Jumping In Puddles Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 to teach to dc when you don't speak a foreign language yourself. So please, inspire me with your stories about how you overcame this hurdle and what you did to insure that your dc learned to speak at least one MFL.:D :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldskool Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newbie Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 I am no help, b/c I speak Spanish and that is the lang. I make dd choose. She can choose other, but understand I am of no help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrissymama Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Rosetta Stone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KristinaBreece Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 We're starting with a language I know (French) and then we're going to learn Spanish & Latin together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 I told ds we are going to learn together. I try to stay ahead in Latin and in Japanese I make no pretense that I know more than him. Video teaching are necessities for both of us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duckens Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 I am in the same boat as the original poster. I DO believe that this is a better time than ever before to learn a foreign language as a homeschooler. There is Rosetta Stone and Fluenz and Learnables. There are lessons posted online and/or on YouTube. And it is easier than ever to find friends for consultation in our communities who speak a certain language. As for teaching children to be fluent, play games in a certain language. Play Candyland saying rojo, amarillo, azul, or verde instead of red, yellow, blue, or green. Play Uno, War, or Skipbo saying uno, dos, tres instead of one, two, three. When your child brings out all of their stuffed or plastic animals to play with, name them by their foreign name (Pronunciation can be found online). For older children, challenge them to speaking for a specific time period in their language of choice. Can they make it through lunch speaking only in Spanish? How do you say, "More milk please"? Waking in the morning, how much of the day can they make it through before breaking into English? We can do this!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anita in NC Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Someone else here had posted a link to: http://www.spanishdict.com We had a look at it for the first time yesterday, it looks good and is free. I had planned on DS taking Spanish as part of dual enrollment but NC now only lets kids take math or science as part of dual enrollment. :glare: I'm seriously considering just going and living in a Spanish speaking country for two or three months and study Spanish as a family. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleIzumi Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 We're learning ASL--as in me, my kids, and my parents all at the same time. No pronounciation, lol! And it's multi-sensory. My mom is nearly fluent already & wants to be an interpreter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ester Maria Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 You cannot teach what you do not know, especially when it comes to such tricky areas as languages where many things are not clear-cut and where often one needs to know a lot to be able not to mess up teaching the basics well. Get the person who speaks the language well to do the actual teaching (there are basically two categories of those, with some grey areas of course: native speakers educated in their language (not your random heritage speakers!) and professionals (people with degrees in that language and its literature) who have had extended stays abroad where the language is spoken) and what you can do at home will be supplementing that which is taught with books, internet, audio and video input. But if you want your DC to be actually taught the language, I strongly recommend going "professional" in this area and getting a very proficient speaker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 I am not teaching a foreign language to dd11. We are learning French together! We are using Galore Park's So You Really Want to Learn French, doing a section or two in each chapter every day with Friday's as our vocabulary flashcard/review grammar day :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embassy Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 (edited) Learn together. We are in the process of learning Arabic, French, and Mandarin together. As I type this my kids are watching Donald Duck in Mandarin and my son just shouted out a phrase he recognized. I don't speak the languages so I use lots of different resources to get them hearing, speaking, reading, and writing the languages. While I won't be able to take them to the point of fluency, I can get them started down that road and then I'll find a class or tutor to take them the rest of the way. Edited March 9, 2011 by Wehomeschool Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embassy Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 You cannot teach what you do not know I agree. To me, though, homeschooling isn't about teaching what I know. As a homeschooling parent I am a facilitator of my child's education. That may involve learning along with my child, finding a resource that will instruct my child, or finding a tutor or class that will teach my child. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momling Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 You cannot teach what you do not know, especially when it comes to such tricky areas as languages where many things are not clear-cut and where often one needs to know a lot to be able not to mess up teaching the basics well. Get the person who speaks the language well to do the actual teaching (there are basically two categories of those, with some grey areas of course: native speakers educated in their language (not your random heritage speakers!) and professionals (people with degrees in that language and its literature) who have had extended stays abroad where the language is spoken) and what you can do at home will be supplementing that which is taught with books, internet, audio and video input. But if you want your DC to be actually taught the language, I strongly recommend going "professional" in this area and getting a very proficient speaker. :iagree: Teaching a language is totally different than teaching any other subject. If you want your child to be able to communicate in another language, you need to have a teacher who can communicate. Think about it in first language acquisition -- your infant won't learn English as a native language if you aren't communicating in English. You can learn a lot of things from a textbook or DVD or audio tape, but you can't learn how to speak a language without actually doing it. With a fluent speaker. The only exception is if you want to learn a language only for translation purposes and not communication -- like Latin or Sanskrit... You don't need (and won't be able to find) a native speaker. If you're persistant and have a grammar and a dictionary, you'll be able to translate. But that's a totally different skill than communicating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 I completely agree: you will not become proficient without a native speaker- but you CAN achieve a lot with the available resources for self study: books, CDs, online videos. I am learning French together with DD, using materials designed for self- study. We have added one weekly lesson with a native speaker to improve our conversation skills and to check over our written compositions- but even without him, we have been able to make progress. You will not learn to converse without somebody to talk to, but you CAN learn the structure of the grammar, the vocabulary, begin to read books. So, at least in the beginning, I would get a book with CDs designed for the independent learner without a teacher. This way we have learned French well enough so that we can now profit from the conversation lessons. I am now also at the stage when I can watch French movies with subtitles and understand something (not everything, but many things - which, for a beginner, is impossible) So, not knowing the language yourself does not mean you and your student can't learn it together. I do not think, however, that a young student can stay motivated through the work without a parent who either teaches or learns with the student - simply throwing the self study materials at the student will most likely not work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle in MO Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Ideally, a native speaker or someone who knows the language well is best. For some, that may be cost-prohibitive (i.e., in terms of hiring a tutor). But yes, if necessary, consider outsourcing. First I would decide which language you want to teach, or which language your dc want to learn. It is possible to learn with your children, if necessary. Also, consider the possibility of online courses; there are a number of online courses available. For example, if your dc are interested in German, I've read excellent reviews about German Online through Oklahoma State University. The University of Missouri has numerous high school courses offered online--French, German, Spanish and Latin, for example. So yes, there are online courses available, and I would imagine other major universities offer online courses. I don't know how old your dc are, but if your community college has decent offerings in foreign languages, consider those as well. For Latin, I've also read some very good reviews about the Lukeion Project. Don't despair! There are options available for you! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarah CB Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 to teach to dc when you don't speak a foreign language yourself. So please, inspire me with your stories about how you overcame this hurdle and what you did to insure that your dc learned to speak at least one MFL.:D :bigear: Do you have a fair sized homeschool community? We struggled for years. The Easy French worked very well for my dd, but I was struggling with my boys. Then I got to talking to a friend of mine (who I've known for four years!) and it turns out she's a French teacher. She is tired of teaching in the schools and really wanted more flexibility to be available to her kids (who are in school) but she loves teaching. I was able to put together enough kids to fill a class (we capped it at 16 kids) and she's thrilled to be teaching. She's having the kids perform a play in French for the end of the year. All of the parents who have kids in the class are so relieved. It's a huge weight off our shoulders and it's neat to see the kids so enthusiastic about the language. The teacher meets with them twice a week for an hour each time. If you have a large enough pool of kids you can make a proposal to a French teacher or tutor to take on the class. It's less costly than a personal tutor and a lot more fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murphy101 Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 :grouphug: Nothing but sympathy and understanding from me as I am in the same boat. I have been horrified by the knowledge that apparently the only way to get this done for us is to pay a whopping $1800 on two kids to take two language classes next year. If we can come up with the money, and at this stage it really is not an option to not pull it out of somewhere, oldest will take Spanish and the other will take attic Greek at a local classical academy. If I could afford it, I would enroll other kids as well bc I really never wanted to wait until high school for them to learn other languages. But I flat out cannot afford the expense of that many outside courses. So my high schoolers are the priority. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
May Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Used BJU materials with the dvd. Dd really enjoyed it:001_smile: and it does go thru 12th grade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myfunnybunch Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 While I won't be able to take them to the point of fluency, I can get them started down that road and then I'll find a class or tutor to take them the rest of the way. This. We are trying to get a basic foundation in the languages we'd like to learn. We'll expand on that foundation later with a tutor or language class. We also host students who speak the language we'd most like to learn, but that's not an option for most families. They are here to study English, so we do not treat them like tutors, but it is helpful to have a native speaker to clarify pronunciation or grammar questions and they are happy to help us learn a little more of their language. :) Cat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle in MO Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 (edited) It seems like foreign language study is discouraging for many--and I can understand that. Math was almost like a foreign language to me. :) If it's affordable, however, I think there is benefit from at least exposing kids to a foreign language when they are younger. I'm sure you've read or heard of the benefits of early 2nd language acquisition. You never know if you'll spark an interest there. However, I'm still a big advocate of teaching and learning foreign languages. I don't know the ages of the OPs children. I guess I would advise that if it is truly cost-prohibitive, then wait until high school for the study of another language. Just be aware that for many colleges and universities, foreign language study is required at the high school level, and this requirement (i.e., 2 years or even 4 years) varies from one institution to the next. Edited March 9, 2011 by Michelle in MO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jumping In Puddles Posted March 10, 2011 Author Share Posted March 10, 2011 Thank you all for your thoughts. I'm convinced I need to expose my kids to a modern foreign language and I would like to find a language where my children can converse with a native speaker. It won't be easy but someone mentioned skype in another thread and I may have to go that route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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