Designing your own high school foreing language course- what makes it high school level?

[housemouse]

If Rosetta Stone is not an option- crashes our computers, and other paid online or in person options are too expensive at the moment, how would you go about making your own foreign language course and make sure it is high school level? What do we have to have included in the course? We have access to Mango and Duolingo which are free. What else can I add to it to make it full credit?

 

Thank you.

[freesia]

Which language ? Have you taken it?

[Julie Smith]

http://oli.cmu.edu/courses/free-open/french-i-course-details/

 

ETA: Sorry, I forgot to ask what language. You can possibly find something already made, depending on the language. The one above is for French. 

Edited May 5, 2016 by Julie Smith

[Arcadia]

For the languages my kids are doing, I can just use the high school textbooks and workbooks that the local high schools use, as well as their syllabus if I want to. I can grade my kids chinese up to AP chinese as that is my native language. I would need to pay someone local who teach high school german to grade my kids german essays. The rest of german schoolwork, I can grade with a teacher's manual.

[Lori D.]

Since Mango and Duolingo are more conversation/listing/learning, you probably want to get a textbook/workbook or textbook with exercises AND a CD that goes with it -- like what is typically used in a classroom. That would help you drill the grammar and reading/writing portion of the language, plus hear more examples specifically geared for the textbook through the CD.

 

Example: Barron's Spanish Now!

You can often pick up used textbooks, with CDs, that are less than 10 years old, but are just 1-2 editions older than the newest edition, for under $10.

 

Another thought: if you think you might at all end up doing the foreign language as dual enrollment at your local community college or university, look into what texts they use, and go with the same text, which would be a smooth transition into coursework at the college level. :)

[housemouse]

This would be for Russian and Japanese

[rdj2027]

For Japanese I use Irasshai and Genki.  If my memory serves me correctly the first 40 lessons of Irasshai can be counted as 1 credit.  I also took Japanese at a university and over the year we pretty much covered the first Genki book.  That was really intense though, I think for high school I would give it three semesters at least.

[housemouse]

For Japanese I use Irasshai and Genki.  If my memory serves me correctly the first 40 lessons of Irasshai can be counted as 1 credit.  I also took Japanese at a university and over the year we pretty much covered the first Genki book.  That was really intense though, I think for high school I would give it three semesters at least.

Thank you for your suggestions. I have checked both books and it looks like there is 2 levels in both Irasshai and Genki with workbooks. According to the book 2 levels of Irasshai counts as 3 years of high school level Japanese. Do you recommend doing both in conjunction or completing Irasshai first and then move on to Genki. Thank you again.

[LisaKinVA]

I have used both high school and college texts to create a foundation for a course.  College texts for foreign language can often be used as: 1st half = 1 year, 2nd half = 2 years of high school foreign language.

 

For Russian, you can look into Beginner's Russian by UCLA, it will cover the 1st two years.  The workbook and audio (some video) is online, and if you email them, they will send you the login for the instructor portions (keys).  The text can be purchased at Amazon (not expensive), and access to the course is free.  It's mostly laid out for you.  Another option is Red Kalinka (online) which is fairly new, but has many different options.  They follow more of a European rating for their courses.  Generally (VERY generally), A1 = year one, A2 = year two, B1 & B2 would be intermediate (3rd and 4th year for high school).  Goloska is a university text I was looking into (but we never purchased).  Duolingo is also testing out their new Russian program (free) -- however each language on Duolingo is set up differently.  For example, German has a lot of actual instruction material you can read through before moving onto the practice.  Italian does NOT -- my daughter couldn't understand why I got so frustrated with duolingo, because i always had to guess at things.  She thought I simply wasn't scrolling through the lesson.  She came over to help me, and was quite surprised that there was not much information or no lesson at all.