Foreign language at Jackson-Reed

[Anonymous]

Despite taking French at Deal, the Deal 8th grade French teacher advised our child to start with French I at JR, which is what was indicated on the class request form.

Then schedule appears with no language and the guidance counselor says "your child already completed the two language credits to graduate from high school while in middle school." We explained why we believe that it is important to continue language study at high school and requested a change. We were told that students "can't repeat classes at DCPS" and child was placed in French III and told to figure out with the teacher whether they belonged there.

This scenario shows that foreign language is considered an "extra" and not a valued part of an education, which is out of step with most of the world.

How can a school responsibly determine the appropriate language level without a simple assessment at the start of school? Or even at the end of the prior school year?

Would like to hear other parents' experiences with their children enrolling in foreign language classes at JR and what the experience has been like overall?

Do most students comfortably start at level 3 at JR after middle school language when they started as beginners? The teacher at Deal admitted that the pandemic threw things off and that students were behind where they should have been at the end of 8th grade.

[Anonymous]

My child took French 2 at Deal (and passed) and repeated it in high school, so it can certainly be done. Both courses appear on their official transcript. The Deal course appears as “LF2 French II.” The high school course appears as “L12 French II,” which is also the way French 2 is labeled on the Jackson Reed course list.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

You absolutely can repeat classes by choice in DCPS. There are rules in the handbook about how to record the grade. I would elevate this to the AP or superintendent. This is a big issue.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely get your child in the correct language class. Most colleges require language and many require 3-4 years of language. If they finished French at Deal, they may start beyond French 1 which could be causing the confusion. Not sure who the teacher is now but kids who had Dr. M always started with French II or III. But, you should also know that JR scheduling is usually a mess. If this is your only mess up, you are extremely lucky or they have improved.

[Anonymous]

Foreign language is one area that confuses me in general.

Both my kids finished Spanish I and II at Deal and then went into III at JR. Neither seems to have much proficiency with the language and both received As in III.

Fast forward and the older kid received As in all Spanish including AP Spanish IV and scored a 5 on the AP test. Yet…still doesn’t seem to be able to speak or understand the language orally.

I guess you can be “book” smart with the language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Foreign language is one area that confuses me in general.

Both my kids finished Spanish I and II at Deal and then went into III at JR. Neither seems to have much proficiency with the language and both received As in III.

Fast forward and the older kid received As in all Spanish including AP Spanish IV and scored a 5 on the AP test. Yet…still doesn’t seem to be able to speak or understand the language orally.

I guess you can be “book” smart with the language.

I have 4 kids who all attended Deal and then JR or private high school.
Those going on to private never received any credit for Deal Spanish--after placement testing (oral and written) they were placed in Spanish 101 again (despite getting high As in 3 years of Deal Spanish). When they graduated from private they actually had an excellent command of the language (written and oral). The DCPS kids do not get this by a long shot. Deal Spanish is crappy and JR is really no better in my experience. In general these kids do not do well on the Spanish AP exams either. I've talked to many parents about this. Your kid's 5 is an outlier! They must be a good test taker and good at foreign language.

Anyway--just my experience. I'm not too concerned about it and my youngest kid is attending DCPS for high school. But if mastery
of a foreign language is a priority then DCPS is not a good option period. It's crappy and mediocre at best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Foreign language is one area that confuses me in general.

Both my kids finished Spanish I and II at Deal and then went into III at JR. Neither seems to have much proficiency with the language and both received As in III.

Fast forward and the older kid received As in all Spanish including AP Spanish IV and scored a 5 on the AP test. Yet…still doesn’t seem to be able to speak or understand the language orally.

I guess you can be “book” smart with the language.

I have 4 kids who all attended Deal and then JR or private high school.
Those going on to private never received any credit for Deal Spanish--after placement testing (oral and written) they were placed in Spanish 101 again (despite getting high As in 3 years of Deal Spanish). When they graduated from private they actually had an excellent command of the language (written and oral). The DCPS kids do not get this by a long shot. Deal Spanish is crappy and JR is really no better in my experience. In general these kids do not do well on the Spanish AP exams either. I've talked to many parents about this. Your kid's 5 is an outlier! They must be a good test taker and good at foreign language.

Anyway--just my experience. I'm not too concerned about it and my youngest kid is attending DCPS for high school. But if mastery
of a foreign language is a priority then DCPS is not a good option period. It's crappy and mediocre at best.

Clearly you can study for the AP test and my kid studied for it. However, it was the one test where we were prepared for something less than a 5. Was a shocker that this one was a 5...perhaps because the Top 10 college now attending allowed my kid to fulfill the language requirement with a 5 and my kid is not a language kid and really did not want to have to take a language in college.

[Anonymous]

My kid went to dual language since K, and got a 3 on AP test in 8th. A 5 is amazing. Doing French 1 at JR but had to get the course added to schedule even though they had selected it. It wasn’t on the schedule. Got it worked out, thankfully.

[Anonymous]

Have your student speak directly to one of the French teachers.

[Anonymous]

I had two kids going through Deal with French and they did not learn much. The first changed language at JR and got to AP level for that language. The second now in 9th at JR was even worse of the first due to the pandemic, not able to pronounce words correctly, not able to have even a very basic conversation, not able to write, did not know the verbs and so on. She has straight As all three years and got even an award at graduation. Frankly I wondered if my kid was a straight A, how are kids who have C as there is no such a thing a below zero knowledge. Second kid also changed language at JR. I studied french in MS as well but in a foreign country and i learned to write, read and have conversations, the class was very heavy on grammar, all regilar verbs and irregular verbs perfectly memorized, written and spoken, reading aloud in class pages written by french authors, then reading assignments if french works and written essays in french. The full immersion method used at Deal works if you move to France for two years maybe, otherwise you need to reslly study the grammar or you will not learn anything

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Foreign language is one area that confuses me in general.

Both my kids finished Spanish I and II at Deal and then went into III at JR. Neither seems to have much proficiency with the language and both received As in III.

Fast forward and the older kid received As in all Spanish including AP Spanish IV and scored a 5 on the AP test. Yet…still doesn’t seem to be able to speak or understand the language orally.

I guess you can be “book” smart with the language.

I have 4 kids who all attended Deal and then JR or private high school.
Those going on to private never received any credit for Deal Spanish--after placement testing (oral and written) they were placed in Spanish 101 again (despite getting high As in 3 years of Deal Spanish). When they graduated from private they actually had an excellent command of the language (written and oral). The DCPS kids do not get this by a long shot. Deal Spanish is crappy and JR is really no better in my experience. In general these kids do not do well on the Spanish AP exams either. I've talked to many parents about this. Your kid's 5 is an outlier! They must be a good test taker and good at foreign language.

Anyway--just my experience. I'm not too concerned about it and my youngest kid is attending DCPS for high school. But if mastery
of a foreign language is a priority then DCPS is not a good option period. It's crappy and mediocre at best.

My kids had a different experience...both my kids took Spanish at Deal and then went directly into Spanish 3 at J-R (then Wilson). Both eventually took Spanish Language AP (both got 5s) and one took Spanish Lit AP (not going to lie...that class was very hard for them and they were one of the few non heritage speakers but they got a B+ for the year and a 3 on the AP test). Both kids placed into advanced Spanish in their college placement tests. Neither my husband nor I speak Spanish so they apparently learned it all in middle/high school...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had two kids going through Deal with French and they did not learn much. The first changed language at JR and got to AP level for that language. The second now in 9th at JR was even worse of the first due to the pandemic, not able to pronounce words correctly, not able to have even a very basic conversation, not able to write, did not know the verbs and so on. She has straight As all three years and got even an award at graduation. Frankly I wondered if my kid was a straight A, how are kids who have C as there is no such a thing a below zero knowledge. Second kid also changed language at JR. I studied french in MS as well but in a foreign country and i learned to write, read and have conversations, the class was very heavy on grammar, all regilar verbs and irregular verbs perfectly memorized, written and spoken, reading aloud in class pages written by french authors, then reading assignments if french works and written essays in french. The full immersion method used at Deal works if you move to France for two years maybe, otherwise you need to reslly study the grammar or you will not learn anything

No public school in the US does this in any language instruction unless the teacher is 700 years old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Foreign language is one area that confuses me in general.

Both my kids finished Spanish I and II at Deal and then went into III at JR. Neither seems to have much proficiency with the language and both received As in III.

Fast forward and the older kid received As in all Spanish including AP Spanish IV and scored a 5 on the AP test. Yet…still doesn’t seem to be able to speak or understand the language orally.

I guess you can be “book” smart with the language.

I have 4 kids who all attended Deal and then JR or private high school.
Those going on to private never received any credit for Deal Spanish--after placement testing (oral and written) they were placed in Spanish 101 again (despite getting high As in 3 years of Deal Spanish). When they graduated from private they actually had an excellent command of the language (written and oral). The DCPS kids do not get this by a long shot. Deal Spanish is crappy and JR is really no better in my experience. In general these kids do not do well on the Spanish AP exams either. I've talked to many parents about this. Your kid's 5 is an outlier! They must be a good test taker and good at foreign language.

Anyway--just my experience. I'm not too concerned about it and my youngest kid is attending DCPS for high school. But if mastery
of a foreign language is a priority then DCPS is not a good option period. It's crappy and mediocre at best.

+1. Deal kids, even with three years of language study, usually get placed in entry level languages in private HS. No bueno.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Foreign language is one area that confuses me in general.

Both my kids finished Spanish I and II at Deal and then went into III at JR. Neither seems to have much proficiency with the language and both received As in III.

Fast forward and the older kid received As in all Spanish including AP Spanish IV and scored a 5 on the AP test. Yet…still doesn’t seem to be able to speak or understand the language orally.

I guess you can be “book” smart with the language.

I have 4 kids who all attended Deal and then JR or private high school.
Those going on to private never received any credit for Deal Spanish--after placement testing (oral and written) they were placed in Spanish 101 again (despite getting high As in 3 years of Deal Spanish). When they graduated from private they actually had an excellent command of the language (written and oral). The DCPS kids do not get this by a long shot. Deal Spanish is crappy and JR is really no better in my experience. In general these kids do not do well on the Spanish AP exams either. I've talked to many parents about this. Your kid's 5 is an outlier! They must be a good test taker and good at foreign language.

Anyway--just my experience. I'm not too concerned about it and my youngest kid is attending DCPS for high school. But if mastery
of a foreign language is a priority then DCPS is not a good option period. It's crappy and mediocre at best.

+1. Deal kids, even with three years of language study, usually get placed in entry level languages in private HS. No bueno.

I guess put me in the category of who cares? Personally, I think FL should be purely elective so I am good with my kid not having to work too hard on their FL while they have literally 6 AP classes which are a decent amount of work.

Being strong or weak in a FL has absolutely no bearing on how well you will perform in English, history or STEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Foreign language is one area that confuses me in general.

Both my kids finished Spanish I and II at Deal and then went into III at JR. Neither seems to have much proficiency with the language and both received As in III.

Fast forward and the older kid received As in all Spanish including AP Spanish IV and scored a 5 on the AP test. Yet…still doesn’t seem to be able to speak or understand the language orally.

I guess you can be “book” smart with the language.

I have 4 kids who all attended Deal and then JR or private high school.
Those going on to private never received any credit for Deal Spanish--after placement testing (oral and written) they were placed in Spanish 101 again (despite getting high As in 3 years of Deal Spanish). When they graduated from private they actually had an excellent command of the language (written and oral). The DCPS kids do not get this by a long shot. Deal Spanish is crappy and JR is really no better in my experience. In general these kids do not do well on the Spanish AP exams either. I've talked to many parents about this. Your kid's 5 is an outlier! They must be a good test taker and good at foreign language.

Anyway--just my experience. I'm not too concerned about it and my youngest kid is attending DCPS for high school. But if mastery
of a foreign language is a priority then DCPS is not a good option period. It's crappy and mediocre at best.

+1. Deal kids, even with three years of language study, usually get placed in entry level languages in private HS. No bueno.

I guess put me in the category of who cares? Personally, I think FL should be purely elective so I am good with my kid not having to work too hard on their FL while they have literally 6 AP classes which are a decent amount of work.

Being strong or weak in a FL has absolutely no bearing on how well you will perform in English, history or STEM.

Forget about the Spanish. Americans are great at history and math. I'd add geography to it.