. I would say that after the first couple of weeks, the prof taught maybe 90% in French. It can be frustrating, but it helps a lot with mastering the correct pronunciation, and it gives you a lot of motivation to study. I learned more in that class than I did in my high school Spanish classes, where we'd all repeat individual words in unison over and over.

 

Keep in mind, too, that the teacher doesn't actually expect the kids to be able to converse fluently or to understand everything that is said at this point. The teacher saying something long and involved to a student, and the student replying with a blank stare and an "uhhh..." is totally normal, in my experience.

[Liz CA]

I've taught English as a second language. Yes, teaching only in the language to be learned is called immersion teaching. The teacher should be showing enough hand motions, pictures, etc. with lots of repetition of key phrases so that the kids start to understand. ie. They might say - "Repeat after me" but then gesture to the students that it is their turn. After awhile, the student has learned that phrase. If your dd likes the class then that's a good sign!:)

 

I had to learn a few foreign languages but at first the teacher made sure we all understood the instructions in our native language. With the second year, there was more instruction in the language to be learned and eventually exclusively in the foreign language. It makes one think in the language and this is a big step toward absorbing it.

[AuntieM]

Immersion method. For an interested student who wants to converse in the language studied, it is a great method. I spent a week at a Berlitz school, in a crash course for some overseas travel. After noon on the first day, no more English. It was sink or swim, just like it would be when my plane landed in another continent. I learned a LOT in a short time.

 

I wonder, though, if this is very good for learning grammar, reading and writing in a foreign language. I would be curious about the actual instruction for that (grammar especially). For a language studied as an academic subject, I'd want to be sure that the study went beyond conversation skills. JMO.

[hornblower]

This is how I learned English :D

[Starr]

Dd's college Spanish classes were all in Spanish from the beginning except the first semester and a few assignment things were clarified in English.

[Lucy in Australia]

I speak both as a student who had to learn French (as a 5 year old) this way, and later English (as a 12 year old) this way, and also as a French tutor: this is the best way to learn a foreign language. Unfortunately, the older the child, the more effort it seems to require, but it still works. Even my own 14 year old got exasperated the other day and said, "You know, unless you just speak French to us ALL THE TIME, we're not really going to learn it properly".

 

I have tutored year 12 students who had 4 or 5 years of high school French under their belt and were preparing for an exchange visit to France and couldn't string together a single sentence in French. Turns out their teacher was not French; she taught them to read, write, conjugate etc... but they just couldn't speak it (probably because she couldn't).

 

Keep in mind, too, that the teacher doesn't actually expect the kids to be able to converse fluently or to understand everything that is said at this point. The teacher saying something long and involved to a student, and the student replying with a blank stare and an "uhhh..." is totally normal, in my experience.

:iagree:

And I absolutely agree with this...

[Renee in NC]

That's how it was in Spanish 1 back in the 8th grade!

 

I learned more Spanish in 9 months at the chicken plant I ran (where few people spoke English) than I did in years and years of school Spanish (middle school through college.)

[Ester Maria]

I studied way too many foreign languages in my life - and maybe also learned a few at the end of the day :D - and the highest quality classes were always those that combined explicit grammar instruction and immersion techniques with older children / adult learners. Immersion-only works wonders for small children, unburdened by analytical grammatical thinking, and maybe even for very motivated adult learners that are surrounded by the language 24/7, but even those two groups will have to make up for explicit grammar at some later stage of their lives if they wish to be truly fluent and, which is even more important, literate - just like we formally learn the grammar of our native language, in fact, despite the fact we subconsciously know it.

 

Personally, I always taught Italian emphasizing both oral fluency AND literacy, conscious grammatical instruction AND free conversational approach. Before the learner reaches a certain stage in language learning, the analytical part will necessarily be in another language, though with time, one gradually starts using only the foreign language.

[freethinkermama]

Immersion method is the best way to learn a language. A combined with Communicative Language Teaching, Direct Method, and a mix of others for various activities--I'd be thrilled to have my children in such a program. I teach 2 foreign languages, and this is my field. Really, "my teacher teaches all in ____" is probably a misnomer, too. Studies show that even in immersion classes, even 85% target language is about all you get, and that's fine.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

I think this is pretty normal. In my experience what actually happens is that some point of grammar is often clarified in English if necessary. That the teacher is often following the text or worksheet which is often in English. That they are using situations, routines, gestures and facial expressions to convey the information as well. They may also be writing a sample of verb conjugation on the board, speaking in the target language but translating in what they write. There are lots of methods that allow for maximum verbal exposure while still giving instruction in English. By demanding that all conversation happen in the target language it can keep the students focused, not talking to each other and minimize silly responses-all helpful to the teacher. Also, in my experience, this is better than the opposite where no one in the class ever speaks the target language and only does written assignments in that language. I once experienced this in a university upper level modern language course. Neither the students nor the professor ever used the language verbally except in reading answers to written homework-not even to say hello or good morning. Conversationally they were behind the classes I had in high school. Not a good sign for a modern, spoken language.

[Hedgehog]

After the first day of class, the teacher is speaking *only* in Spanish to the students. I am curious whether anyone has been in a class like this. I think I would find it frustrating, but apparently this is the way many foreign languages are taught now. Do you have experience with this? How did it work out?

 

We were taught French and German like that in school, and learned no grammar until we'd been doing the language for two years. I think it works well for some kids, but not others (including me). I like to have all the grammar explained, and learn lists of vocabulary first. JMO. But if your child enjoys it - maybe it is the right way for her?

[abbeyej]

That's how my first-year French class was in high school. It was a little intimidating at first, but I learned far more that year than in subsequent years (with a different teacher). This is very common now -- though some teachers do a mix of immersion and occasional English explanations. I think my French teacher "broke character" 2 or 3 times that year to describe a complex grammatical concept. The rest of the time he was extremely animated, did mime, drew on the chalkboard, whatever necessary to get the point across.

 

I don't think it would work nearly as well with a less fluent or less energetic teacher.

[ElizabethB]

My high school Spanish started immersion the 2nd year after a year of building up vocab and grammar knowledge. That worked really well, I think it is a better way to go, personally. We also were required to speak in Spanish only (points were deducted for each English word, so there was ample motivation!!), but were allowed to ask if we asked in Spanish how to say a word in English, then we could ask our question or say our answer in Spanish.

[Perry]

Thanks for the replies. I thought immersion meant instruction in the language all day long. I didn't realize it would be considered immersion if it were just in one class.

 

I wonder what the data has to say about it. I know it's clear that complete immersion is much better for kids learning ESL, but I don't know about a 40 minute a day class. I don't think it's the same. I know it would have frustrated me, but if it gets better results that's more important to me.

 

I'm always suspicious when I get a letter home about this great new way they're teaching. It's often a gimmick and in my experience doesn't work out the way it's supposed to. I looked at the syllabus last night and it appears that the emphasis is on learning about the culture, not so much the language. So there may not be all that much "immersion" after all.

 

But I'm not interested in teaching Spanish so I'll just shut up and see how it goes. My dd likes her teacher and is okay with it so far.

Edited August 27, 2010 by Perry

[Kim in Appalachia]

That is how I was taught in high school and when I took a language in college. I assumed it's standard. The idea is to get you to think that way. I didn't find it too hard or frustrating, but I had good teachers.