Am I alone in this?

[Hedgehog]

Just wanting some perspective here.

 

My Mum (not HS supportive) were having, shall we say, a heated discussion today. She is bilingual English/French, fluent in German, Spanish and Russian, and knows some Latin, Hebrew and NT Greek, and she maintains that it is impossible to learn languages through books, online courses, DVDs and CDs. I said that hundreds, if not thousands of HSed kids learn not just languages but many subjects from books etc., without "professional" teaching, and go on to do very well at university.

 

What do you think? Is language learning unique in some way, such that a student can only become fluent when taught one-to-one by a professional teacher in the flesh? Or am I right when I say that a person can be fluent in any language, skilled in any subject - enough to take said subject at university - by learning from books etc.?

[Mrs Mungo]

The only way to become completely fluent is usually by immersion. My Russian professor in college talked about studying English for *years* at an elite university in Moscow. When she got on the plane to move to the US? She couldn't even understand when the stewardess asked what she would like to drink.

 

Many homeschooling high schoolers that I know irl have language tutors or take community college classes.

 

eta: If this is an anti-homeschooler argument, I'd call it a red herring.

Edited September 10, 2010 by Mrs Mungo

[Remudamom]

I think it's very hard to be fluent in any language, say, Spanish, if you don't have someone who knows it well to converse with.

 

And reading over that sentence, I'm not too sure I'm fluent in English.

[Pamela H in Texas]

Even if it did require a teacher to be proficient (I agree that fluency requires immersion), no public school has nearly all those languages and few have more than two or three. And the level of instruction in public school is fairly low. The majority of people from public school languages can't carry on basic conversation in the language after 2 or 3 years, and certainly not years later.

 

I can't argue this situation well. My kids did NOT learn using programs. My daughter *did* learn well in a classroom (well, and she's gifted at learning languages according to the teacher and principal of the school). However, that *is* a point in and of itself. A homeschooled kid *could* take classes (co-op, private school, online, college, private tutor, etc).

[Jean in Newcastle]

As a language teacher for many years (English as a Second Language and Japanese), I'd say you can become proficient in reading and writing a language through courses. You can become ok in pronunciation (and some of that depends on your natural abilities and some on the whether you can develop an ear for what you sound like). You can become good or even proficient at scripted language (ie. reading a "dialogue" in a language book).

 

But actual language with native speakers is not scripted, it is not enunciated as clearly as language teachers enunciate and can be fast. For fluency in actual conversation, it really would be hard without actual people to converse with. But I've taught students for years who had actual English language teachers in Jr. and Sr. high school in Japan and would not be understood on an American street corner. And they met all the requirements that your mother outlined.

 

But - I read back over your original post and you said a contradictory thing - because while you talked about fluency, you then said that the goal would be to be able to then take more of the language in college/university. That changes the dynamics somewhat. A high school level fluency is not what I would call "fluency in a language." So for a language like Spanish which has fairly regular pronunciation rules and shares many roots with English, yes I do think you can get a high school level fluency. And if you are going to learn a non-spoken language like Latin or Koine Greek (or classical), then a book is a fine way to go to become fluent, in my opinion.

[MorganClassicalPrep]

I think from the homeschooling programs out there, a child can be more than prepared to start in an advanced level of college language. My 4.5 year old daughter already knows almost everything I learned last semester in French. (Well, the vocab, the grammar is still a little above her head of course!)

 

I think that a person could become fairly fluent in reading and writing a language just by book learning. This could even be accomplished on your own with enough diligence. However, having a real conversation with a foreign speaker is much, much different. I have trouble understanding my French professor when she is speaking at full speed, even though she is mostly using phrases and such that I already know! The only way to become truly proficient in conversation is to practice with native/near native speakers. No professional teacher needed, just someone to practice your skills with.

 

And fluency and being successful in a language course are completely different animals alltogether!

[Harriet Vane]

It is impossible to become functionally fluent through books and computer courses. I agree with your mother. Books and computer courses can give a student a working academic knowledge of the language, but definitely not the ability to use it functionally in real life situations. Books and computer courses can help a student pass a placement test, but not really actually SPEAK the language.

 

To actually speak the language, a student MUST converse regularly with a native speaker. I would add that watching videos in the language (not teaching videos, but culturally normal videos) and reading books, newspapers, etc. are also an important piece of achieving real fluency.

[elegantlion]

I took four years of high school Spanish. My teacher was a native speaker and went well above what the book taught. She stressed many times how the spoken language was different than the grammatically correct slowly spoken lessons in the book. One of our foreign exchange students was a native speaker and he taught us a lot, some fit for classroom use, some not. ;)

 

I would have been well prepared to learn more in a classroom setting. However, I would have been unprepared to be set loose in a Spanish speaking country and feel completely at ease.

 

This teacher was someone I would consider an expert as being discussed in another thread. Part of the issue was we had little exposure to other native speakers beside herself and the AFS student.

 

I don't have time to find the link, but someone on the high school board linked the language standards for European countries. How to gauge fluency, I think was the chart. It was most helpful.

[Melinda in VT]

I agree with your mom.

 

I think learning to speak a language without time spent interacting with native speakers is like learning to play soccer without ever playing against an opposing player. There's both a mental component and a physical component. You need to practice both.

 

I also agree with Mrs. Mungo that this is a red herring as an anti-homeschooling argument. There are ways to provide homeschooled students with good language learning opportunities.

[bookfiend]

Tell you Mom you agree and ask her when she would like to start language lessons with your children!

[Mrs Mungo]

I agree with your mom.

 

I think learning to speak a language without time spent interacting with native speakers is like learning to play soccer without ever playing against an opposing player. There's both a mental component and a physical component. You need to practice both.

 

I also agree with Mrs. Mungo that this is a red herring as an anti-homeschooling argument. There are ways to provide homeschooled students with good language learning opportunities.

 

Well, I also said that because I don't think the way in which students in high schools learn languages is typically any better.

[mommaduck]

Tell you Mom you agree and ask her when she would like to start language lessons with your children!

:iagree:She is correct. A child, either homeschooled or in a classroom, can get an introduction to a language, a basic view of a language, ability to read or write a language, but it takes immersion to have any level of real fluency, IMO.

[Laurie4b]

Unless a public school has an immersion program in say, the elementary school, a student is not going to become fluent in a language in public school, either. You can acheive reasonable competency in a language (not fluency) in home instruction via books, computer programs, etc. that is comparable to what you'd get in most public schools. If fluency is your goal, then you'll need to get your child in frequent contact with native speakers. You'd have to do that if your kid attended public school, etoo.

 

The sounds of a language with correct accent, can I think, be learned via computer program. For instance, we played for a while with learning Chinese via Rosettastone (it was my fault we didn't go further) and when my son said some stuff to native Chinese speakers, they were amazed at the accent.

 

So if the question is: can you learn a language at home as well as you could in public school, the answer is yes. If the question is: can you learn a language fluently at home if your parent is not a native speaker and you have no regular contact with native speakers, the answer is no.

 

As someone else said, volunteer your mother to work on their fluency! :)

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

It is impossible to become functionally fluent through books and computer courses. I agree with your mother. Books and computer courses can give a student a working academic knowledge of the language, but definitely not the ability to use it functionally in real life situations. Books and computer courses can help a student pass a placement test, but not really actually SPEAK the language.

 

To actually speak the language, a student MUST converse regularly with a native speaker. I would add that watching videos in the language (not teaching videos, but culturally normal videos) and reading books, newspapers, etc. are also an important piece of achieving real fluency.

 

:iagree:

 

I took lots of French before I actually went to France as an undergrad, and ô la vache! I could barely understand anything! After 3 months, I was becoming slightly proficient. It wasn't until living in France several years later as a graduate student that I actually became fluent.

[Melinda in VT]

Well, I also said that because I don't think the way in which students in high schools learn languages is typically any better.

 

In my experience, high school language courses do not result in fluent speakers.

 

However, the high school language programs with which I am familiar are a definite improvement over book-only learning. (The students don't become fluent, but they do have someone who can listen to them speak and provide feedback and correction.)

 

The communities in which I have lived have had native speakers who teach language classes--either group or individual--outside of schools.

 

Traveling to a foreign country and enrolling in a language school for a week or two is a great boost for students who already have some knowledge of the language.