Foreign language failure

[dbmamaz]

I have a 16 yo who is 2E. The first time he was ever exposed to foreign language - some spanish in 2nd grade - he hated it. He was in public school through 7th grade and had no foreign langauge.

 

When I wanted to start language in 9th grade, he said he wanted to take french - my husband is French Canadian (but will not help teach, btw). I bought Tell Me More french and my son worked through the intro disk and then got frustrated and i let him quit.

 

This year we have started up again. He was doing ok for the first month of this year, but got more and more frustrated He cant speak clearly enough for the voice recognition to recognize his voice. I let him take a break and watch some french-language kids videos, hoping that might help his accent.

 

then Robotics took over our life for a few months and i let him take a break

 

Today he was going crazy with it again - the program is dictating to him and he is supposed to write what he hears but he insists he cant make it out at ALL.

 

My son has enough issues that there is no way he will be attending a 4 year college any time in the next 5 years, probably more like 10. I plan to get him in to community college, get an associates degree in something which will make him highly qualified to do tech support, and have him support himself doing tech support until he is mature enough to decide what he wants to do with his life.

 

So . .. how important is foreign language for him? Do you have any suggestions that dont involve getting DH to help or spending money?!

[Miss Marple]

First, don't write off college for him. They change tremendously in the next few years. 16 is a very tough age for boys.

 

Foreign language was our biggest homeschool failure. It was the course that kept falling off the schedule. I finally decided to outsource it. That has worked for all 4 sons. I was thankful to get my LD son through it at our local university. He, too, could simply not hear/interpret what was being said in the audio portion of the course (listening skills area). He did great in composition, face-to-face discussion, and workbook exercises. The online tests, though, were horrible for him. His midterm was barely a C and his final was a 50%. However, based on the professor's emails, there should be a generous curve - seems everyone did poorly. In the end, though, we (including my son) are pleased that he accomplished the 2 semesters required even if his Spanish grades weren't his best. He feels like he moved the world :) I'm happy he passed.

 

It is often easy to assume that our LD children will not be able to accomplish college, but they can surprise us. So, in answer to "how important are foreign languages?" I would say that you can easily wait until he decides if he wants to go to college and he can take it then, or you can have him take them at the CC in which case they may well transfer credit to a university. I had my boys (including the LD) take foreign languages because it gave them an equivalent (or close to) high school transcript as those they were competing with for university admission. Our state requires 2 years of foreign language for public/private high school graduation. Honestly, I would suggest that you give him the information up front about possible future scenarios (CC vs University vs Trade School) and let him decide. As long as he can attend CC without the foreign language requirement, I don't think there is any harm in waiting.

[maize]

I'm a big advocate of foreign language study in general, but it can be really hard to tackle alone. In this case, I'm inclined to agree with Miss Marple--if he doesn't need it to attend CC, it can wait. Have him use the time that was going towards the foreign language for his other studies--where he might get a better return on his investment.

[dbmamaz]

His disability, tho, is all emotional . . . getting through college is emotionally too taxing emotionally . . i dropped out several times . .so has my daughter. I am just not prepared to stand over him and force him to do the work required at a 4 year college. He has been happy with the plan - he really does not want to work hard and still has no motivation. He was very late to mature . . . we will interview the two local community colleges this spring and I guess we can check with them about requirements. He could even take a language there, I guess - i want him to take one community college in the fall of his senior year as a way to ease in to the requirements . . . but i'd rather start with a class thats easy for him. Maybe intro to computer basics or something!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I have a 16 yo who is 2E. The first time he was ever exposed to foreign language - some spanish in 2nd grade - he hated it. He was in public school through 7th grade and had no foreign langauge.

 

When I wanted to start language in 9th grade, he said he wanted to take french - my husband is French Canadian (but will not help teach, btw). I bought Tell Me More french and my son worked through the intro disk and then got frustrated and i let him quit.

 

This year we have started up again. He was doing ok for the first month of this year, but got more and more frustrated He cant speak clearly enough for the voice recognition to recognize his voice. I let him take a break and watch some french-language kids videos, hoping that might help his accent.

 

then Robotics took over our life for a few months and i let him take a break

 

Today he was going crazy with it again - the program is dictating to him and he is supposed to write what he hears but he insists he cant make it out at ALL.

 

My son has enough issues that there is no way he will be attending a 4 year college any time in the next 5 years, probably more like 10. I plan to get him in to community college, get an associates degree in something which will make him highly qualified to do tech support, and have him support himself doing tech support until he is mature enough to decide what he wants to do with his life.

 

So . .. how important is foreign language for him? Do you have any suggestions that dont involve getting DH to help or spending money?!

 

 

Just a for what it's worth, the speach recognition aspects of any computer language program are going to have challenges. I had a very good accent in German when we lived there, but Rosetta Stone consistently preferred the mimicry of my young kids to my offerings.

 

Do you have some options for French work that would focus more on reading and writing and a little less on automated listening and speaking. Listening and speaking is just much easier with a real person, where tone and body language contribute.

 

You might see what your library has or if any French text books are at nearby library book sales or used book stores. (The Valette Valette books were my favorite in high school.)

[dbmamaz]

Thats a good idea - having trouble figuring out how to find such books in my library online catalog, so I'll try to stop buy one of the bigger branches maybe.

[Belacqua]

A number of schools accept sign language as a foreign language; if listening and hearing have been the issue, maybe something like ASL could work.

[Corraleno]

This Easy French Reader focuses purely on reading & writing French, without an audio component. I'm sure you can find many similar books if you poke around on Amazon.

 

Jackie

[Leav97]

Completely not what you asked about - Feel free to ignore me.

 

How does he do understanding people with accents? A big part of providing IT support involves talking to people from all over the world. It's taken me sometime to understand my coworkers with strong ESL accents.

[dbmamaz]

hmmm. I'm not sure about understanding accents. interesting question.

 

I have thought about ESL - a friend of mine teaches it.

 

I'll check out the book, but it looks like its still an intuitive immersion-type method. Many of the reviews say its not good for a true beginner. My library has it though (currently checked out)

[Arcadia]

A big part of providing IT support involves talking to people from all over the world. It's taken me sometime to understand my coworkers with strong ESL accents.

 

hmmm. I'm not sure about understanding accents. interesting question.

 

 

It depends on whether it is frontline (including telephone) IT support or backend escalation support. I am an introvert, don't like to talk and switch to backend escalation. I can do all my work through emails for that.

[Enjoyinglife365]

Xxxxx

[dbmamaz]

My son is oddly the most outgoing member of my family. Thats why i chose tech support - he's good with technical stuff and loves helping people. He's just really disorganized and needs to be kept on track - when I did customer support, there was always another call from someone who needed my help, and that kept me focused. I just cant think of anyone we've known recently who has an accent. I mean, aside from my french-canadian husband, but we've all gotten used to him, and he's been speaking english for a long time (tho he still had a pretty strong accent when we met)

 

thanks, I'll check the currclick class.

[speedmom4]

I understand the foreign language frustration. I have finally come to the conclusion that my kids actually need a live class. My oldest dd has not done well because we used Rosetta Stone. She has no concept of grammar. She is working through Breaking the Barrier Spanish book 1. I started my younger dd with a combination of Breaking the Barrier and Rosetta Stone. If I'm not sitting with her she doesn't understand the concepts. We have now dropped BB but she is continuing with Rosetta Stone just for pronunciation. I will be signing her up for a live class for next fall. I'm looking at Landry Academy or Oklahoma State University.

 

Good luck!

 

Elise in NC

[Mom22ns]

My dd is using Breaking the Barrier French I this year. It has gone very well. She has always hated anything we've done for foreign language, but this is working. Her speech is terrible. We supplement with Rosetta Stone to work on pronunciation, but her reading and writing are far better than her speaking and listening skills.

[regentrude]

I can't answer the question how important it is for him- maybe he does not need any languages for his long term plan.

I can, however, tell you our experience with foreign language learning. We used self-study courses with books and CDs, studied together, used grammar workbooks, French in Action videos, easy literature, a weekly hour with a private tutor- we tried everything for several years, but real progress was made only after switching to a live class with a teacher who is fluent in the language. I do not think it is possible for a student to learn a foreign language through self-study without contact with a fluent speaker.

 

Also, foreign language learning will always involve some level of frustration, because progress is slow - so letting the student quit when he feels frustrated will put him back to square one every single time. Continuity is essential. A big problem is that students (and parents) have unrealistic expectations about the time required to really learn a language. It will take several years before the student can read original literature, and more years before he can follow a conversation among native speakers. The main origin of the frustration is that the student is expecting quicker results than possible.

[dbmamaz]

Wow, breaking the barrier is really expensive on amazon? and my library doesnt have it. I guess I'll have to think this through over our break. I guess I'd rather he spent the time on history and science!

[Joan in GE]

Depending on what you end up deciding your real goals should be, you could always go back to the old style book and tapes (now Cd's)...

 

Do they have Pimsleur at the library? or Barrons? Look through the books and see where they systematically exercise the grammar and conjugation for the different person and tense...(You'll see them have the same sentence and just change the person (je, tu, il/elle, nous, vous, ils/elles) and adjust the verb accordingly...that would already be a foundation and is comprehensible for a logical mind and is not the immersion style...

 

Joan

[Mom22ns]

Wow, breaking the barrier is really expensive on amazon? and my library doesnt have it. I guess I'll have to think this through over our break. I guess I'd rather he spent the time on history and science!

 

Look at the BTB website instead http://www.tobreak.com/store/order-online

 

They will have an iBook version of the French program coming out in 2013. They have assured me it will be out before school starts next year, but I'm not sure when. The Spanish program is already out as an iBook for only $15. We're planning to switch to that format for French 2.

[Reya]

If he is 2E, I think that community college would be a really bad place for his first foreign language experience. Just about all kids have had a year or two of foreign language in high school before starting CC, even if they did very badly, so he'd start out behind.