Thanks

[bibiche]

Got it, thanks!

Edited July 31, 2022 by bibiche

[Farrar]

I've worked with students who are bilingual. The ideal is either a third language OR an AP credit or national exam with a credit attached to preparation and a higher literature credit or two higher college credits.

Barring that, two or more literature or film studies or increasing fluency credits at home is totally fine. It could even be just just as good or better if you write it up well for some colleges. 

Barring that, put it in your school profile that students can exempt a foreign language requirement through fluency and then put a note on the transcript that the student exempted. And then just hope for the best, basically. Some colleges won't love that. 

[Alice Lamb]

I have a friend's son who was fluent in Portuguese and English before high school because the family came from a Portuguese speaking county when he was 11. He could also speak French, Swahili and his parents' mother tongue well enough to make himself understood, but with somewhat limited vocabulary. He gave a speech in what he says is his "least fluent" language at his graduation party, only asking his father for a vocabulary word about every twenty words or so...  He was enrolled in a charter school and, at the end of 10th grade, the school told him that he needed 2 language courses at the school.  He took Spanish 1 as a junior, then skipped to AP Spanish for senior year and got a 4 or 5 on the test ...  Apparently, documentation is more important than knowledge in certain situations.

[bibiche]

On 7/10/2022 at 2:25 PM, Farrar said:

 

Edited July 31, 2022 by bibiche

[bibiche]

On 7/10/2022 at 4:14 PM, Alice Lamb said:

 Apparently, documentation is more important than knowledge in certain situations.

😬 

Edited July 31, 2022 by bibiche

[Matryoshka]

1 hour ago, Alice Lamb said:

Apparently, documentation is more important than knowledge in certain situations.

@bibiche Is it a language he can CLEP?  That would be an easy way to get documentation without a lot of hoop-jumping.

[Lawyer&Mom]

Our public school district lets kids take a test for foreign language credit, in a huge variety of languages. They really want to give credit for knowledge of home languages.  So at least for the school district it’s the knowledge, not the learning in high school that counts.  Hopefully a college would agree. 

[Farrar]

22 minutes ago, bibiche said:

Thank you, Farrar. Would he need to have studied another language for four years if he also has a third home language? Is it the languages they’re looking for or the language learning? Do you think a semester of a graduate level class in one of the home languages might be enough? Or a summer class abroad in one of the languages?

He has done work in the language at home, mostly literature, and sometimes fleshed out at home in the home language what he learned in outside English language classes (further reading, etc). But no new language acquisition beyond a couple semesters of a dead language and some dabbling on his own. Yikes. Very poor planning on my part.

Look, homeschoolers are messy, which colleges know. And what's done is done so no need to examine all decisions in tears because it is what it is. Plus, it sounds like he DOES have some credits. So... do I correctly understand that he'll essentially have something like:

Introduction to Dead Language
Second Language Literature I
Second Language Literature II

If it's more like a single credit in the second language literature, then ideally I would have him do another, more serious course at home for senior year or do a college or grad level course. But honestly... even that might not be totally necessary. It just depends on the total picture, the schools, etc.

Edited July 10, 2022 by Farrar

[bibiche]

On 7/10/2022 at 6:12 PM, Matryoshka said:

 

Edited July 31, 2022 by bibiche

[Matryoshka]

4 minutes ago, bibiche said:

I’m not very familiar with CLEP. Isn’t it a way to get credit for knowledge? And not accepted by many universities? I mean, yeah, they would have his main language, but wouldn’t the CLEP level just be like high school fourth year or something? Would that be better than just verifying that he speaks the language with a graduate level course? Ugh. I’m so confused. What is even the point? It would’ve been a lot easier to just send the kid to school. 😭 

CLEP gives you college credit.  It is widely accepted, but every college can set their own rules for what they accept and what credit they give for each score.  The more fancy-pants the college, I'd guess the less they give credit for, but that's also true for AP.   I'd go to the websites of the college your ds is interested in and see what they give.  It might be filed under 'Transfer' rather than regular admissions, or wherever it says what credit it will give for AP.

I think the best you'd get for a high score on a language CLEP is getting out of 4 semesters of the language, but that is also as much as an AP will give you.  It will certainly be documentation that your ds has mastered the language to a high level.  If you place out of the first 4 semesters of a language, it gets you out of the GenEd language requirement at the Uni (if they have one) and if you want to study it further, allows you to start studying at a level where you're using the language rather than learning it.  Of course, if one wants to choose the latter path, you need to make sure the Uni you choose actually has classes at that higher level; many don't have much if any content available past those first for 'learning' semesters of a language.

I placed out of two languages back in the mists of time, the ways to do that back then were different, but I started freshman year with 300/400 level classes and took graduate classes as well.  I ended up minoring in them both.  I just went to my state flagship by default and hadn't had any kind of plan to study languages, I just took the classes for fun/interest - I didn't realize till much later how lucky I was that that Uni had lots of upper level courses in the languages I spoke.

The nice thing about CLEP is that it's offered almost anytime (some places as often as weekly - unlike AP which is once a year), no class is needed to prep (like with AP), you take the test, pay $80, and voilà credits.  One of my dds had decided not to take AP English, and was a CompSci major.   I knew she would be much better served by other classes than 2 semesters of Freshman Comp.  I made some general grumblies that it would've been great if she had taken AP and gotten out of them - and then I remembered CLEP!  One week and $80 later, 2 semesters of Freshman Comp gone *poof* !  Same credit as a 5 on the AP without any of the stress. Gave her time to minor in Math.

[Farrar]

CLEP is widely accepted at many public universities. CLEP is not widely accepted at most selective private universities. CLEP scores do not impress admissions. A lot of admissions folks barely know what CLEP is. I don't think it'll be worth it to CLEP. The thing admissions wants is two things. One, mastery of a language. You saying this student is fluent in this second language we speak at home will accomplish that reasonably well. The CLEP score doesn't add much in admissions the way AP does. Two, coursework and study with another language. And he has at least a little bit of that already - like, you're saying he read books in the second language. Um, that's what they're looking for.

[8filltheheart]

I agree that CLEP is not the way I would go if you are considering selective Us.  The bigger issue with selective Us is that they are not really impressed with heritage language speaking (....or at least that is what the advice was on CC back when I actually spent time reading there several yrs ago in their responses to Chinese heritage speakers and the AP Chinese exam to avoid having to take FL in high school).   In terms of validating levels, you might look into language level testing: Language Proficiency Testing in 120+ Languages | LTI (languagetesting.com)  If you could provide testing for 2 languages, I think you'd be covered. 

[bibiche]

Thanks

Edited July 31, 2022 by bibiche

[Matryoshka]

55 minutes ago, bibiche said:

Thanks. Okay, so I’m getting a little jumbled up. So I can have him take a test/grad level class  to prove that he speaks the languages, but is that enough? Is the fact that he is trilingual but without having experienced all the struggles of a language learner a detriment? Should I highlight the fact that he has three languages (it is a pretty big part of his identity) or downplay it since it makes it obvious that he hasn’t acquired a *new* language?  I mean, he has studied them and worked at them - maintaining minority languages requires effort - but I’m getting conflicting information about whether that is enough or if it should have been an entirely new language.

I guess it depends on what your goals are with all this.

Are you looking to make sure he's fulfills the 'foreign language' box on the uni application?   

Are you looking to make sure that he's properly placed in foreign language classes at the uni?  Or get him out of having to take a foreign language as part of GenEds?

Are you looking to get him into a selective college and make him stand out?

For the first two scenarios, something like CLEP (or if you have time, AP) could work (again, assuming not a super-selective uni, although I wonder if it would work just for placement?  Or alternatively, mabye the selective unis have their own placement tests?).  For the third, I guess document everything he's done, and package it to look impressive.   You are absolutely correct that maintaining minority languages take effort - so you should be able to figure out how to write that up to show his effort.

There's no need to acquire a 'new' language in high school.  My kids did the bulk of their language learning earlier - but I did have them document with APs.  They took one language AP in 10th and the other in 11th; they could have gone for that one earlier as well but I thought better to space them out.  I wanted to make sure I checked the 'foreign language' box on the application and that if they wanted to continue that they'd be properly placed.  But selective colleges were not on my radar (no way we could pay for them).

Edited July 11, 2022 by Matryoshka

[Matryoshka]

Also, there's what I did with my third kid... she wanted to quit languages, and she hates taking tests, so to document what she knew I ended up having her take CC classes in that langauge, which were self-paced.  She blew through units 3 & 4 in one semester when she was 14.  I totally wrote that up on her transcript as Language 1-4 (I did her transcript by subject, not year).  No eyes were batted. 

Edited July 11, 2022 by Matryoshka

[bibiche]

On 7/11/2022 at 12:17 AM, Matryoshka said:

Also, there's what I did with my third kid... she wanted to quit languages, and she hates taking tests, so to document what she knew I ended up having her take CC classes in that langauge, which were self-paced.  She blew through units 3 & 4 in one semester when she was 14.  I totally wrote that up on her transcript as Language 1-4 (I did her transcript by subject, not year).  No eyes were batted. 

Edited July 31, 2022 by bibiche

[Matryoshka]

14 minutes ago, bibiche said:

That’s right, aren’t your kids heritage speakers too? It’s good to hear your approach, thanks.

Well, yes and no.  I'm trilingual, and I exposed my kids to both languages from birth, but I'm not a native speaker of either language and my hubby is monolingual.  So the other two langauges weren't really spoken at home.  But we did work on the languages consistently from pretty much birth through high school.  I guess you could say one of the languages is a heritage language, but it was my grandparents who emigrated.  But my mom did teach me (and send me for summers with relatives), and then me my kids.  My mom did also teach me the second language (she's also trilingual), but she learned it in school - we have no genetic ties to that language.  

I think you should stop beating yourself up - your kid is trilingual!  The American way of teaching langauges is Stupid and mostly produces kids who can even speak or use the language they supposedly studied!  You did better.  You just have to figure out how to package it, lol.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Matryoshka

[8filltheheart]

14 hours ago, bibiche said:

Thanks. Okay, so I’m getting a little jumbled up. So I can have him take a test/grad level class  to prove that he speaks the languages, but is that enough? Is the fact that he is trilingual but without having experienced all the struggles of a language learner a detriment? Should I highlight the fact that he has three languages (it is a pretty big part of his identity) or downplay it since it makes it obvious that he hasn’t acquired a *new* language?  I mean, he has studied them and worked at them - maintaining minority languages requires effort - but I’m getting conflicting information about whether that is enough or if it should have been an entirely new language.

At this point I’m wondering if we should just redo a year and grind to make up for my idiocy. Ack!

I didn't mean to stress you out!  I was just repeating what folks at CC would tell the heritage-speaking Chinese students even with a 5 on the Chinese AP.  (But, that could very well be bc selective Us filter out Asian applicants and the posters were trying to reinforce that they needed to make sure they stood out and that the Chinese AP would not check that box at all.  It was just a constant refrain that they should take another language.  Your ds already has an additional language!)

FWIW, I agree with Matryoshka.  If he has studied them and worked at them, then I would give him credit for them on his transcript.  You can address that they are heritage languages, but minority languages that he has had to work at learning and maintaining, in the course descriptions.   If you want validation, look into testing.  Dd has taken a lot of language testing over the yrs.  Having the certified level is not going to have any downsides.  Just be aware that the tests do not necessarily favor heritage speakers bc heritage speakers often have weaker grammar skills than those who have formally studied the language.  Dd has been part of a group where she out-leveled a heritage speaker bc the heritage speaker hadn't mastered nuanced grammatical genders and verbs and that hurt her on the testing.  But, again, my dd is aiming for professional level objectives so her goals for testing are very high, not proving high school level mastery.

[rzberrymom]

In our state, the public universities will accept a junior-level university class as evidence of 3 years of a foreign language. It can either be the regular language class or literature taught in the foreign language. This is how my kiddo satisfied the requirement. If it’s not possible to get documentation through AP, maybe a junior-level/300-level class could help?

 

ETA- and I totally agree with 8filltheheart that the key is grammar. My kiddo had to triple her efforts on the grammar in the 300-level class, and the professor lamented that there are several students like that every term, who think they’re fine because they speak at home and who then struggle with grammar.

Edited July 11, 2022 by rzberrymom

[chiguirre]

If one of the languages is French, could they take the DELF/DALF that corresponds to their level?

Or, if you have an excellent Alliance Francaise, could they take a lit class or Business French or something like that to validate their level?

[bibiche]

On 7/11/2022 at 3:14 PM, chiguirre said:

 

@8filltheheart I checked out College Confidential and it was seriously disheartening! And equal opportunity disheartening, not just for people testing out with Chinese AP. I’ll stick to here, thanks, where people are helpful and kind. 🙂

Edited July 31, 2022 by bibiche

[madteaparty]

First of all I think your kid will be fine and it has nothing to do with proving languages.  Second, obviously a graduate level class in the language is enough to prove proficiency. I mean, really. 
as you know, DS has the Delf (only for B2) and several undergrad classes for his languages (well, for one. For the other only one college class and the rest was through an institute). 
 

None of my DS’s languages are home ones and in the end, besides his essay, I don’t think he had a good way to transmit the fact that he was fluent in a language neither of his parents speak. So while I do think you might get a bit of a discount for home language, the grad school class washes it out. 

Edited July 11, 2022 by madteaparty

[madteaparty]

4 minutes ago, bibiche said:

The DELF only goes up to B-2, so competency but not fluency. I think he’d have to prepare a bit for the DALF (since French exams are very…French), which he doesn’t have time to do. In addition, the place where he can take it offers it too late in the year for it to be of value for applications. I’m just going to hope that his homeschool transcript and the upper level college classes will demonstrate that he is at a high level. 
 

@8filltheheart I checked out College Confidential and it was seriously disheartening! And equal opportunity disheartening, not just for people testing out with Chinese AP. I’ll stick to here, thanks, where people are helpful and kind. 🙂

There is a C1 Delf (DALF?) DS was studying for that I failed to register him for so he never took. 

[bibiche]

On 7/11/2022 at 4:15 PM, madteaparty said:

Edited July 31, 2022 by bibiche

[8filltheheart]

3 hours ago, bibiche said:

The DELF only goes up to B-2, so competency but not fluency. I think he’d have to prepare a bit for the DALF (since French exams are very…French), which he doesn’t have time to do. In addition, the place where he can take it offers it too late in the year for it to be of value for applications. I’m just going to hope that his homeschool transcript and the upper level college classes will demonstrate that he is at a high level. 
 

@8filltheheart I checked out College Confidential and it was seriously disheartening! And equal opportunity disheartening, not just for people testing out with Chinese AP. I’ll stick to here, thanks, where people are helpful and kind. 🙂

Is he already taking college lit classes in those languages?  If so, his FL placement test at the school where he is taking the classes plus the lit classes do validate his language level.  I thought the lit classes were at home.  I must have missed that where you shared he was taking outside classes.  Typically a student is going to have to place at a 300 level in order to skip grammar/comp foundational courses and place into pure lit classes.

I haven't been on CC since 2017.    I have a rhinohide and decent perspective, so when I was on there the comments didn't bother me bc I am brutally honest in my assessment of my kids. I was able to eek out a lot of helpful insights from CC, though.  I feel as well-versed as a paid college counselor.   It is how I was able to create a full picture package for my kids in terms of counselor letter and school profile and assess whether or not my kids showed vs told in their essays.  I was also able to really identify where they were strong matches for elite honors programs and competitive scholarships.  But, I could never go back there at this pt and I absolutely do believe it is a toxic environment over all.

[lewelma]

I had no documentation for my ds's language learning - 4 years of Mandarin done at home with a tutor. No external validation at all. DS got into Michigan, CMU, and MIT. All 3 universities required 2 years of language learning for admission and recommended 4. None of them said a thing about it being studied at home with no documentation. So seems to me that you put them on the transcript, and write them up in the course descriptions as home-based courses.

Edited July 12, 2022 by lewelma

[Farrar]

To me, you can have either homegrown credits or external validation of some sort. As I read this, it seems like you keep resisting the idea of giving home grown credits even as you reference reading literature in other languages and using the languages. I don't get the resistance. Give the credits. It seems obvious to me.

[Dmmetler]

FWIW, what we found last year was that, while some schools had direct transfer paths for foreign language college classes, ALL schools did placement testing for languages (and more competitive schools or programs where language proficiency is a requirement tended to test everyone regardless of credits). So, it really didn't matter if your child had homegrown credits or AP credits-it just means that if they have homegrown or high school credits, they took the test to place out at first year orientation. 

 

While I probably wouldn't have changed what we did, since doing college classes had other benefits besides academic, I would say that a good half my kid's college classes done as DE were covered by on campus placement tests (at a LAC). If we had done math through AoPS, Spanish through Homeschool Spanish Academy or other providers, and English Composition and literature at home or online somewhere, it really wouldn't have mattered; OTOH, those psychology, sociology, history, literature, journalism, art and other classes my kid did mostly for fun ended up basically taking care of the entire liberal arts core and allowing a LOT more flexibility in the degree plan. 

 

 

[8filltheheart]

I don't see the issue as at home cr as much as heritage speaker.

[lewelma]

17 minutes ago, 8filltheheart said:

I don't see the issue as at home cr as much as heritage speaker.

I was seeing that schools wanted credits that included reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The heritage speakers I know learned to speak and listen, but their reading and writing are poor, which means that they have not done a full high school language program. So if a heritage speaker has done reading and writing (including grammar), then seems to me you could put it on a high school transcript, and write up the details in the course descriptions without worry. 

[EKS]

On 7/10/2022 at 1:14 PM, Alice Lamb said:

Apparently, documentation is more important than knowledge in certain situations.

I've always wondered if the foreign language requirement was more about having students show that they could deal with the rigors of a foreign language class and very little about actually knowing the foreign language.  

[bibiche]

On 7/12/2022 at 2:11 PM, Farrar said:

To me, you can have either homegrown credits or external validation of some sort. As I read this, it seems like you keep resisting the idea of giving home grown credits even as you reference reading literature in other languages and using the languages. I don't get the resistance. Give the credits. It seems obvious to me.

I’ll absolutely give homegrown credits! 

Edited July 31, 2022 by bibiche

[bibiche]

5 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

I don't see the issue as at home cr as much as heritage speaker.

Yes, this is my new panic. 

[Farrar]

I second that having a language credit that is clearly designed around a heritage speaker is totally fine. I have a student I'm helping right now who is a heritage speaker who will have four full years of heritage speaker studies on their transcript. It's going to look super strong. I'm not concerned for them a bit.

[chiguirre]

14 hours ago, bibiche said:

Yes, this is my new panic. 

You have his senior year to make sure he can competently write a business email, an academic essay, knows how to speak in a formal register to a colleague, etc. If his grammar and vocabulary are native level, that's not a huge stretch, it's basically the same process as having kids take over the communication with the admissions office and their employer in English when they're a senior in high school. It might be more difficult to find opportunities to practice real life scenarios, but even if you just have to make them up, they'll be an excellent exercise in using his language as an adult.