Homeschooling High school: foreign language requirement

[macmacmoo]

What counts as a credit of foreign language? Will working through a certain text book work? Does Rosetta Stone or Babble or dulingo count? How do you know what's level 1 versus level 2 and normal versus honors?

[cintinative]

These past threads might be helpful

Foreign Language
Foreign Language Online Classes (options listed in all of the posts) -- Sept 30 2017, musician mom
Get ‘Er Done Spanish — Aug 13 2018, Sweet Home Alabama
Suggestions for high school French?? — Feb. 29 2016, armo

https://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/707615-spanish/?tab=comments#comment-8914091

https://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/690207-spanish-rosetta-stone-vs-rocket-languages-vs/?tab=comments#comment-8426563

 

[ieta_cassiopeia]

120 hours, or working through an amount of material similar to someone spending 120 hours on foreign languages. Unless you're going to AP level/another formal certificate, trying to get out of taking a college language requirement or considering taking an outside course later on that requires previous study, there's less expectation in foreign languages of having done or not done specific things than there is in, say, maths. Colleges expect students turning up to their foreign language courses to have holes in their knowledge, in a variety of places depending on what they were taught (not just on how well they learned the material).

The first 120 hours of a language is always level 1, and you'd count subsequent work as levels 2, 3 and 4 in 120-hour blocks. In a more general sense, Level 1 might be enough language to get by in a country speaking that language as a tourist (often, Level 1 books don't cover major travel emergencies or medical stuff though). Level 2 would have more complex situations and, often, expect work to be done in multiple tenses (if your choice of Level 1 didn't cover major travel emergencies or medical stuff, it's very likely to be in Level 2). Level 3 is often where more academic uses of the language start to happen - students may be asked to write essays and make presentations that aren't on a small set of previously-digested topics, and general-interest (short) books start to enter the picture - it's typically the first level which allows a student to skip (part of) a language requirement in college. Level 4 is commonly where complex literature starts to get read and is equivalent to AP. However, there's significant overlap between all these levels.

[Momto6inIN]

I've used Rosetta Stone to refresh my own Spanish skills, and while it's been helpful for me as someone who used to be somewhat fluent, I would never ever give it to a beginner and expect them to learn a language with it as their primary curriculum! As a supplement, it would be fine. I'm not familiar with Babble or duolingo, but my impressions of them are similar to Rosetta Stone. They might help you get by for a week in a foreign country as a tourist, but that's about it.

FWIW, we used Visual Link levels 1, 2, and 3 followed by some of Destinos (textbook and videos) and my kids have all tested out of 2 semesters of college Spanish. One tested out of 3 semesters. So I feel like we did ok with foreign language, but definitely not anywhere near as well as others on this board have done. Level 1 of Visual Link was mostly easy phrases and basic verbs and vocabulary. Level 2 got into more verb conjugation and sentence structure, and Level 3 finished off the rest of the verb conjugation and tenses.

[Miss Tick]

Similar to @Momto6inIN, I've put in many hours on Duolingo, but it wouldn't work on its own. There is not enough explicit grammar teaching. However it is great for repetitive exercises. For instance I learned about adjective endings in German from a tutor and from an online resource, but it was the repetitive practice on Duolingo that has cemented it in my brain (more or less).

I shoot for 5hrs per week for the school year. If we are learning on our own I try to mix and match activities so that the days have some variety and more tedious work is mixed in with easier fun activities. I usually have some kind of text book or work book on hand to drive the sequence of topics. I am speaking from my experience in lower grades, though. I haven't taught at a high school level.

[cintinative]

23 minutes ago, Momto6inIN said:

I've used Rosetta Stone to refresh my own Spanish skills, and while it's been helpful for me as someone who used to be somewhat fluent, I would never ever give it to a beginner and expect them to learn a language with it as their primary curriculum! As a supplement, it would be fine. I'm not familiar with Babble or duolingo, but my impressions of them are similar to Rosetta Stone. They might help you get by for a week in a foreign country as a tourist, but that's about it.

FWIW, we used Visual Link levels 1, 2, and 3 followed by some of Destinos (textbook and videos) and my kids have all tested out of 2 semesters of college Spanish. One tested out of 3 semesters. So I feel like we did ok with foreign language, but definitely not anywhere near as well as others on this board have done. Level 1 of Visual Link was mostly easy phrases and basic verbs and vocabulary. Level 2 got into more verb conjugation and sentence structure, and Level 3 finished off the rest of the verb conjugation and tenses.

I am contemplating using Destinos after finishing Avancemos 1 and 2.  Do you think that someone could use Destinos as a Spanish III? I watched it all a couple times and really enjoyed it, and thought maybe it would be a good follow up to mesh everything together.

Did you do any testing the year you did Destinos, or what sort of output did you have?   Are there tests available?  Thanks for letting me derail this a bit.

[EmilyGF]

I like a multi-source approach, with one curriculum as the spine and then a secondary source to give it depth. For example, we used The ULAT along with graded readers in Spanish for a full year of high school Spanish. The ULAT tells you how many lessons equals one year of high school Spanish.

The graded readers provide review and more cultural knowledge. If we move on to Spanish 2, I'll add in a more explicit grammar course, like Practical Spanish Grammar (an amazing review book for the right kid) once a week for half an hour.

The ULAT suggests 45 minutes, five days a week, to complete a year of high school Spanish in one year. So, with our secondary materials, we aim for that plus 1-2 half-hour sessions per week. Since I do a "year" of high school Spanish in middle school, we have 20 minute sessions instead of 45 minute sessions, and keep going in the summer as needed.

Emily

[EmilyGF]

I have done a lot of language learning and don't really like Duolingo, nor do most of the obsessive language learners I know. That said, something is better than nothing, and doing Duolingo is better than not doing anything. However, you should add graded readers or Destinos to get a cultural component and something like Practical Spanish Grammar or Living Spanish Grammar once or twice a week for half an hour to get a whole course.

Emily

[cintinative]

What I don't like about Duolingo is that it doesn't explicitly teach grammar.  This is technically okay for me because I had already taken a good amount of Spanish before and am teaching my kids Spanish so I am reviewing it was they go along as well.  It's not a great program for learning Spanish from scratch IMO. 

Some libraries have Mango Languages or Transparent Language for free.  I have the impression that they are sort of like Rosetta Stone, but I don't know a lot about any of them. However, at least for Transparent Language, their technology for checking your pronunciation is way better than Duolingo.  

[Lori D.]

I'll once again plug dual enrollment for a solid way of doing high school foreign language:
- usually taught by a competent instructor
- class setting promotes an opportunity to practice conversation
- covers all the needed topics in 1 semester to equal 1 credit of high school foreign language
- counts as both high school AND college credit, and works ahead to knock out a possible general ed. requirement for a future degree


If planning to go "DIY", I would look at the table of contents for a few textbooks, and also do an online search for a few high school syllabi for the foreign language of interest to get a feel for what topics are covered in level 1, level 2, etc. Even level 1 includes basic grammatical structure in addition to vocabulary memorization. And any new "features" would be introduced in level 1 -- for example, verb conjugation for something like French or Spanish. So I'd be sure to use resources that introduce those "new" elements.

I agree with previous posters who recommend using several resources.

And I'd look for ways the student could practice weekly conversing with a live person (either in person, or via online).

And finally, especially with the extra time needed for practice and memorization, 120 hours is on the weak end for a foreign language credit. (Unless you have an accelerated, motivated student -- but even then, I'd be considering using more rigorous and challenging material if the student is knocking out 1 credit of foreign language in 120 hours. JMO.)

Yes, 120 hours = 1 credit works if it's just a box-checking course, but for subjects like Lit/Writing, Science, and Foreign Language, 150 hours (average for 1 credit), to 180 hours (max. for 1 credit) is much more typical. And for foreign language, much more likely to solidify language learning. But again, that's JMO, and YMMV.

A possibly helpful rough guide for counting hours towards credit:

. . . . . . . . . . . .min.  .avg. . .max
1.00 credit = 120 . . 150 . .180  hours
0.75 credit =  90 . . 110 . . 135  hours
0.66 credit =  80 . . 100 .. 120  hours
0.50 credit =  60 . . . 75 .. . 90  hours
0.33 credit =  40 . . . 50  . . 60  hours
0.25 credit =  30 . . . 35  . . 45  hours

Minimum hours = the Carnegie credit defines the minimum amount of classroom contact for a credit (120 hours), with the understanding that additional hours are spent outside the classroom as homework, practice, projects, study, etc.

Maximum hours = typical public school requirement of 180 hours for 1 credit, coming from 36 weeks of a school year = 1 hour/day x 5 days per week. Since classes typically run 45-50 minutes per day, and because assemblies and other events reduce the total amount of class meetings, that allows for time beyond the class for doing homework, practice, projects, study, etc.

Average hours = the halfway point between the minimum Carnegie credit and the maximum public school requirement. Shooting for 135-165 hours for each credit makes for fairly consistent credits. What that looks like: roughly 5 hours/week x 30 weeks; OR, 1 hour/day x 4 days/week; OR 50 min./day x 5 days/week.

Special exceptions to the hours per credit chart:
- dual enrollment courses -- the college level rigor/volume will not necessarily match up hour-wise with high school level material
- standard high school textbook or program successfully completed in less than the minimum or more than the maximum

Edited October 15, 2021 by Lori D.

[Momto6inIN]

3 hours ago, cintinative said:

I am contemplating using Destinos after finishing Avancemos 1 and 2.  Do you think that someone could use Destinos as a Spanish III? I watched it all a couple times and really enjoyed it, and thought maybe it would be a good follow up to mesh everything together.

Did you do any testing the year you did Destinos, or what sort of output did you have?   Are there tests available?  Thanks for letting me derail this a bit.

We used it for Spanish III for my 1st 3 kids. We used the videos and the textbook/CD and the workbooks (there are 2 of them and associated CDs for each). No further tests, I don't have any idea if any are available or not. The CDs were kind of hard to find on ebay as well as expensive, but there are workbook and textbook exercises that are impossible without them, although I guess you could skip those exercises.

There are several editions of all these various components and it's all very confusing, but I finally found what I wanted for not a bazillion dollars. The CDs for the 2nd workbook were way too expensive, but someone on here I think gave me a link to the recordings for it for free. If you get to that point, let me know and I can share it.

I bought it all back in 2015, so it's all kind of fuzzy now.

I remember back in the early 90's when it was brand spanking new and I was in college at the same university that it was developed at and we used it for my 2nd and 3rd semester university Spanish courses 🙂