Teaching Foreign Language if you don't know a foreign language

[tdbates78]

So my title speaks for itself. I would love to teach my 3rd graders a foreign language next year. Just not sure I'm adept to do that. I took 4 years of Spanish in high school (way back when) and I took 3 semesters of college German but I'm not super good at it, certainly not good enough to teach it properly, and I graduated over 10 years ago so I'm rusty with that too. 

So how do y'all teach foreign languages when you don't know the language? Are the teachers guides informative enough to allow you to adequately teach? Or do you outsource? If you use a curriculum and like it please list it. I've looked into the online courses (Rosetta Stone etc) but it seems like the general consensus is it's not enough? 

Thanks!
Tracy

[8filltheheart]

We have managed but my kids are pretty self-motivated. I pull a bunch of different resources together ( a text for grammar, foreign language songs and videos, etc.)

[Noreen Claire]

I was feeling the same way about starting another language next year (we already study Latin), and then I remembered that my SIL speaks fluent Portuguese. So, we are studying Portuguese next year! It's not DS10's first choice, but we are going to take advantage of the native speaker that we have access to. Do you have anyone in your orbit that speaks another language and can help you out?

[Arcadia]

We (husband and I) outsourced German because it was a college elective for us more than two decades ago. We outsourced chinese (heritage) because we don’t want to be the one nagging. DS13 would avoid all work for languages (including English) if given a choice. DS14 likes languages but not as an academic subject so if left on his own won’t do enough work for a high school credit.

However, 4th grade is too early to be concerned about doing for a credit and my kids just had fun with foreign languages at that age. Duolingo app, Mango app, Rosetta Stone CDs (from library), Living Language CDs (from library) are all nice free choices to get started.

[tdbates78]

Thank you all. Nobody that I know that really speaks a foreign language fluently. I guess at their age I shouldn't take it too seriously and just try some things out. I know our library membership comes with access to a few free programs online so I'll have to give it a shot. We travel to German speaking countries on vacation so I'm partial to wanting them to learn German unless they have a strong opinion. 

[Arcadia]

9 minutes ago, tdbates78 said:

 We travel to German speaking countries on vacation so I'm partial to wanting them to learn German unless they have a strong opinion. 

 

My kids have high incentive to learn how to order food in any language 🙂

DW learn German webpage has free lessons https://learngerman.dw.com/en/overview

[Slache]

I learn alongside them and if mistakes happen they happen. I use lots of audio resources and ear training since we don't have a teacher. Both of our languages (Japanese and Greek) are long term commitments and I've pieced my own thing together, but if I wanted to do something simpler (French/Spanish) I would have bought a curriculum with a DVD component and considered that good.

[Miss Tick]

4 hours ago, tdbates78 said:

so I'm partial to wanting them to learn German unless they have a strong opinion. 

We have slowly been working through the website Essential German. We lucked into a weekly class which morphed into a tutor, but German Essentials fits nicely alongside. Before that we used the old text book Fokus Deutsch, and found the associated videos on YouTube.

I found that my high school Spanish got us pretty far along what i call "recreational language learning." I was just explaining to my 4th grade daughter that at this point I want her to learn vocabulary, genders, verbs, etc, and to develop an ear for the language (hello, YouTube!) When she moves into a formal class it is my hope that a majority of the learning will be review and she can focus on the bits she doesn't already know (or that we've been doing wrong.)

 

[EKS]

Unless you or your kid is extremely motivated, it is unrealistic to think that a person who isn't fluent could teach a foreign language beyond one or two high school semesters.

 

[8filltheheart]

57 minutes ago, EKS said:

Unless you or your kid is extremely motivated, it is unrealistic to think that a person who isn't fluent could teach a foreign language beyond one or two high school semesters.

This is really not our experience. My one Dd was extremely motivated and taught herself to fluency in French, but my other Dd isn't. She is motivated, but definitely not extremely motivated. She is using German Online which is pretty much just videos and a list of assignments pursued completely self-paced.  She is now in German 3 and doing incredibly well.

The caveat is that I am not teaching them. No one is. Really, it comes down to they are teaching themselves. 

Russian, otoh, no, I don't think Dd could have managed to reach the level she did without a teacher. Not all languages are equally difficult to master. (German is definitely one of the easier ones.)

[EKS]

27 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

This is really not our experience. My one Dd was extremely motivated and taught herself to fluency in French, but my other Dd isn't. She is motivated, but definitely not extremely motivated. She is using German Online which is pretty much just videos and a list of assignments pursued completely self-paced.  She is now in German 3 and doing incredibly well.

The caveat is that I am not teaching them. No one is. Really, it comes down to they are teaching themselves. 

Russian, otoh, no, I don't think Dd could have managed to reach the level she did without a teacher. Not all languages are equally difficult to master. (German is definitely one of the easier ones.)

Any student who successfully teaches themselves a foreign language is extremely motivated, IMO.

Edited April 3, 2019 by EKS

[J-rap]

That sounds like me.  When my kids were the age of your kids, I felt I could handle it myself.  We had simple workbooks and CD's with music (that included vocabulary) and that worked out well.  By the time they got to high school, we tried more advanced levels independently, but it was difficult for all of us.  So, they ended up continuing their language either through an online school or by taking a class at the public school (our city allows homeschoolers to take even just one class at a public school).   That worked out great.  Even if the online school required a lot of independence, they were still there to semi-teach, provide structure and a time frame, organize progress, advise, answer questions, etc.  My kids needed that.  I really was quite amazed at how well the online option worked for a foreign language.   I do think a few of my kids had a natural ability to learn a foreign language (something I definitely didn't have!), and that helped.

[madteaparty]

I only had a year (but an excellent year, such a good Prof) of college french—I managed to get DS to a certain point with it.  The main thing, IMO is to know how to learn a language, any language. It’s hard to explain but to this day, even though his French has long surpassed mine, when we sit to a text, I can easier intuit some phrases because I know how it’s supposed to work. I also used to be fluent in Italian so that  helps. You can totally do this, it will be a lot of work but then you gain some language skills in the bargain 😉 I totally held my own around Paris recently!(DS wasn’t with me)

Eta that I choose things with CDs/audio bc my own pronunciation is such crap, as I never speak it. 

Edited April 3, 2019 by madteaparty

[Slache]

 

[lewelma]

The person you need to talk to is Gil. He has co-learned spanish with is boys for a number of years to a high level. 

[Jabes]

I have some experience with this, so I signed up just to respond!  My 8yo son takes lessons from a tutor who lives in Spain via Skype.  He's been doing this 3 hours a week for about a year. We found her through the website italki.com. It's a website where you can find professional teachers and tutors who are willing to teach you their native language over Skype (or other similar apps).  Prices range quite a bit.  From $10/hr up to $40/hr depending on the language that you're interested in.  It's a bit tricky finding teachers who specialize in teaching young kids if that's what you need (there are tags you can look for), but I would encourage anyone who wants to find a foreign language tutor to check it out. 

I also recently found out about a company called Baselang, which is a Spanish tutoring service based out of Columbia.  They provide unlimited 1-on-1 tutoring from professional teachers via video chat for a flat fee per month.  This service would probably be most beneficial to an older, motivated student who is really interested in learning Spanish.  I don't think I would try this service for young children. (under 12, but of course, each child is different)

There are lots of good courses/apps out there for learning foreign languages and they can get you far, but nothing replaces speaking with someone whose native tongue is in the target language.  

I hope that helps!   

[Mom-of-Skiers]

My kids did a little bit of everything. Movies, music, storybooks, tutors, apps, etc. DD is a natural language learner and knows 5 languages and continues to seek opportunities to learn more. DS was more reluctant, but eventually learned through tutors and immersion (travel). 

For high school age, we used iTalki to find tutors in a Scandinavian language with marginal success. One of the kids found a high school student (native speaker) who was willing to work with him weekly because the tutor needed community service hours in his country to graduate high school. The tutoring sessions were great supplements, but ultimately, we found the kids needed more structure so we hired private tutor (via Skype) to take them through lessons from a textbook. We did that with the Scandinavian language with enough success to send kids abroad (independently).

For younger kids, look for a comprehensive curriculum specifically designed to help you, even if you don't already know the language. Calico Spanish is set up for anyone to teach Spanish to kids. They use fun characters and video based stories. Be sure to ask them for their homeschool discount.

[SoCal_Bear]

If you have Netflix, I recently discovered that a lot of the children's shows can be switched to another language. We are actively studying Chinese & Latin right now. French is a bit idle for us right now. Obviously Latin is not an option, but I was pleased to find lots of shows can be watched in Chinese with English subtitling. 

I will also say that I only took things to a basic level. More grammar and vocabulary acquisition. Beyond that, I prefer that he learns from people who are native speakers or have a deep love for the language. This is the highest priority for outsourcing for our family. I've been very pleased with how much he has progressed with Latin and Chinese after I started outsourcing.

Edited April 7, 2019 by calbear