Need help figuring out what to do with Spanish

[teachermom2834]

Some background: this is for my 11th grader.  He is a good student but not really interested in foreign languages at all. He has good test scores but he is not looking at super competitive colleges that are going to dissect his transcript or require more than 2 foreign language credits. This is a get it done subject for him. 

The plan was always to take Spanish de as my older dc have done and it worked great.  There is a professor for de that another ds of mine had that is very kind and funny and I’ll admit it- easy. The plan was to take Intro Spanish 1/2 from this professor junior year and be done with it. So far it doesn’t look like ds will need it beyond these credits in college.

But we’ve hit a snag in our plan. Ds is involved in an extracurricular that is going to have him very busy traveling this spring. The Spanish 2 class will be MWF and ds has some trips planned that would have him out of class on Mondays and/or Fridays. It is a situation that the ec is far more worthwhile than the Spanish class and if either had any positive long term implications for his education and future, it would be the ec. All his other de classes can be taken Tues/Thurs and his home classes can be flexible. So he will be turning down opportunities with his ec for just this easy check the box Spanish credit. (One is a trip to Wash DC and another is to our state legislature and there are others that could come up). 

So the situation is that ds has a Spanish credit from 8th grade when he took Spanish 1 at a co-op. I hadn’t decided whether I would even include this in his transcript but it has been recorded with our umbrella school so at the moment it is there. He will have 1 Spanish credit from the Intro to Spanish 1 he is taking de this fall. So he technically has two credits. 

1) He could complete the Spanish 1/2 sequence de and miss some of his ec experiences. This seems like the most common sense and easiest way. He would take those courses together and transfer the both of them wherever he goes. This is the current plan. I like it just feel a little bad about some trips he would miss, especially for a class that really isn’t meaningful for him.

2) He could skip the de Spanish 2 class in the spring and just kick the can down the road and hope Spanish 2 is offered at a more convenient time sometime his senior year or has an online version available that will work. Not ideal in terms of his retention from Span 1 but he is a sharp kid and I think he could overcome the break if it worked out that way. 

3) Take a high school Spanish class (online ?) that would fulfill another Spanish credit. So his transcript would have a de Spanish class fall of junior year and then “Spanish 3” or “Spanish 2” as a regular course senior year. I thinks it’s odd but I don’t think he’s going to be denied acceptance at the schools he is looking at because of it. I don’t even know what is out there for Spanish because we always just used de to get it done. So I would love suggestions for any kind of course or program that might work here. 

4) I could just let it stand with his Spanish credit from 8th grade and his one de credit as his two foreign language and not fuss with it. I don’t like this idea at all. The co-op class was a disappointment and I always planned for him to take two credits in high school. It really would leave me somewhat unsatisfied with the outcome but it likely would not make any difference in his applications. It might make a difference if he needed to take foreign language in college and he wasn’t truly prepared to drop into a Spanish 2 there. But again, smart kid who could get caught up or even just start over in another language or something. Lots of “ifs” there. 

Of course, ds will be part of the decision making as he is mature enough to weigh the decision and consequences. I just like to present him with all his options. Also, by next year at this time he would hopefully know better where he is going (and if he will need college foreign language) and if he has to find a way to get that second de credit in, he could do it even if we had to find a course at another college or de online. 

That was long. Sorry. It is my current thing to worry excessively about and just typing it out helped. Honestly after typing it all out it doesn’t seem like a big deal, really.  🙂 But I would love some opinions. 

[Arcadia]

Could he place into Spanish 2 at community college, skipping Spanish 1? Then do Spanish 3 as a community college summer intensive? 

[teachermom2834]

24 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Could he place into Spanish 2 at community college, skipping Spanish 1? Then do Spanish 3 as a community college summer intensive? 

That is a good thought. People here always can think of more options 🙂 

 

[RootAnn]

Or just do both next year?

[teachermom2834]

1 hour ago, RootAnn said:

Or just do both next year?

This makes sense. Sometimes I get so focused on carrying out the plan that I have trouble seeing all the pieces that could shift to deviate from it. All my kids have done Span 1/2 de in 11th grade so of course that is how it has to be. LOL. 

[RootAnn]

Well, something could conflict next year, too or the easy teacher could not be teaching it or ... Same issues you are dealing with now.

I'm an unrepentant, optimistic procrastinator, so I say try again next year.

[chiguirre]

Does he have to take Spanish?

If any language will do, I'd consider Latin using First through Fourth Forms from Memoria Press. They're boring but they are fairly easy and have complete teacher support including quizzes and tests and dvds. You could do these at your own pace.

[MerryAtHope]

How many classes would he miss? Could he talk with the instructor and maybe go on the more important trips and just miss a few classes? 

The one issue I see with option four is that you would be giving him credit for Spanish 1 twice, and that really Isn’t the same thing as taking Spanish 1 and Spanish 2.

I like the option of him doing Spanish senior year too!

[teachermom2834]

1 hour ago, MerryAtHope said:

How many classes would he miss? Could he talk with the instructor and maybe go on the more important trips and just miss a few classes? 

The one issue I see with option four is that you would be giving him credit for Spanish 1 twice, and that really Isn’t the same thing as taking Spanish 1 and Spanish 2.

I like the option of him doing Spanish senior year too!

I get what you are saying here about the two Spanish 1 credits but I will tell you that it is commonly done in my region. Kids take high school Spanish and then start de in the basic intro Spanish class (if they want and don’t test into something higher). I was confused about this a few years ago and did come to find that high school Spanish 1 is counted as a different credit than college  Spanish 101. Whether or not it should is certainly up for debate but it is done that way around here and I don’t think that is an issue at all with our schools.