Foreign Languages / Wacky Methods?

[SailorMom]

DS is planning to start Spanish 1 next year in 10th (I couldn't convince him to go back to Latin.... sigh.)

I've researched many different curriculum options (right now I'm looking at Breaking the Barrier), but 'standard' language curricula has never worked for DS (he has many LD's) and I wonder if I'm just beating my head against a wall trying to "check the box" and make sure we do what we need to do for high school.

BTW - I do not speak Spanish.... except for maybe the words that are on Dora the Explorer.

I have access to Rosetta Stone, and will probably use that no matter what else we use, but I had another off-the-wall idea and would love feedback on it.

My son and I both love the Harry Potter books, and they have been translated in many languages (we have the Latin version) including Spanish. I am considering getting the first book (and the audiobook) and having him translate it. I know - "with no Spanish experience?" you ask.... But - when I was teaching him Latin, the way I learned best was by translating Winnie ille Pu and Harrius Potter the summer before we started :) The other methods just didn't stick. But by having to figure out the words and tenses as if they were a puzzle, I was able to pick up on quite a lot.

Has anyone tried anything like this???

[Chloe]

:lurk5:

[PeterPan]

Haven't done spanish, but I like the translating idea! I've been looking for ootb ways for my dd. As you say, context is where it's at. I assume you've thought about videos. For french there's the French in Action series, and runs in my mind there's something similar for spanish.

[In The Great White North]

Isn't that what Ben Franklin did? Bought a dictionary and a grammar, and translated the King James Bible?

[datgh]

My son has been playing around with Duolingo for the last month and I can't believe how much Spanish he has learned in that time. More than he learned in a whole semester of Spanish 1. It is a free, on-line program.

[ocelotmom]

I tried this with Harry Potter and Spanish back ages ago, but found that, even after studying Spanish for 5 years in middle/high school, my vocabulary wasn't anywhere near enough to manage it with any ease, and I didn't have the motivation to look everything up. But that's just me :)

[mamakelly]

I took 3 years of Spanish in high school, and still speak reasonably well. But I think translating Harry Potter would be so hard!

[IrishMum]

I think it would be very hard, and possibly overwhelming. I did use the first Harry Potter book and the audio, both in French to learn French. I knew the book nearly by heart in English, so that helped. Winnie the Pooh sounds much more doable.

[In The Great White North]

I tried this with Harry Potter and Spanish back ages ago, but found that, even after studying Spanish for 5 years in middle/high school, my vocabulary wasn't anywhere near enough to manage it with any ease, and I didn't have the motivation to look everything up.

 

One can't learn a language this way without "looking things up". Without "looking things up", it's really more of a test of what you already know.

[mckive6]

We are sort of doing something similar this year. We haven't translated anything as complicated as Harry Potter, but we have gone to the library and read Ferdinand, other children's books, and even found this mystery series that has one side of the page in English, and one side of the page in Spanish. This is hard sometimes, since we've found that a word or sentence differs from one book to another. So, we are going over vocab lists too, and verb charts we found at conjuguemos.com. We also are using a plethora of Spanish vocab and verb games we found online- and a Spanish reader that has questions we write out for the composition part of the credit. This isn't a tested and true approach, but it's what's working for us right now. Hope this helps. :)

[PeterPan]

One of the techniques they taught us for reading in the target language is *not* to look things up but to reread the text multiple times and let your brain synthesize. It's amazing how much your brain *can* figure out without looking up. But that was after 3-4 years of college level study, and it was using short selections (magazine articles written for adults). I don't think it's realistic for most people to expect to "read" common literature after a couple years of high school study, not unless their teacher got them in there doing it.

 

I think learning deductively like that, in context, really could work well for certain types of kids, kids who do well with a puzzle and more material upfront and don't do well with the trickle/sequential approach. However I think it might be wise to pair it at least with a concise grammar resource, something like Barron's French Grammar The Easy Way, only for spanish obviously. I just have the Barron's french book sitting in front of me. I'll bet you can buy grammar cheat sheets, but in my studies I found it most helpful when I made my own. I've thought about teach dd a different way, not showing her a text but explaining the grammar form, having her make charts for it in a notebook, and then having her read a simple source to LOOK for the target grammar skills.

 

And not to be discouraging, but the people I've talked with who have different learners found that trying to do it themselves was an uphill battle and that it was easier to make progress with the consistent structure of a class, ie. by outsourcing it. That's not ideal and can be expensive obviously. What I've done, for what it's worth is to spend some time looking at a very GOOD outsourced class and figuring out what they do and why it works. For instance, one of the things that surprised me was how many PROJECTS they do. We did a few when I was in high school at the less rigorous school, but once I moved to a more rigorous school, there were never any of those language 1 (in english, get to know the culture) projects. But you know, I think there's some wisdom to it for some kids. We're (or at least I'm) talking kids who learn better in context. So the context is not merely the language itself but the culture context into which it falls, the situations in which it's used. And at least the class I'm looking at has 7 of these non-target language projects focused on culture. That's a lot of time toward your 120 hours. ;) It also seems these classes try to bring in reading, as you are. They also do singing, another thing that is easy to build into a weekly schedule and check off, boom time spent toward that 120 hours. And of course, because they're a class, they have structure and a plan.

 

I don't think language is necessarily a *mastery* kind of class. Might be ideal in theory, but it doesn't *have* to be. It's more of a skill, where you plow forward, and then when you go back the thing you struggled with will be a bit easier and more familiar. I think it's ok to set a schedule, set a plan, and allow them to be B students in this. If the goal is get 'er done, get it on the transcript, then maybe not being OCD and perfectionist about it is the way to go. I essentially flunked Russian the first year I took it. The school I attended didn't keep GPA and I don't recall what grade I got. Really though, I struggled so much (with the pace, with the new thought process), I couldn't have plowed forward into year 2 successfully. I stole the textbook (or rather refused to return it and paid for it) and spent the entire summer going back over it. I went on to minor in it and go there for a summer, becoming functionally fluent. I think when get 'er done is the goal, there ought to be a concrete plan where you keep moving, acknowledge it's hard, keep a sensible pace, and then allow those things to seem easier in retrospect when he goes back to review. Or build in a plan for that kind of review. I guess that's also known as structure.

 

Btw, have you seen this? I find the way it's set up very inspiring. (structure, small steps, all in context and immediately applied) http://gettingstartedwithspanish.com/index.php

[J-rap]

My daughter took about 2.5 years of French, and then applied to go to a French-speaking school for a semester in France, upon high school graduation. She had to get at least 50% on a French language test in order to be accepted. She spent the summer reading familiar books, but in French (Harry Potter and Alice in Wonderland, for example), streaming French radio all day long, and watching familiar movies in French (most had English subtitles). She felt those methods boosted her French, although she wasn't starting from scratch. (And she was accepted into the school in France!)

[SailorMom]

Wow! Thanks for the input everyone!

Duolingo sounds interesting.... Haven't looked that up yet - it's now on my list :)

I actually think Ben Franklin learned English Grammar and maybe French as well by translating and studying the Bible and many other books.... I'd forgotten that :)

Projects sound like a much better idea for DS than rote grammar learning or memorizing vocab lists.

I had thought of outsourcing Spanish... The classes look so mind-numbingly boring online.... I do, however, think a Spanish tutor once a week or so would really help no matter what we're doing. Next year he'll be able to dual enroll, and maybe he'll take a beginning Spanish class at the college then. Not sure yet.... We have so much to work on in English still, lol. I was hoping Latin would help - and it did in many ways - but he wanted to switch. Arg.

I wish there was an interlinear Harry Potter text ;) I only think Harry Potter might be doable for him because he has read the original SOOOOO many times that he'll be able to figure out what is being said through context. I don't expect him to translate the grammar perfectly (or even passably well at first- just get the words right and figure out the sentence from prior knowledge of the book) - but I'll bet with some of the words being so similar to English, and the context being familiar, and having a copy of the English version next to him (and a good Spanish dictionary) he could see it as a challenging puzzle.

I was thinking about it needing to wait until he had some Spanish knowledge - but the regular way of doing that is just not something that keeps him engaged.

I just downloaded three pages of vocabulary that a Spanish teacher pulled from first the Harry Potter book and I'm getting the Spanish version in the mail soon (Amazon)- so, I think first I'll start making up vocabulary lists by chapter. Then - maybe every week give him new vocab (both simple every day words and the ones off the list) go over some of the grammar (lightly) and then give him a page or so, have him listen to the audio book a bunch while we look at the pages, and then maybe watch the movies in Spanish as well? Adding Rosetta Stone in there could help....

I also plan on working on translating it over the summer so that we have a precise translation (I'm sure they change many words...).

I like trying to start him on a simple (younger age) level book like the Pooh books, but I'm afraid I'll lose the interest level which would keep him going even though the work itself is harder.

I guess we'll have an experimental year :) I don't remember much of anything from the German I took in high school - so how bad could it be ;) I know, it's like using my own kid as a Guinea pig. He's got such odd learning issues, though, that I've been doing that all his life, lol!

I'd love more input and suggestions.... keep it coming :)

[J-rap]

Let us know how it goes!

[SailorMom]

I will - probably in shame at the end of the year looking for a normal Spanish class, lol!

[In The Great White North]

Oh and I think I read the Franklin would translate a verse from the French to the English, and then re-translate it back to the French and compare.

 

Sounds like fun.

[ocelotmom]

One can't learn a language this way without "looking things up". Without "looking things up", it's really more of a test of what you already know.

 

No.

 

I mean, obviously looking stuff up from time to time may be necessary. And obviously you can take something in a language about which you know absolutely nothing, translate word-by-word from a dictionary, and eventually learn that way. But if your vocabulary is high enough to get the general gist of what is being said, but not high enough that you can read totally fluently, it's a natural language approach to picking up further vocabulary and grammatical constructs, not just a test of what you already know. That was what I was looking for - not something where I had to look up words constantly, interrupting the flow of the story. And I found that, for me, HP was too high a level to start with, despite several years of formal study of Spanish.

 

It's likely not the best for translating word-by-word either, given the heavy usage of colloquialisms. However, OP did say they'd already done this with the Latin version. In that case, presumably it might work better for them than for me.,

[In The Great White North]

But if your vocabulary is high enough to get the general gist of what is being said

 

The OP's kid as no vocab whatsoever. You already knew the language; just not fluently. You were looking to improve your language skills, not learn it from scratch.

[SailorMom]

Yeah - the lack of vocab would be the main problem. Perhaps I can treat it as the source of the vocab we're learning, though? I certainly wouldn't be testing him on his ability to translate, lol, but I was amazed at how much of the Harrius Potter and Winnie ille Pu we got just from knowing Latin roots and knowing the stories. It was a lot of fun, actually. Seeing how the translators chose to make up the colloquialisms could get pretty funny, lol. Also, the made up words the translators had to come up for things that either didn't exist in Roman times (car, TV) or that Rowling had made up for her spells and such - well - it was kinda cool.

As for the colloquialisms, with the Latin version I was able to easily find translations of the main ones on line and make them part of what we were learning - or at least be able to recognize them when we got to them.

Perhaps using it as a puzzle to play with on Fridays while we chug away at the normal stuff the rest of the week would be a better plan.... I guess I'll have to see what I think when I get the book. DS and I had almost no Latin experience when we did it before (we had only done Getting Started with Latin, and I've never taken anything but two years of German in high school). There is a Getting Started with Spanish - we could do that, maybe.

I don't know.... I do think that being exposed to the language in print and through movies and cd's sticks more with DS (and me). It's finding the right balance that can be tough.

[MtnTeaching]

Oh and I think I read the Franklin would translate a verse from the French to the English, and then re-translate it back to the French and compare.

 

Sounds like fun.

 

Ahh- to have the time to devote to something that fascinates you for the pure joy of knowledge and exploration. I sure wish my child had the time to do that. I bet Ben did not have to squeeze in the required Health course in order to be able to graduate. :glare:

[3andme]

This dual language reading method was apparently used by several famous polyglots including Heinrich Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy. If you google Schleimann method you will find links to a number of individual.blogs describing this technique.

[Kareni]

I'm reminded of Mark Twain's book The Jumping Frog: In English, Then In French, Then Clawed Back Into A Civilized Language Once More By Patient, Unremunerated Toil.

 

Another fun read is Twain's piece on The Awful German Language. (That piece is short and is complete at the link.)

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Embassy]

Sounds like it may be a good way for your child to learn. I'd just make sure your child is also getting practice with listening and speaking the language.

[sunnyca]

I teach Spanish using the typical approach to grammar but love to add interest to vocabulary learning by reading books and watching movies. Your idea is intriguing and I would love to know how your experiment goes; although, it appears to have already been a successful endeavor if you did it in Latin.

 

Spanish is my first language and I learned English by immersion -- attending school with no other Spanish speakers anywhere-- and "caught on" within six months. I studied French, both before and after learning Spanish, in a more academic manner and I am not as fluent --but I never lived in a French speaking country, either :)

 

I have never read a Harry Potter book, but have had my Spanish III students read Pinocchio for vocabulary building and practice with less hand-holding than is the case with textbooks. It is truly a great idea.

 

Spanish is derived from Latin so if you have a good basis there, Spanish grammar should be easy. Nouns only have two genders (to Latin's three), verbs have tense and mood (like Latin), and the syntax is similar, e.g. adjectives typically follow nouns. There are other similarities in grammar, plus an abundance of cognates which you will recognize from Latin vocabulary.

 

The only thing I would wonder about is the goal of translation. I think translation is one of the harder things to do, especially if starting from zero familiarity with the language. It can be quite frustrating and/or comical since word to word, or even phrase to phrase translation does not often make sense. Additionally when reading literature (and one with unique vocabulary at that) it may be harder to accurately translate. Given that you already know the story well, I wonder if you might think you are translating when you may just be remembering :)

 

On the other hand, I do not doubt it is possible to read and learn this way. My goal might be to comprehend rather than to translate. I like the idea of building a vocabulary bank and I might also consider building a grammar concept bank --- identify the grammar concepts you want to learn and look for those specifically in the text. The rest? Jut read to catch the gist and for fun. I would also attempt writing simple responses to comprehension questions you design yourself -- easy enough that your son can articulate responses with the vocabulary and grammar learned. Doing these orally would also get you some oral practice -- the audio books having helped with pronunciation.

 

Sounds like work :) but sounds like you enjoy the challenge and that's why we homeschool -- to do it our way :)

 

By the way, this is just my 2 cents...take it for what it is worth. But, if you would like to see what I did for Pinocchio (vocabulary lists and comprehension questions) I can send you a sample just for an idea on formatting. I am certain others have learned Spanish by reading Harry Potter so I would google that too and see what you can borrow from some other trailblazers.

 

¡Suerte! (Good luck!)

[3andme]

Another option to consider is the Assimil method. This method uses a parallel reader and audio cds. It requires only about 30 min a day of listening/reading practice. In addition to the short conversational passages, it explains some basic grammar concepts. This is a very popular option on the web for independent adult language learners. Assimil has books for many languages. The Spanish/English one is called Spanish with Ease. Here's a good short description of the Assimil method with and example of the reader.

[StinkyDaddy]

Mango could be used as an additional resource. It's a fun, online program that our public library offers for free on their website. Our kids like it. You might have to look around to find a library system in your area that offers it.

[SailorMom]

Sunnyca, I would love to see how you set up Pinocchio! Yes - I think the idea of comprehension is a closer approximation to what I'd want him to get. I know that is how he has learned most of his English vocabulary - lists have never helped much as far as long term retention.

I will absolutely check out Assimil, Schleimann, and Mango!

I went on Duolingo last night for the first time - very cool.

Kareni, DS's favorite author is Mark Twain (they seem to have the same sense of humor), so that book just topped my list of "to buys" :)

[Kareni]

Kareni, DS's favorite author is Mark Twain (they seem to have the same sense of humor), so that book just topped my list of "to buys" :)

 

 

I hope he'll enjoy it! It's a fun read.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Miss Tick]

For what it is worth, I try to do this with my 2^nd graders once a week. We use Frog & Toad (Sapo y Sepo). They read me two pages, explain what happened, then go back and reread a sentence at a time and translate as they go. We focus on pronunciation and verb tenses, the vocabulary is not challenging. Turns out I am as fluent in Spanish as a typical nine-year-old. :laugh:

 

You might want to look at some of these other Spanish resources if any fit the interests of your student...

 

News in Slow Spanish has a short discussion of topics in the news each week (I haven't listened in a while, I think the formula was one U.S. story, one "international" story, and one celebrity-type story), then a discussion of some grammatical topic and then a cultural story from or about a Spanish speaking country. There are supporting materials online but I never explored them (I listened to the program while I was running in the morning). Sadly, while it used to be free, I see they now charge a fee.

 

Another site I've poked around on in this Hablando de Ciencia site. It has articles on different scientific topics. It is down for maintenance (my success rate is low this evening!) but hopefully that is temporary.

 

I also stumbled on rtve.es which is a Spanish media homepage, so they have news, sports, weather, etc. In the past we have watched some children's t.v. shows there.

 

Lastly, I've found a lot of neat things (including some of the ones above I suppose) on the blog Teaching & Learning Spanish.

 

HTH!

[cschnee]

Yabla looks great!

 

http://spanish.yabla.com/

 

I've used the french one a bit...

[SailorMom]

OK - so all weekend when I supposed to be doing other things I've been researching second language acquisition. Read about 45 academic journal (gotta love free access to JSTOR) articles and also just various sites on the internet.

 

There is no real consensus on the "best" method, but what I am finding is:

 

The more relevant and interesting the information presented in the foreign language is the more a student with retain (duh)

 

Learning any language (first, second, or otherwise)in context increases vocabulary more quickly and also helps retention. For example, leaning farm words while on a farm or doing a unit study on farms works better than just learning the words one day and then moving on.

 

The more familiar a student is with the topic being studied as context for the vocab words the better

 

Reading in the target language is one of the best ways to increase fluency

 

Reading through a longer book or series can be the most helpful as it reinforces the same vocabulary over a long period of time.

 

 

I also read quite a few examples of using Harry Potter (just the first book, which is easier) in classes as early as the 3rd grade. They read the original English version (a chapter), watch the movie in English and Spanish (the part that corresponds to the chapter they've read), are introduced to some vocabulary and then are given a few paragraphs to work on translating in small groups. They are only translating for comprehension, and the sentences do not need to be perfect. Then they are asked to do some sort of grade-appropriate Harry Potter project (puppet show in Spanish, rewrite a chapter, redesign a book cover, etc.).

 

So - I do think I'm going to buy a regular curriculum as a "spine" so to speak (especially since neither of us can speak Spanish), but I think I'll split our time evenly between using the Spanish curriculum and using the HP book. I also want to use the curriculum as a framework to mold the Harry Potter lessons around (use their structures for verb or noun grammar, but use words from the book).

 

I am concerned that the book is not (obviously) written in present tense, but - knowing that and already knowing the story, I think we won't have any problems accommodating it. (crossing my fingers that I'm right).

 

I've already spent some time working on chapter 1 coming up with the vocab we'd need to cover first to have at least some success. I have 28 words to start with plus the numbers 1-10. They are all pretty simple (son, mother, aunt, boy, people, cat, owl, chapter, a, and, the, a, see, is, etc.)

 

So - anyway, I guess we'll see how it goes! I have the summer to mold the "out of the box" curriculum to my needs, and I need to be at least a semester ahead of him in the language anyway :)

 

 

[Miss Tick]

Have you (or your library) got a book like Barron's 501 Spanish verbs? The introductory section talks about the regular verb endings for different tenses. You could pull out some of the common past-tense endings as a crib sheet to get you started.

 

Sounds fun!

[SailorMom]

Have you (or your library) got a book like Barron's 501 Spanish verbs? The introductory section talks about the regular verb endings for different tenses. You could pull out some of the common past-tense endings as a crib sheet to get you started.

 

Sounds fun!

 

I have the Latin 501 Verbs - and just ordered the Spanish one from Amazon! I love those books :)

[Candid]

Isn't that what Ben Franklin did? Bought a dictionary and a grammar, and translated the King James Bible?

 

 

I don't know about Franklin, but this is what Nathaniel Bowditch did to learn other languages, but Bowditch was probably a genius.

[SailorMom]

Yeah - no geniuses here :) Especially not foreign language ones :)

[Nan in Mass]

There seems to be a radical difference in how well my brain remembers vocabulary words depending on where I run across them. If I see them as part of a traditional class, wanting to remember them so I can do well in the class, I forget them again super quickly. If I see them as part of traditional class, wanting to remember them because I want to learn the language, I forget them again super quickly (despite wanting badly to remember them). If I see them when I am reading something I want to read for the content (rather than for language learning purposes), then they sink in and are there for me when I need them in the future, even though I have made no particular effort to memorize them. It is amazing.

 

From trying the get-better-at-a-language-by-reading method with my children, I can tell you that it is hard to find the right balance between getting them to go to the effort of truly looking up every word they don't know (which involves noticing that they don't know a word) and truly figuring out HOW something says WHAT it says (the second is much easier than the first), and making them dislike the process enough that it doesn't work. Sunnyca had some good advice about that. I had some success in picking out a few words from each chapter to be defined and putting a star next to difficult grammar that I wanted to explain and then having the child write a very brief summary of the chapter afterwards. Oh - and very important when they get to the point where it works - use a dictionary that has the meanings in the foreign language, not a translation dictionary. At first, obviously, you have to use a translation dictionary.

 

I taught my youngest French mostly by reading children's books to him. I translated words on the fly that I thought he didn't know. He was much younger when I did it, though, and I have to say that although it worked, it left him in a weird place ability-wise. He can read and understand far beyond his ability to speak and far far far beyond his ability to write. Spanish will be much easier than French in the writing department. : ) I like your idea. I just think that mixing in some formal grammar as you go along would be a good idea, if you can manage it.

 

Nan

[Renaissance Mom]

Another off the wall supplement idea: Listen 'n' Learn Spanish with Your Favorite Movies by Scott Thomas.

[Kareni]

Another resource that might interest you is:

 

Laugh 'n' Learn Spanish : Featuring the #1 Comic Strip "For Better or For Worse"

 

Regards,

Kareni