If You had Success with a Foreign Language in your HS...

[Gil]

but you are Monolingual (or were when it began) then how did you pull it off? When I say successful, I mean like...if your kids studied a language through elementary and middle school and were able to converse even semi-fluently with native speakers by the time they reached 9th Gr. how did you manage that?

 

Are there any epic posts about the methods, resources, etc that some of you wonderful homeschoolers have used to accomplish this goal? I've seen several epic posts detailing math, writing and economic instruction over the years but I can't find any about a foreign language.

 

We are in 1st grade here and are interested in learning a language as a family, and I'd really like to get my boys comfortably literate and conversant in Spanish no later than 9th grade. We have started out kind of slow but are now picking up steam.  The boys are really getting into Spanish and we are almost half way through with LSLC v1 (Lesson 13/30) and they are enjoying it. They watched a bit of a DVD in Spanish this morning and were over the over the moon excited that they could understand little bits of it.

 

I know that fluent is a vague term and hard to define so I guess I will measure 'semi-fluent' as by 9th grade, they could test out of college-level Spanish I-III, watch movies and read references and/or YA books in Spanish (4th-8th grade level) and last a week in a Spanish speaking country then I'd consider that 'successful'.

[plansrme]

My kids are learning Chinese at home.  My goal has always been for them to get to the point that they can, if they want, spend a semester in China as high school or college students and come back relatively fluent.  I think my oldest daughter is at that point.  She is a sophomore in high school and has occasionally conversed with Chinese people in the wild, so to speak, by which I mean "not as part of school."  They frequently compliment her accent.  She is not wildly into learning Chinese, and I do not know whether she will keep it up in college, but I hope so.  I know she will regret it if she doesn't keep it up, but she does have a lot on her plate--it isn't like she's not pursuing it to leave more time for popping bon-bons.  We have gotten there through weekly, year-around sessions with a Chinese tutor beginning in fourth grade (our first year of homeschooling) and continuing through eighth grade.  In ninth and tenth grade, she has taken Chinese at school, though I do not know that she has learned much through the school classes. 

 

I think, though I have almost nothing upon which to base this, that it is nearly impossible to become fluent in a language without (1) starting it as a child (by 9, I think I have read, is usually required if you are ever going to speak another language with the proper accent) and (2)  eventually being immersed in it.  I am basing this almost entirely upon my experience teaching ESL to adults.  I read that about the accents eons ago, but it is true that the very few students who do not have pronounced accents had significant exposure to English as children.  I have a Japanese student in his early 20s who has almost no Japanese accent, and he said his mother played English records when she was pregnant with him and then continued exposing him to English recordings and TV throughout his childhood.  She does not speak English.  He needs some vocabulary and grammar work, but his accent is nonexistent, which is incredibly rare for a Japanese student.  The same holds true for students from other countries--it doesn't really seem to matter what kind of exposure to English that they received as children; just that they had a lot of it.  The students who try to learn as adults struggle.  I am often amazed at whose English improves the fastest, and it is almost always those who work with other English speakers.  I have an older student (in his 60s) who came over from China a couple of eyars ago and spoke almost no English when he showed up in my class.  He went to work for a pool maintenance company--not in a Chinese restaurant, and after a couple of years, his English is vastly improved.  He is the wrong age to have had exposure as a child in China, but he is surrounded by English speakers at work.  Consequently, his English is better than that of my students who have been here much, much longer than he has but have stayed in their comfort zones.

 

 

[Muttichen]

We did -- we started French and German in preschool.  Dh speaks a little French and we both speak some German, but we were by no means fluent before we started teaching out kids. In elementary school, we just did LOTS of exposure -- videos, songs, audiobooks.  If our kids watched a movie, it was in French or German.  At middle school we started some writing and grammar.  Our kids took APs in both languages early in high school and got 5s easily.

[Just Another Jen]

 

 

 LSLC v1 (Lesson 13/30) and they are enjoying it. They watched a bit of a DVD in Spanish this morning and were over the over the moon excited that they could understand little bits of it.

 

 

 

Gil,

 

I'm just listening in as I have always subbed out foreign language study but am thinking of doing things differently with our youngest. What Spanish program are you using?

[Gil]

We did -- we started French and German in preschool.  Dh speaks a little French and we both speak some German, but we were by no means fluent before we started teaching out kids. In elementary school, we just did LOTS of exposure -- videos, songs, audiobooks.  If our kids watched a movie, it was in French or German.  At middle school we started some writing and grammar.  Our kids took APs in both languages early in high school and got 5s easily.

Can you please detail some more how you did it. Not just for me, but for anyone else who comes along and may benefit from your experiences. What did you and your husband do to improve your own language abilities?

Where did you get your FL audio books and videos--where they "For Kids" type videos or were they Disney a la French?

Did you import German media? That sort of thing.

[Gil]

Gil,

 

I'm just listening in as I have always subbed out foreign language study but am thinking of doing things differently with our youngest. What Spanish program are you using?

We are crawling through Learning Spanish Like Crazy--its an audio program meant for adults that focuses on conversational, Latin American Spanish. The lessons range from 30-38ish minutes and we do them as a family in about 10-15 minute sessions, we might repeat the same lesson 2 or 3x in chunks and then the boys go through the whole lesson in one sitting, responding and reacting in real time. We get through about 1-2 lessons a week, sometimes only 1.

We take out Spanish for Kids type DVDs from the Library all the time and they watch them at their grandmas house if they want...

I've covered some basic grammar with them because I'm taking a SPN class for my degree and so my textbook makes a handy reference. They know about gender, we've been conjugating verbs: I drink, you drink, he/she/it drinks.

 

The boys can read (basic making-the-sounds-reading, not full-understanding-all-the-sounds-you-make-reading) in Spanish and I'm probably going to start taking out some Childrens books in Spanish (or at least bilingual) so that they can read a little also. Kids books are great because the stories are simple, there are pictures and the language tends to be plain.

When we finish LSLC, I have no idea what we are going to do.

 

I double checked and there are 32 not 30 lessons in LSLC vol 1.

[PhotoGal]

We are still working on it, but the kids can converse some with native speakers in Chinese. They were in a bilingual school for a few years (not helpful as a homeschooler, just letting you know how we started). They were then in an afterschool class for a couple years. This year we are relying on tutors (online for one and in-person for the other) and a weekend class. We also have leveled readers which have flashcards that we practice daily. They also write a very simple paragraph once per week (using a dictionary as needed).

 

For Spanish, I am sure you can do it! I would recommend a native speaking tutor if you can swing it. Their progress is way faster that way. For example, if they are reading a book to me, they underline the characters they don't know and I look them up and then go over them with them the next day. But when the in-person tutor is here, dd can just ask her and get instant feedback. She progresses much faster that way.

 

We are also doing a little bit of Spanish and it is slooooow going. We only do it twice per week and I think that is the main problem. We do Chinese every day.

[Muttichen]

Can you please detail some more how you did it. Not just for me, but for anyone else who comes along and may benefit from your experiences. What did you and your husband do to improve your own language abilities?

Where did you get your FL audio books and videos--where they "For Kids" type videos or were they Disney a la French?

Did you import German media? That sort of thing.

 

We tried to use authentic materials when possible, for example, we have all the Tintin books and movies in French.  We also used some translated materials -- Disney movies and such.  My youngest dd (15) told me recently that she's never seen Sound of Music or Wizard of Oz in English!  We'd get materials in Europe when we took trips, or we'd order them through Amazon.de, etc.  We have a dvd player hooked up to our computer with the region set for Europe.  

 

As far as dh and I, we listened to news, read the paper online, read and did grammar with the kids, and so on.

[lewelma]

Certainly not by 9th grade, but I think by 12th.  My older is in 8th grade and is about a year or two away from reading a chinese newspaper with a dictionary in hand. He has about 1000 characters at this point.  Both my kids apparently speak without accents and they started at 9 and 8 respectively. Our new tutor plans to only conduct class in chinese with my older because he is ready.

 

I definitely hope that my children choose to do an exchange program in high school, or study at a chinese university.  But we will see.

 

Ruth in NZ

[kroe1]

DD13 is now in 10th and does fairly well with native Spanish speakers. We started her (and me) in kindergarten with a simple book from WalMart, The Complete Book of Spanish, Grades 1-3. Since then, we have done tons of different programs including Rosetta Stone, BJU's Passaporte, etc. But after the first few years, what has helped the most is just reading Spanish children's books and watching Spanish language tv. Luckily we live in south Florida so there are many speaking opportunities.

 

We also tried Chinese for a number of years but gave it up when DD hit 9th. The rigors of high school and performing arts left little time for a second foreign language. We were no where near reaching even an intermediate level, however. We had just never put in enough time with that one.

[madteaparty]

Just bumping to say that this is my goal, as well. I have no idea if it will work, but my goal is AP for one language by end of 1st year of high school and study in a second throughout high school, hopefully with a semester spent in one of the countries.

What we are doing now (DS is 9) is Galore Park Junior French, with added books, duolingo, etc. thrown in. For example, I had to work today and assigned him to translate a small book (very little text) from French to English. He tends to memorize movies. So I ordered those movies in French, from amazon canada.

We are going to France this summer for 10 days, for 5 of which he is doing immersion classes (3 hours/day). I will enroll him in weekly FIAF classes this fall. I also dream of spending more than 10 days/year in these immersion opportunities but it gets expensive. I am hoping slow and steady eventually gets us where we hope to be.

[KeepItGoing]

My oldest daughter studied Spanish with me and got a 5 on her Spanish AP. She's currently out of practice but does fine.

 

I have a website where I list some recommendations for studying German and Spanish (though some of the comments there are relevant to any language). It isn't focused on teaching children, since I've never used commercial resources for language-learning for kids, but it might still be helpful.

[Reefgazer]

We've been studying Latin, so we haven't been able to converse with native speakers :) , but our language school is going well.  The key is to get it done, and get it done on a daily basis (even if it's just 15 minutes of review of grammar or vocab)

[Susie in CA]

I agree with a pp who said that the key is to get it done on a daily basis. My kids are studying German, but I speak German. So I won't use them as an example. I can, however, use myself as an example. When I grew up English was my second language. At the time we started to study English in 3rd grade. I actually remember that at about 14 years old my parents started to rely on me for translation. I would say that at this time I could carry on a fairly basic conversation without trouble. It takes a lot of time. Up until then I had no immersion at all. It can be done without the immersion factor but it takes a lot of discipline and trust in that it will eventually happen.

[8filltheheart]

My dd is very strong in French.   She started it in 3rd grade.   We started with French Prep and then First Start French combined with Tell Me More (which is sort of like Rosetta Stone but includes more grammar)   We didn't have the greatest success with those.   We switched to Breaking the Barrier French (which is more traditional textbook) combined with French in Action (which is more immersion and the videos are available for free from Learner.org)    Last summer she went to Concordia Language Villages and was placed into the second highest French speaking group and by the time she came home she said she was starting to dream in French.   (We lived in Brazil when our oldest was 7-10 and he always dreamed in Portuguese.   We knew b/c he would sleep walk and talk in Portuguese the whole time.   He was completely fluent.   So dreaming in the lang is definitely a good sign.  ;) )

 

Next yr we are sort of improvising.   She is going to read the entire Chronicles of Narnia series in French, finish up what she hasn't completed in French in Action, and watch movies in French.  (she'll be in 10th)   She didn't make as much progress in French this yr as in the past b/c she is also studying Russian and Latin and she devoted more time to Russian than the other 2.

[GoodGrief]

I'm pretty convinced that one needs live instruction in the language.  We tried all sorts of currics, but in the end tutoring, immersion, and actual classes seems to be the way to go.  My rising junior has been very successful with Mandarin (first place in a statewide language declamation comp), and my college age daughter is studying Turkish and linguistics currently at her university.  I could not work out the tutoring for Spanish for the ten year old this year, and she's definitely lost some ground.

[KeepItGoing]

I think that you're right, Gr8lander, that live interaction is required. And for most people I do think that a tutor or class is most effective.

 

At the same time, if you're willing to keep going with a variety of resources, it is possible to learn a language well enough that at some point you can begin seeking out speakers of the language to start talking to and asking for their feedback to help.

 

The truth is that learning a foreign language requires a very long-term commitment—or a very intense commitment over a shorter period of time, combined with a willingness to maintain the language. There's no way around putting in the hours, though the time can be rewarding and even fun.

 

I have never met a homeschooling family other than mine that has successfully taught a language—even with classes. But then, I was a Spanish teacher before having kids and very few of my students went on to be Spanish speakers, either.

 

I guess I never answered the original question properly. What did *I* do with my kids? It will help me figure out the kinds of recommendations that I should put on my website, too—strange that I didn't really think of approaching it from this way; it seems like that should have been obvious to me.

 

We are atypical in at least three ways, though: (1) Language teaching is my profession. Even if we had decided to learn a language that I didn't already speak, I have a lot of knowledge that would have made this easier. (2) In our family we have a lot of language-learning aptitude. Anyone can learn another language, but it does come easier to some people than to others. (3) I have shelves and shelves of books and tapes and things for language learning (most of which never come off the shelf, but some of which are useful).

 

************Child #1***************

 

I started very early looking at picture books with the kids and identifying objects. That did nothing—it frustrated the kids and me both. I also set aside half an hour a day with them when I would play with them, speaking only Spanish. Nothing.

 

When my oldest was a proficient reader in English, I gave up on the totally informal methods that I'd been using with her. In desperation I started writing things on index cards. "Me gusta" I wrote on one card, and "No me gusta" on another. "Me gustan," and "No me gustan." (These mean, respectively, "It pleases me," "It doesn't please me," "They please me," "They don't please me"—in other words, I like or don't like this.) Then we made a lot of cards of things she liked and didn't like. Climbing trees—singing—horses—asparagus—visiting grandparents—whatever. She loved it! We would go through the cards making sentences about the sort of thing that she liked and didn't like, talking about whether "Me gusta" or "Me gustan" was appropriate here. We would read the sentences out loud. It's been a long time so I don't remember everything, but I'm sure I also asked her questions with the cards and orally: "Te gusta ...? Me gusta...?"

 

I wasn't sure what to do next. I think that at that point I checked out of the library one of those tapes that has songs like "Red is rojo, yellow is amarillo." I was quite skeptical about the value of such a tape (my Curriculum & Instruction class had very much looked down on such things), but very quickly she had a nice vocabulary of all sorts of things.

 

So now we had something else to talk about. Using the vocabulary she'd built up, we made sentences. Is the tree green or orange? Is a dog brown or blue? We talked about making the adjective ending match the noun, and we had fun with this. (I discovered that it helped her to talk about the grammar explicitly, even though she was only five or six.)

 

I kept checking tapes out of the library with little songs and things. Songs were very important to her (she's now a music student). We just kept plugging along, looking for simple books that I could read to her and things like that. I didn't have a set plan, but just tried to set aside a few minutes each day to do something.

 

One day—I don't remember how old she was—I handed her a simple, older reader that told funny anecdotes. From that moment, she was hooked. She read much of that book, and from then on I could always find something that she was game to try.

 

I found some grammar books for her and chose some that looked appropriate for her. I had her do an exercise of some sort every day, for a number of years. We also had a housecleaner here every week who spoke only Spanish with me (though she does speak English), and she practiced a lot with her.

 

Eventually she was reading Reader's Digest in Spanish (which was very cheap and, last time I checked, no longer available, although that may have changed). We kept up the grammar (which she hated) and started reading literature (which she liked), used a number of other resources, and in her junior year she took the AP Spanish Language test and got a 5.

 

**********Child #2**********

 

My second daughter, I don't remember much of what we did. I do know that nothing worked for her until one day when I checked out a story book in Spanish from the library. She couldn't understand many of the words, but I remember talking about a cow and saying, "La vaca está triste." (The cow is sad.) The combination of the story (she has a passion for story) and compassion for the poor cow started her off. I built on that foundation, but I really don't remember how.

 

By the time she was in eighth or ninth grade, we were reading some of Santillana's Leer en español collection together. I highly recommend these readers, and when I tutor, I tend to use them quite early, but they have significant downsides. Written in Spain, they are not intutive for speakers of English to understand. It's quite possible to understand every word in their sentences and still not know what's going on. This is an advantage when you're studying with a teacher (because it's real Spanish, not English translated, and leads to an intuitive feel for the language), but discouraging if you're on your own. A second disadvantage is the subject matter of the books: they are mostly crime stories, and can be disturbing. (The ones that are less edgy are also less interesting.)

 

For a time she studied German and Spanish simultaneously, but eventually we abandoned the Spanish. Fortunately, though, she understands enough Spanish that she'll never be completely lost—certainly more Spanish than the average person who studies Spanish in school ever understands.

 

With German, I used pretty much the sort of thing that I describe as a suggested plan on my website, although Duolingo wasn't available at that time. We started out, I believe, with the old book Studien und Plaudereien, which gave her a really nice foundation. (I speak basic German well, though I'm not really proficient much beyond the basics.) She used all kinds of taped programs and such that may have built vocabulary but that I can't really recommend. She tried Assimil but didn't like it.

 

We tried some basic readers but discovered that this literature-loving child could not bear to read bad literature. She got so angry at the poor writing, plot, and characterization in the "easy reader" type books we were using (by Blaine Ray) that we had to give them up. Eventually we abandoned the "easy reader" approach and started reading Grimms' fairy tales and Heidi in the original German! (She also read Harry Potter in German, but she knows the books in English backwards and forwards, so she wasn't getting nearly as much from the words on the page as from her head.) It was very slow going, but she preferred this to the easy readers. (Even so, she found enough to quibble with in Heidi—and I have to say, she was right!)

 

What with everything, when we actually met a German-speaking family she succeeded in having some pretty nice conversations the first time she tried.

 

She will not get to the point of being able to actually speak the language well, though, because other things have gotten in the way of German for her and she is no longer studying it.

 

***********Child #3**********

 

My youngest has gone back and forth between Latin, Spanish, and German.

 

With my youngest we worked for a certain number of minutes each day. I went through my bookshelves and picked up a stack of high school textbooks that I'd collected over the years from used book stores and such. We opened the first one, and did exercises in it until we got tired of that book. (Which may have been after two exercises, I don't remember.) When we tired of one book, we opened the next, and did the first exercises. When we'd finished the stack, we started over, spending more time on the books we liked the best.

 

I didn't worry about making him "learn" what was there on each page, because I had a tall stack of textbooks and knew that if we did this every day, he'd learn plenty. Each book took a different approach, but they were all teaching the same language and I knew they would all reinforce each other. It worked pretty well, and the variety of books kept things fairly interesting.

 

We kept going with this for a while, but at some point we lost steam. He asked to study Latin instead. I got him Artes Latinae (which I highly recommend as the closest thing to a single-resource language program that I've ever seen), and he worked in that for some time before he decided that he'd rather learn a modern language.

 

So we're back to Spanish. Currently, he's working through some of the Minecraft wiki articles in Spanish, using the Learning With Texts program available at the Fluent In Three Months blog to help him with the vocabulary.

 

I hope to get two Spanish speakers out of this, and one semi-speaker who will have a basic understanding that she can build on if she ever decides to study the language.

 

**************************************

 

Writing this out has been good for me. It has given me some ideas of the sort of thing that I can add to my website, for one thing—but it will be rather a long-term project. It's also renewed my desire for my youngest to learn Spanish. He has no enthusiasm, but I think he should do it.

[KeepItGoing]

On accents and age of learning: Although it is true that children have an edge in accent learning, it is not my personal experience that it's impossible to develop a good accent later. With sufficient exposure to the language, some specific instruction in how to pronounce certain sounds, and some work, certainly teenagers can do quite well. Adults do have more troubles, but even they can do pretty well with attention to it.

I taught Spanish in the classroom and had pretty typical results for accent. My own accent is excellent, but my students' mostly wasn't. Years later, I started doing tutoring individually and in small groups. At first I was patting myself on the back listening to my students. Obviously I had a fabulous accent, since all my students had such nice accents. Then I realized that I had had the same accent as a classroom teacher, but not the same results.

It came to me that a major factor in learning accent is the comfort factor. If you're feeling self-conscious, as students in a classroom almost always are, and timid because you are afraid you'll be made fun of, it's not easy to learn a new accent. But in small, friendly group, suddenly it's easy.

I had confirmation of this theory when one of my own students, who had a lovely accent, stopped studying with me and started studying at school. Almost overnight her accent went from almost undetectable to the worst accent I'd ever heard. (In her case the whole thing was made worse by the fact that her excellent accent, combined with her very limited knowledge of Spanish, surprised the teacher, who made some comments that made her uncomfortable.) When she started studying with me again, her accent improved again.

In any case, a good accent is not necessary for proficiency. My daughter's violin teacher is French. He speaks beautiful English: a huge vocabulary, excellent grammar, very creative and deliberately humorous with the language -- but his accent is extremely thick. It took my daughter some time to be able to understand him at all.

On immersion: Clearly it makes a difference. A combination between formal instruction (or independent study) and immersion is probably the easiest way to gain proficiency. But it isn't necessary. (And in fact, immersion alone doesn't necessarily do much, as is demonstrated by the many people in our country who don't speak English well at all.) What is necessary is LOTS of exposure to the language, and taking advantage of every opportunity to interact with speakers of the language. The difference is not so much whether you're immersed, and more your determination to find a way to be exposed to the language, including interacting with people who speak it.

On fluency: One of the reasons experienced language learneres tend to avoid the word is that it means less than you think. Do a Pimsleur course, for example. (Not a bad way to get a start.) When you're done, you will be fluent in that part of the language--the part that you've thoroughly studied. ""Fluent" means that the words come easily from your mouth to express your meaning. But you won't be all that proficient in the language, because there's so much language you simply haven't seen. Pimsleur introduces only a small amount of vocabulary. There's nothing wrong with that -- it was a deliberate choice, to go for fluency over a small amount of material rather than slower control over a larger amount -- but it isn't full proficiency.

Or you can be not fluent but relatively proficient. I'm that way in German. I'm fluent with the basics. I understand quite difficult German in writing (such as Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain), less so in speech. If I want to express complicated meaning, I have to take some time to word and reword things, and sometimes ask the listener the best way to express something. So am I fluent? Not really. But could I take us around Germany and do great? Absolutely.

My theories on why it's so difficult to get good at a language: There are two major issues in language learning: vocabulary acquisition, and understanding grammar -- how the language connects the words to each other and to time and place.

Vocabulary acqusition is tough just because there's a lot of it. You have to spend a lot of time being exposed to each word before you can bring its meaning immediately to mind without effort. Most often, when it does happen, it's from a combination of specific vocabulary study and lots of exposure.

Grammar is also difficult for people to acquire. I don't mean that people have trouble learning the irregular forms of the present perfect (though they do). I mean that people who understand lots of Spanish words look at a sentence that seems to say "I took to Jane of the hand" and have no idea what that is supposed to mean. They see what seems to say "The has my brother" and don't understand.

Then they read in a grammar book about the personal a, and although this sheds light on the first sentence (with Jane), most students don't see the connection. And the discussion of "direct object pronouns" may help a bit with the second sentence, but that sentence also has a word-order issue that often isn't obviously addressed in grammar books.

 

What those sentences really mean: In Spanish, the "to Jane" means she's having something done to her—in other words, I took Jane of the hand. (We would say, by the hand.) And "The has my brother" probably means "My brother has it."

All of this is very doable, really. But you need to EITHER have an excellent understanding of grammar yourself, so that you can figure out how those grammar discussions apply to the texts you're seeing, OR you need to have someone who can at least tell you what sentences mean when you are confused. Figuring out this sort of thing is not really that hard when you have the right help, but most people never get that help.

I was about to say "a person or materials" who would explain it to you, but there aren't a lot of materials that do that well. Many books tend to avoid the difficult sentences, staying closer to sentences that sound like English, until the student gets to an advanced level. I think this is a shame.

There's still room for new sorts of language-learning materials out there!

All this is NOT meant to be discouraging. It's to say, Yes, this is hard. And it can be done. If you're struggling, it's not because there's something wrong with you -- it's a big job for many reasons. But you really can do it, if you keep seeking out resources.

 

(modified to clarify the grammar discussion)

[Pen]

bumping

[Gil]

I've been thinking more about this topic and came back to re-read this thread for inspiration and bump it for more replies. We need some success stories to inspire us right about now.

[8filltheheart]

Dd's language studies continue to go well. She was accepted into a French camp after a phone interview (they requested to interview her in French she has no French teacher.) She is traveling to Chicago this week to compete in a Russian Olympiada. She wants to drop Latin next yr though.

[fluffybunny]

I taught myself French as an adult and am having a fair amount of success with my own methods with my son, gleaned from my successes and failures. To really learn a language you need to be conversing in it with your child. I don't mean fluently at first, but saying things like 'tu veux manger?" This is the way babies learn: the parent speaks to the baby and emphasizes a concept, rather than speaks in baby language and then translates. So speak to your child as a mother to a baby and have a picture of the thing you're talking about in your expressions.

 

Use real books. We use Dr Seuss in French: they are excellent for learning a language.

Memorize short passages from French literature like The Little Prince.

'Feel' the words: imagine the concepts as you speak. 

Use duolingo alongside the other methods.

Memorize common phrases.

Live the language.

 

Once your child is speaking a few sentences, build on them. Then get an au pair who speaks that language that stay with you, or better still, go to that country and get your child to speak as much as possible. 

 

 Humans don't lose that 'baby' capacity to learn a language through relationship. Believe me: once I found a French speaking boyfriend who spoke no English, I was fluent in a week!   ;) All that memorising words did nothing compared to the close relationship effect!   :001_tt1:

[Starr]

My friends who have done this the most successfully have used a tutor or a Saturday class once every week or two. My dc learned some German in elementary years. Even though we didn't keep up with it they remembered a lot years later. I think it's like anything, you just put in the time and it grows. Now if you could send them away to Spain for 6 weeks they would speak quite well and you would be rested. haha Looking at your first post I wouldn't worry about the goal to survive a week in another country. I think your  boys could do that now.