What would you call this on a transcript?

[mom31257]

Dd began Spanish 1 in 9th grade. She tried 2 different programs (doing the first few chapters/units in each), but we didn't feel either one would be doable for the two of us. A friend started a class in March that included weekly work and tests over 2 chapters in another book that she has used all of this year. She has continued that class this year to finish Spanish 1, but honestly she did at least 1/2 credit's worth of time last year and a full year's worth this year. She'll do Spanish 2 next year with the same class. I hate not to give her some kind of credit for her 9th grade year because she would end up having less credits plus she put in a lot of effort and time.

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

[Nan in Mass]

Maybe you could give her half a credit of Introductory Spanish (or Introductuction to Spanish) for last year and give her one credit of Spanish 1 this year and a credit of Spanish 2 next year?

Nan

[Candid]

I think Nan certainly gives one option. The other is to just shrug your shoulders and move on with nothing for 9th grade. Unless all of her transcript is like this, she should be fine for college admission.

[LMV]

I would probably give her a credit for Spanish I which she took this year. Next year she can earn another credit for Spanish II. I would be concerned that a scenario where she was receiving multiple credits for only completing the work of Spanish I might cause one to question the validity of this (and potentially then scrutinize other areas of the transcript more closely).

[mom31257]

I do see the points about the scrutinizing, but I also hate to give nothing when that was going to be one of her full credits for that year. I asked her teacher today, and she suggested calling it Conversational Spanish because so much of the beginning of the programs was vocabulary.

[Jenny in Florida]

I do see the points about the scrutinizing, but I also hate to give nothing when that was going to be one of her full credits for that year.

 

We've had some similar dilemmas in the past couple of years, when I had plans for my son to complete a course and he did some of the work but not all or enough of it to "count." I understand the wistful feeling of "wasting" that time, but the truth is that, if the work isn't completed, then it's just not.

 

I think of it like dropping a course in high school or college: If my student starts a class and then withdraws before the end, he isn't getting credit, even if he's done the work up until the drop date. Credit is earned by finishing the requirements.

[at the beach]

Homeschooling sometimes feels like traveling in the dark. It's hard to know how something will turn out when we haven't done it before. If the previous Spanish work completed is not what you originally planned, but there is enough there to call it something different like Conversational Spanish and you want or need credit, I think that's fine.

[Nan in Mass]

I think I might be hesitant to give a year's credit of conversational Spanish unless she had covered future and past tenses and a year's worth of vocabulary? Maybe? I don't know much about what is covered in a conversational Spanish class.

 

One of the things that makes homeschooling hard is that our children frequently have to suffer from our inexpert teaching and curriculum planning and guidance counseling. Our mistakes wind up on their permanent record. There is much talk about how homeschooling is so much more efficient than public school. I'm sure it is, if the parent is a good teacher. Sigh. That was not our experience at all. My children's education is littered with things that they worked hard at and even benefited from but which didn't fit on a standard transcript. I did the best I could to make their transcripts reflect what they actually did, even to the extent of assigning the occasional 1/4 credit, but not everything they did landed on their transcript. In our case, foreign language and writing wound up like this. They did bits of a lot of different things and some years they did multiple things and finished them and spent half the school day on them, but in the end, they received one credit of writing on their transcripts. I'm not saying that you shouldn't give her credit for her work, just that I think you probably should be careful to label the credit with something that accurately reflects the level of work covered. I also want to say that this is a common problem with homeschooling and that if you managed to figure out something that works for foreign language, congratulations lol. It is one of those things that is particularly difficult for homeschoolers to do well.

 

Nan

[mom31257]

Thanks for all the thoughts on this. I would not give a full credit for her work because I wouldn't feel comfortable giving one without finishing a program. I am going to give her 1/2 credit in Conversational Spanish because she did work hard on the programs we tried, and she really learned a lot. At least this way, she's only lost 1/2 credit of the number planned for that year.

[Jenny in Florida]

Thanks for all the thoughts on this. I would not give a full credit for her work because I wouldn't feel comfortable giving one without finishing a program. I am going to give her 1/2 credit in Conversational Spanish because she did work hard on the programs we tried, and she really learned a lot. At least this way, she's only lost 1/2 credit of the number planned for that year.

 

For what it's worth -- and if you've found a solution that makes you happy it may be nothing -- we had a similar challenge during my daughter's high school years.

 

She spent a full year working on German with Rosetta Stone as a base and incorporating additional grammar work alongside. She enjoyed it and learned quite a bit, but by the end of the year had finished the materials available through our local library (which I believe took her through Level 1). Although the Rosetta Stone materials suggested that what she had done was equivalent to two years of high school study, we were aware that many people considered the grammar instruction in RS lacking. So, we planned to call that German I and put her in German II using a different curriculum the following year. We hoped that, with all of RS level 1 under her belt, she would have a reasonably smooth transition to a more traditional program.

 

However, when she started to dig into the new curriculum, it became clear that the Rosetta Stone/grammar workbook combo had left her unprepared to move on to a regular German II course. She stuggled with it for a couple of months before we decided it was best for her to drop the course and try something else.

 

Since she found the idea of going back and starting over with the same language unappealing, she opted to enroll in Spanish I with FLVS and just get a fresh start. She did well in that course, continued to Spanish II without trouble and got on with her life.

 

But that left the question of how or whether to list her abbreviated German study on her transcript. Based on her experience trying to get started in German II, it was clear to us that what she had done for that year was not really equivalent to a German I course. But I knew she had learned a lot, and I hated the idea of just wiping her work off her record. So, we ended up deciding to give her a credit for "Conversational German." (I justified the full credit on the basis that she had worked on it for a full year and, in fact, done what the publisher claimed was equivalent to two years' worth of work.)

 

Again, this is, of course, your call to make. But the difference I see between my daughter's situation and yours is that, when mine started over at the beginning, she did so with an entirely different language. But, as I understand your posts, your daughter essentially went back to the beginning with the same language, meaning she will, in effect, end up with 2.5 credits on her transcript for covering what would normally be only two years' worth of material?

 

Truthfully, it will probably never matter. But, if it were me, I'd worry a little bit that some admissions person down the road might look at that and wonder if other things on your daughter's transcript were similarly "double dipped."