Where do I start with French?

[mom2scouts]

I asked DD to pick a language to study in high school and she couldn't decide. Her siblings speak German, one also speaks Russian, I speak a little Spanish. She's interested in sign language, which I'm willing to do, but I wonder if she should also do a spoken foreign language to keep her college options open. She doesn't have any career goals in mind yet.

DD finally decided on French since she's a dancer and thinks it may help her in her ballet training and testing. I know nothing about French and I don't know where to start with curriculum that can help her as a beginner with no teacher help. I remember a friend mentioning several years ago that her student liked Fluenz for French. Has anyone used it? Are they any others that work well and aren't terribly expensive? We definitely can't afford a $300-$500 online class for one subject, so we're probably going to have to do some kind of home based course. DS did quite well with mostly free materials until he was able to take more advanced dual enrollment courses, but he's highly motivated to learn languages. I think DD needs a program specifically designed for language learning. Help!

[Clear Creek]

ASL study in high school is not a barrier to college entrance. My oldest took three years of it in high school as her foreign language and had no trouble getting accepted to two LAC's and two state universities (including the honors college at one). And not only do they accept it as a valid high school foreign language, some colleges even offer it.

My middle child studied French for her foreign language. I can only recommend you don't do what we did. We used Global Goose Languages because I thought she would benefit from studying with a class. She would have been better off just using any resources we could find and conversing with me in my rusty high school French.

[alisha]

I realy like The Ulat.com's methodology, and will be starting that with my 9th grader next month. (First 15 lessons are free). However, I took french in high school, so I have a little background and can help somewhat. I do NOT know how it would work for you with no background.

Needless to say, I'm not recommending it because I haven't used it, but wanted you to know about it so you could check it out for yourself.

[Junie]

On 7/15/2021 at 3:03 PM, mom2scouts said:

I asked DD to pick a language to study in high school and she couldn't decide. Her siblings speak German, one also speaks Russian, I speak a little Spanish. She's interested in sign language, which I'm willing to do, but I wonder if she should also do a spoken foreign language to keep her college options open. She doesn't have any career goals in mind yet.

DD finally decided on French since she's a dancer and thinks it may help her in her ballet training and testing. I know nothing about French and I don't know where to start with curriculum that can help her as a beginner with no teacher help. I remember a friend mentioning several years ago that her student liked Fluenz for French. Has anyone used it? Are they any others that work well and aren't terribly expensive? We definitely can't afford a $300-$500 online class for one subject, so we're probably going to have to do some kind of home based course. DS did quite well with mostly free materials until he was able to take more advanced dual enrollment courses, but he's highly motivated to learn languages. I think DD needs a program specifically designed for language learning. Help!

I believe that it is common for colleges to accept ASL for language requirements.  I mean, there are thousands of colleges, so I'm sure that there are some that don't, but I know that there are many that do.

[Janeway]

The only schools I have seen that take issue with ASL being the language is the military academies.  And in the state I live in, the student can even have computer science instead of foreign language.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Janeway

[freesia]

33 minutes ago, Janeway said:

The only schools I have seen that take issue with ASL being the language is the military academies.  And in the state I live in, the student can even have computer science instead of foreign language.

You should check the individual colleges. I can’t remember what school I was looking at this week, but not an academy, that said no ASL. There certainly are plenty that do accept it, but it’s worth checking any particular college of interest.

[TravelingMom]

Hi! I mostly lurk here to get info but I wanted to reply to your post that my friend is an online homeschool French teacher and she does online French classes; elementary through high school French 4. My son took French 1 with her. It’s very affordable, and it’s a live online class. She provided curriculum that we printed and there was an affordable text. Globalgooselanguages.com is the website.  . She’s very experienced. She has two other instructors that do Spanish and Mandarin, but we have only done the French classes so I can’t speak to those. Good luck! 🙂 

[Clear Creek]

17 hours ago, TravelingMom said:

Hi! I mostly lurk here to get info but I wanted to reply to your post that my friend is an online homeschool French teacher and she does online French classes; elementary through high school French 4. My son took French 1 with her. It’s very affordable, and it’s a live online class. She provided curriculum that we printed and there was an affordable text. Globalgooselanguages.com is the website.  . She’s very experienced. She has two other instructors that do Spanish and Mandarin, but we have only done the French classes so I can’t speak to those. Good luck! 🙂 

That is the class and instructor that I do NOT recommend. We had a horrible experience with it. The instructor kept letting personal problems interfere with her ability to conduct class and grade assignments. I thought that she was just blowing off my child because she was one that had to work quite hard to maintain a B in the class, but I corresponded with the parent of a high-performing student and they were having the same issue - multiple assignments from October on were being left ungraded. There was no way to gauge how well my child was doing, whether she was struggling, or what she was struggling with. I ended up that spring and summer having to use the textbook and other resources to finish out the class with her myself.

It doesn't matter how well an instructor knows the foreign language, if she has to cancel class because she can't find a good spot for wifi reception/remember to bring the power cord for her laptop/find someone to babysit a kid in her care...she isn't professional enough to teach a course. If she can't find the time to grade the students' class projects (worth a significant percentage of the grade), provide feedback on chapter assignments so students can correct course before the chapter exam, or even grade assignments period, she isn't professional enough to teach a course. She would do well to just sign up with one of those tutoring websites and tutor French students.

It was a complete waste of time and money, and it was a negative enough experience that it killed my child's desire to learn the language well enough to someday travel to France.

[RubyPenn]

You might want to look at Breaking the Barrier.  It moves quickly, but you can slow it down.  Book 1 is actually enough for two years of French.

https://tobreak.com/pages/french

[BakersDozen]

My girls used Galore Park's "So You Really Want to Learn French?" on their own through level 3. They then suffered with Global Goose (such a waste of money/time!) and will finish with Sally Barstow for French IV/V. I was not involved at all save for paying for materials so this was completely on their own which was, I feel, doable thanks to GP's fantastic program (which we had also used for Spanish).