If you do two languages, how do you schedule them?

[Hoggirl]

We have been doing Latin MWF and Spanish TTh, 40 minutes per day. I am trying to figure out what to do next year and am considering whether I want to keep it as is, or up my time to 60 minutes per day and do 30 minutes of each language each day. If I do the latter, should I do them back-to-back or at different times during the day?

 

TIA!

[Laura Corin]

Hobbes will be working on his fourth in the autumn. Currently it works like this:

 

The boys do about an hour of French first thing each morning - I teach them, then they usually complete an exercise. We also do about an hour of Mandarin together at some point in the week (we just pick a time that suits us). In addition, they attend Chinese community school every Saturday afternoon for two hours.

 

Hobbes does Classical Greek twice a week, for half an hour each time - usually on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. One period is spent on memorisation. During the other, we work together on new material/exercises. Our pace is deliberately slow, as he has a lot on his plate and there's no obvious next Greek programme for him to move on to after this.

 

Calvin does Latin whenever it suits him. He does around two or three exercises a week (down from four - he has a very full schedule at present). We do English to Latin translation orally together. He does Latin to English on his own.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

[Matryoshka]

My kids attend a German Sat. School for 3 hours a week. There is also homework that takes an hour or so, plus for the older kids an additional 45 min/week reading.

 

For Spanish I teach a class 1x a week with some of their friends, and they have homework that for the older two typically takes them two sittings to complete, so that ends up being about 3x a week.

 

And they also watch videos in German and Spanish regularly when they have screen time (evenings before dinner).

 

I've tried to keep them separate a bit in time by day, but I've found lately as they get better in both, they don't seem to care.

[Malenki]

We are doing Latin and Greek right now.

 

After all his other seatwork is done (math, spelling, copywork, memory) we do a page of Hey Andrew Greek for 5-10 minutes and a section from the bible as copywork in Greek. Then we do a page in Lively Latin which is usually another 5-10 minutes.

 

It hasn't bothered him to do them this way but at some point I can see doing one language to start the day (Latin probably) then doing Greek after the rest of the seatwork is done. They are complimenting each other really well right now. We learned about subject-verb agreement in both on the same day, so that was neat!

 

We will be adding a third language starting August 2010 for him. We may break them up at that point and do Latin, seatwork, Greek, snack, history/science, walk the dog, lunch, literature, and then the new language.

 

Actually, just writing this out makes me think we ought to start with Latin at this time. Currently for seatwork we do: copywork, math drill, math lesson, spelling, memory, Greek, Latin. But it seems like I could pop Latin to the front of the day easily enough. Hmmm. Something to think about!

[stripe]

Maybe you could do a mix of different activities, for example, doing language study on one day, and then practice on another (sing songs, read stories, chat = active, and watch movies/tv OR listen to radio/songs, which I think are okay for reinforcement but should be secondary as they are more passive -- BTW the BBC has broadcasts in all sorts of languages that you can listen to online), or something like that.

[sagira]

BTW the BBC has broadcasts in all sorts of languages that you can listen to online), or something like that.

 

Thanks for the tip!

[profmom]

We're doing Latin and Greek. So far, with the elementary programs, it has worked just fine to do both programs as suggested. As we go forward, though, this could become more difficult (such as when we finish EG3 -- I assume the next Greek program will be more time-consuming).

 

One thing I am doing is not choosing an accelerated pace for either language. Ds could possibly do First Form in 5th instead of LC1, but we'll go with LC1 since he'll also be doing EG3. Dd could probably handle a high school pace of Latin if she weren't also doing Greek, but we'll stick with a middle school pace for 7th.

[stripe]

Here's another neat site with digitized children's books:

 

http://en.childrenslibrary.org/

[MSNative]

Ever have one of those moments when you feel like the least productive homeschool mom in the world? Can y'all come homeschool me?!!! :)

 

We do Latin and Spanish. I think your proposed schedule sounds good. I would suggest one language a day though. That helps us. If I do two in one day they start to get a little confused.

 

 

 

Hobbes will be working on his fourth in the autumn. Currently it works like this:

 

The boys do about an hour of French first thing each morning - I teach them, then they usually complete an exercise. We also do about an hour of Mandarin together at some point in the week (we just pick a time that suits us). In addition, they attend Chinese community school every Saturday afternoon for two hours.

 

Hobbes does Classical Greek twice a week, for half an hour each time - usually on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. One period is spent on memorisation. During the other, we work together on new material/exercises. Our pace is deliberately slow, as he has a lot on his plate and there's no obvious next Greek programme for him to move on to after this.

 

Calvin does Latin whenever it suits him. He does around two or three exercises a week (down from four - he has a very full schedule at present). We do English to Latin translation orally together. He does Latin to English on his own.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

[mcconnellboys]

I think your idea sounds fine. I just do 30 minutes a day, alternating Latin and Spanish, so we get in five classes of each every two weeks. We go at a slower pace, but doing any more I think would be too confusing for us. Because of the way we do it, we're only covering one language per day. I'm not sure if your children would find doing two different languages back to back difficult, or not. I guess it would depend on the child. You might try it to see, and then switch it up for them if they find it too difficult....

[Hoggirl]

I think your idea sounds fine. I just do 30 minutes a day, alternating Latin and Spanish, so we get in five classes of each every two weeks. We go at a slower pace, but doing any more I think would be too confusing for us. Because of the way we do it, we're only covering one language per day. I'm not sure if your children would find doing two different languages back to back difficult, or not. I guess it would depend on the child. You might try it to see, and then switch it up for them if they find it too difficult....

 

The 3/2 split between Latin/Spanish has worked well. I could always try the 30 minutes per day of each, and, if it didn't work revert back to what we have been doing.

 

I am probably overthinking this.