Thoughts (and a poll!) on modern foreign languages...

[Jumping In Puddles]

Drew Campbell in LCC2, p153 advises us to not teach a modern foreign language until high school or college. The reasoning being that Latin and Greek in the younger years will prepare students for the modern languages later on.

Unless you live in a bilingual home or community where you will frequently hear native speakers and the opportunity to practice speaking skills in a group situation then it would make sense to teach a FL.

I do get that LCC is to "not allow the good things to crowd out the best things" but I it is hard to imagine that an early start in a foreign language could be a disadvantage.

How much time would it take to add that subject for a first grader?

My dd learns french and spanish words in her preschool but I don't think more than 2-3 words have stuck :eek:. The public school in my town teaches the students Chinese from Kindergarten and I am impressed with how much Chinese these public K kids already know!

What are your thoughts on FL?

(also, I am waiting to pick up TWTM from the library again so I couldn't look up what SWB says and I don't remember! :o )

[dragons in the flower bed]

How much time would it take to add that subject for a first grader?


It would depend on how you teach it, I guess. Immersion, which I think is best for little kids, would take all day but you'd hardly notice. Just replace a commonly used phrase (and all the grammatical variations on it), one new one every week. We did this with Hebrew when my now-8yo was a baby, and he never acted as though that language was foreign. We just spoke it; he just understood it.

Some of the phrases we learned right away were:

-- variations on calling a kid to the table for meals
-- shooshing him when it was quiet time
-- asking if we could play with him or suggesting play
-- cleaning up words and things commonly picked up
-- dressing and hygeine words, bedtime routine words
-- emergency and danger words

(On that last, the Hebrew word for stop is "die." Oi, the looks I used to get when I yelled that at my kid across the playground!)

[Makita]

Children are born wired to learn languages. The more exposure and practice they get when they are young, the more they will understand and be able to communicate in both languages.

I just recently read "The Bilingual Edge (http://www.thebilingualedge.com/)" by Kendall King. It provided encouragement to begin NOW.... and also gave many suggestions for practice (games, movies, story time, etc.).

I speak Spanish fluently and have always been timid about speaking Spanish with my children... fearing that it would confuse them. After reading this book, I was encouraged to start. I try to speak in Spanish 1-2 hrs each day (using a lot of animation and acting it out, occasionally sandwiching the English translation if they aren't getting it).

My DD (6) has been taking Mandarin for 6 months - her choice/her passion - but is now quickly picking up Spanish. Both my children take Taekwondo and the dojo uses a lot of Korean. My DD teaches my son Mandarin .... they haven't confused the languages.

Granted, they won't be fluent in any one of these.... but they'll have familiarity. When they are older and choose a language for themselves (my DD seemingly has already done so), my hope is that they'll pick up on it more quickly.

I try to provide as much exposure and practice in Mandarin and Spanish as I can. My DS has memorized the Polar Express (his passion) so now I encourage him to watch it in Spanish instead. He didn't like it at first but will now request it in Spanish.

Sorry for the ramble.... hope I could provide a little something.

[Lorna]

You might be interested in reading these profiles of undergraduates on the Classics course at Oxford. They began learning Latin and Greek at quite a variety of ages (but none younger than ten). The only thing they seem to have in common is that they were all very motivated to learn.

http://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/admissions/profiles/maude.asp

Click on the bottom right corner 'next' to see all the profiles.

Ps. GCSEs are taken at sixteen, A-levels at eighteen.

[H.S. Burrow]

We are also using/following LCC2 & WTM. :) That said, my plan was to have 2 years of Latin before beginning Spanish. But, you know that old saying of best laid plans! ;) We are in Latina Christiana I and DD was begging to begin French! So, since it's relatively inexpensive, I went ahead and ordered First Start French for her. She LOVES it! And she's doing really well with both Latin & French.

She is also 14....so age may have something to do with it. She will start 9th grade this fall and she wants to continue with Latin & French through high school. She also wants to add Spanish in after a year or two of French......we'll see about that when the time comes.

DS - who is 10 - had no interest in French....until he heard DD practicing her vocabulary and dialogue....now he wants to learn French.....but not until after Greek! He will start Elementary Greek I this Fall.

All that to say....I think a lot of it depends on your children. My DD seems to have a "gift/flair" for languages. She is breezing through her lessons, and her pronounciation is excellent - as compared to our pronounciation CDs. She has now indicated that she may want to specialize in languages. So for her, it's important.

For my DS, he will only learn Latin & Greek for the next couple of years - per LCC rec's -.....unless he starts begging for French!

[WTMindy]

My dh taught himself Spanish and has been teaching the kids Spanish since they were pretty young and I actually found that knowing Spanish helped them immensely with their Latin. :-) So, it does work both ways. Right now my kids are doing both Spanish and Latin (Spanish with dad and Latin with me) and they want to start Greek as well.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

I think it is entirely dependent on how fluent you expect your kids to become.

Personally I think that language study at an early age opens pathways in the brain and that is beneficial as you progress in languages when older.

[Jumping In Puddles]

I think it is entirely dependent on how fluent you expect your kids to become.

Personally I think that language study at an early age opens pathways in the brain and that is beneficial as you progress in languages when older.

My kids will start Latin in 3rd grade, do you know if those pathways can be developed with Latin and is 3rd grade age a little late?
(mine are almost 6 and almost 5 years old)

[Jumping In Puddles]

You might be interested in reading these profiles of undergraduates on the Classics course at Oxford. They began learning Latin and Greek at quite a variety of ages (but none younger than ten). The only thing they seem to have in common is that they were all very motivated to learn.

http://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/admissions/profiles/maude.asp

Click on the bottom right corner 'next' to see all the profiles.

Ps. GCSEs are taken at sixteen, A-levels at eighteen.

Those profiles were interesting, thanks for the link.

[lovelearnandlive]

Personally I think that language study at an early age opens pathways in the brain and that is beneficial as you progress in languages when older.

:iagree:From my child development book (I took a class a couple years ago):

"Maturation and myelination in the language areas of the brain, as well as the centrality of words for most young children at home, at play, and in school, makes ages 2 to 6 the prime time for learning language. Indeed, some scientists once thought that these years were a critical period for language learning - that is, the only time when a first language could be mastered and by far the best time for learning a second or third language.

Many scholars believed that if language structure and pronunciation were not learned in early childhood, then the necessary brain neurons and synapses would no longer be available and language could never be mastered. This turns out to be an exaggeration: Humans can and do master their native language after early childhood and can learn second languages even after puberty.

These scholars were not completely mistaken, however. Although not a critical period, early childhood does seem to be a sensitive period for emergent literacy. This means that ages 2 to 6 are a time when vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation can be rapidly and easily learned, not only because of the neurological characteristics of the developing brain but also because most young children have a powerful social motivation (they want to communicate) and an absence of self-criticism (they are not embarrassed to be wrong)."

Also: "...during the early years, neurons and dendrites adjust to the languages a child hears. This auditory sensitivity enables children to master pronunciation with time, unlike those who learned a language after puberty."

Basically, your brain forms connections much more efficiently while it is still developing, and when it is in the proper window of development. Your brain can still form the connections needed for foreign language understanding when you are older, but they won't be as efficient and your brain won't be as "primed" for foreign language as it would have been if it had been introduced while it was in the stages of mass language development in the early years, especially in terms of pronunciation.

[Wendy in ME]

We plan to start French in 7th or 8th grade after a really good Latin foundation.

[Laura Corin]

My children were immersed in Chinese when we lived in China - they started at age 4 and 7 respectively. After that, Hobbes chose to do Ancient Greek and Calvin Latin. We have just started French, and I find that, after their early experience speaking a MFL, they are taking to French easily. Note that Hobbes has not yet had Latin, so there's no Romance language effect occurring.

Laura

[elegantlion]

We starting schooling LCC style this year. Before that ds has had some exposure to Spanish and French. He has expressed interest in learning more of the romance languages, this was after delving into Latin this year.

I'm sort of on the fence. I plan on continuing with Latin and at least 3 years of Greek. We are going to do Spanish this summer. I plan to do some French next summer, maybe even introducing some Irish as part of our heritage studies.

I truly wouldn't mind if we spent our entire day focused on languages, my ds and I both enjoy them. My current plan is to introduce modern languages during summer break and see how ds' interests continue.

[chiguirre]

I follow the WTM's recommendation that you teach a modern foreign language if you speak it. Dh and I speak Spanish most of the time so it makes sense for the kids to study it more formally. That said, I didn't start any formal lessons until this year because we were more focused on getting the boys to speak English. Unfortuately, speaking Spanish to dd to encourage bilingualism took a back seat, but that's what we had to do. This year, dd is taking a Spanish class twice a week and enjoying it immensely. My 8yo also asked to study Spanish because his sister does, so we're using Rosetta Stone (free from the library!) I do think we'll do at least a bit of Latin, but I'll keep it light until they're older. I plan to use Minimus because it looks like a lot of fun and my kids would enjoy it.

[katemary63]

Personally I think that language study at an early age opens pathways in the brain and that is beneficial as you progress in languages when older.

I agree with this 100%

I bit the bullet and bought Rosetta Stone - all levels - Spanish. My DD started about 6 months ago at about age 7 1/2 doing just 10 minutes a day. The program quizes her on speeking, listening, reading and writing. I am amazed. The hardest exercise she has to do is listen to 2 sentences spoken by native speakers and then type them with no visual aids. She is doing well at this. An easier exercise is to listen to the sentences and then drag and drop words and punctuation from a choice box ( it does contain some unused words to trip you up) making the sentences that way. She can do this so fast it makes my head spin. She is learning grammar, puntuation, vocabulary, pronounciation - everything. It is fantastic. I plan to have her do just 10-15 minutes daily untill she finishes - several years, I'm sure. Then continue with what ever spanish she tests into. Truly, she is absorbing it like a sponge - and I have to do nothing what so ever.

[matroyshka]

There's been a lot of discussion about waiting to teach certain skills (ie some kinds of writing) till later when they are more developmentally appropriate and can be learned much more easily because the brain has developed and is ready for them.

There is also a developmentally appropriate time to teach foreign language, and it is not older, but younger - I don't know of any study done on language acquisition that doesn't back this up. The human brain is wired to learn language when young. Yes, you can learn it when older, but it takes much, much more effort, and it's even been shown on brain scans that a language learned past puberty is actually stored and processed in a different part of the brain than the native language (second and third languages learned when young are processed the same way as the native language). Young children almost absorb language through their pores. Why skip that window and spend 10x more effort starting to teach it when older?

Latin is different because it's not a spoken language, it's more like an exercise in logic, which is more easily taught when older anyway. No one cares if you get the accent "right". And if you already have decent exposure to any romance language, you can already recognize a lot of Latin words.

[Jumping In Puddles]

hmmm... good points here!

What I'm thinking is that I will try a language and if it is not working, then I'll drop it.

[Emmy]

I bit the bullet and bought Rosetta Stone - all levels - Spanish. My DD started about 6 months ago at about age 7 1/2 doing just 10 minutes a day. The program quizes her on speeking, listening, reading and writing. I am amazed. The hardest exercise she has to do is listen to 2 sentences spoken by native speakers and then type them with no visual aids. She is doing well at this. An easier exercise is to listen to the sentences and then drag and drop words and punctuation from a choice box ( it does contain some unused words to trip you up) making the sentences that way. She can do this so fast it makes my head spin. She is learning grammar, puntuation, vocabulary, pronounciation - everything. It is fantastic. I plan to have her do just 10-15 minutes daily untill she finishes - several years, I'm sure. Then continue with what ever spanish she tests into. Truly, she is absorbing it like a sponge - and I have to do nothing what so ever.

This is really interesting! My kids just started spanish with a native speaker teacher that is coming to our home 1x a week. They love her and are really enjoying it. Your post gives me pause though and makes me wonder if I shoudln't have my 8yo try rosetta stone alongside what we are doing now.

[platosacademy]

Here, we do Latin and Hebrew (4th Grade). My son's had exposure to Spanish and took 2 years of Spanish during K-1. We're picking up with a more formal Spanish curriculum for fifth, and I plan on adding German or French later. I think it's good for them to be world citizens. European kids generally graduate being able to speak at least 3 or 4 modern languages plus Latin.

[gardening momma]

I'm hoping to start Latin with my dd's in the early elementary years, then do Spanish sometime later. I think starting with Latin is TWTM's recommendation. It's been a while since I've read the book, and I haven't been able to read this whole thread to see if that's what others say the book says.

[Closeacademy]

I do Spanish and French informally using videos, books and just speaking it around the house sometimes. I do not do it as a seperate subject but have thought about getting the Spanish workbook at Walmart for my older dd to "play" with.

Latin is the center of our language studies here to be followed by Attic Greek. We may study Russian in high school as well as the grammar of Spanish or French depending on their interests.:001_smile:

[joannqn]

My plan was to not worry about foreign language until high school when it would count on transcripts. However, my 9yo is asking for Spanish and my 7yo is asking for Korean.

[Amy in OH]

I think it is entirely dependent on how fluent you expect your kids to become.

Personally I think that language study at an early age opens pathways in the brain and that is beneficial as you progress in languages when older.

:iagree:

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

I guess I should have orginally added that I believe language study is beneficial at any age. The modern languages my kids study now they may never achive flluency at but I believe it will help them later in life, even when studying another language.

I look at it like the study they did of nuns. One group did crossword puzzles and the other didn't. The ones who didn't ended up with more cases of memory issues when older. If I learn languages with the kids even I am using my brain in ways that are beneficial.

[newbie]

I agree w/Drew Campbell. If a second language is spoken in the house, than yes, beneficial to teach child second language. But, I am a firm believer get English down pat and start on second after fourth grade.

The problem is, if not continued throughout or used frequently it is lost. I studied languages and at one time spoke five, now down to reading German and still speak and read Spanish.

Immersion is great but not too young, a program in Cali started for K, bad idea, my nephew is in first grade and cannot read English, they say they will not incorporate English til fifth. He is forgetting English, even simple words like colors. This child is very bright. But would have been better to start Spanish in fifth instead of English.

Second languages do increase IQ, but I think learning at a later stage w/continued usage is best.

[Vanna]

...I can imagine the trepidation some may feel about "teaching" a foreign language if they don't have any experience in one themselves. I studied Spanish in hs and college -- it helps. My children use RS and Muzzy Spanish and are also doing Latin for Children. They don't love it, but I can already see the benefits of it. It has broadened their education across many subjects.

If my income had one more zero at the end, we might hire a native speaker like another poster mentioned she was doing (oh, I'd soooo love to do that). :D

[VanessaS]

We're raising our children bilingually (English/German) as they are our native languages. But we have decided to add Spanish, as well, which I learned in high school. My DH and I are learning it now ourselves and are going to instate a Spanish day at home, just as we have certain times for the other languages (English at home with Mommy and German when Daddy comes home). We read books, do workbooks, and watch DVDs in German and English and are going to just add Spanish items to the mix. My DH works in Madrid a lot and he's starting to bring home Spanish-language materials.

So... we just do immersion. My children don't learn grammar yet as they are too young for true formal schooling. And I have not found that learning a foreign language at school was effective at all. It's the day-to-day reading, writing, and speaking of it that really teaches you.

Another thing: both of my children are late-talkers but my DS has now caught up and surpassed his peers in both languages so our efforts seem to be paying off. People thought we were crazy already but they will think we're really bonkers when we add Spanish to the mix...

And another thing: I used to work for a German engineering company and it was common for them to speak 2, 3, or even 4 languages fluently and from a young age.

[Alana in Canada]

Immersion is great but not too young, a program in Cali started for K, bad idea, my nephew is in first grade and cannot read English, they say they will not incorporate English til fifth. He is forgetting English, even simple words like colors. This child is very bright. But would have been better to start Spanish in fifth instead of English.

The local p.s. where my kids had been enrolled before coming home also started their immersion program in K. It was a bit frightening how little English the kids knew--and what they did know was all the horrible "spoken" English of the schoolyard,
"I seen him go."
"I didn't take nothing." and so on.