How much emphasis does your child's school put on foreign languages?

[MissionaryMomma]

And at what age?

When I was in school, I was offered Spanish and French, but not until high school.

Here, they teach English, beginning in kindergarten. Other languages are offered later, but the majority is English now. From what I understand, it used to be Russian, French, and German.

I have three kids in the same class (second grade). They are learning English. LOL! Actually, their English class is helping them to learn this language a little easier because it translates it from one to the other.

[MissionaryMomma]

Also, do you feel that learning a foreign language is necessary for your child? Why or why not?

[Hermione]

DD is in a K-6 charter school and all grades learn Spanish. The Kinder students learn in a more fun and games approach and the older kids have a more defined curriculum.

I don't know if I think learning another language is necessary or not, but I like that they're starting so early with Spanish education at our school.

[jessiehannan]

DD learned a little Spanish in PreK, but she was in a bilingual class, and in K, she learned some ASL. But, that was just the luck of the draw. :)

[Teresa64]

At the private schools they teach spanish to all grades...ds1 got 2 years of Spanish in Prek.
But I haven't heard anthing yet in the public schoool that he attends now.

[Mommymoo]

Our school offers spanish, german and french. Although it is an extracurricular activity and we have to pay for it.

[QuiltyConscience]

Our local school offers Spanish, in high school.
ASL is pretty important to me, because of my own hearing loss, and the fact that we have a lot of Deaf friends.

I am a big fan of Latin. We plan to study Latin for all of our Homeschooling career, I think Latin is quite beneficial for many areas, and It's a base language for several other languages as well. That and it's fun, too.

[Sputterduck]

Quite a bit! But we are homeschoolers. :)

[Sashahomeschoolmama]

Foreign languages are one of the most important subject fields, IMO. My kids are all taught Russian and German in addition to English. My oldest also studies Latin and has done some Biblical Greek on her own.

In the local schools foreign languages aren't offered until high school and then only Spanish, French, and German are available.

[xobehs]

There is not much of an emphasis here.
Foreign language graduate requirements are rather basic, 2 courses.
DD has spanish in her preK, she learns colors and numbers, I teach her more spanish than school.
I LOVED learning other languages and I hope the courses continue to me available for DC all the way through. I they want to pursue it further, fabulous, if not, oh well.

[Marcia]

In K-5, Spanish and French are taught. Not daily, though. Right now for the younger grades it's 1x/week.

In 6-8, it's still Spanish and French (all students have to take either one) and taught daily.

At the high school, there's a whole bunch...Spanish, French, Russian, German, Mandarin, Italian, Latin, and probably some more.

[nicurn]

My K and 2nd grader are both learning Spanish and sign language. Languages are offered from K through 12 at our private school.

At the public school, about 1/3 of students begin K with little or no English, so introducing other languages would put too great a burden on the student body as a whole.

[SingingMom]

Lots, but we homeschool.

We're working on Russian, Arabic, and Hindi. We plan to add Spanish soon. (We aren't doing that one yet because I speak enough Spanish to be bored by the lessons. I pick things I can learn too.)

I don't know how important I think it is for everyone, but since we're homeschooling I feel that there's no excuse for not spending time on it NOW. NOW while the kids can learn it easily.

We also learn new ASL signs now and then. None of us approaches any sort of fluency, but we enjoy signing with the babies, and we all like to learn new signs.

[Sputterduck]

We're working on Russian, Arabic, and Hindi. We plan to add Spanish soon. (We aren't doing that one yet because I speak enough Spanish to be bored by the lessons. I pick things I can learn too.)


That's funny. I decided just the opposite! We started with Spanish because I had it from Kindergarten to 10th grade and 2 semesters in college. That is something I *don't* have to learn to teach.:p

[alejorge]

All I remeber is when I was in highschool you had to take 2 years of a foreign language and pass both years to graduate highschool.

[lolabear]

im not sure about the school district we live in as we just moved here a couple of years ago but at my kids preschool class at daycare they start teaching spanish. it would be nice for my kids to learn spanish b/c my fiance's mom is from dominican republic and she speaks no english except for hello and good bye and thank you lol

[JudyJudyJudy]

I taught in a middle school last year, and there was no emphasis put on foreign languages. There was not even a foreign language offered at all.

We're homeschooling, so we're working on Spanish right now, primarily because dh speaks it and because it's the second most widely spoken language in both the US and the world. We're also exposing ds to other languages, but we don't expect mastery. For instance, he took a French class with out homeschool group last year, and we sometimes listen to CDs in Arabic, Italian, and German while in the car.

There is an online class in Chinese that I'd like for him to take as well; it is taught by native speakers. Whenever we can work it into our budget, we plan to do that.