Spanish 1A or Spanish 1A/1B

[Anonymous]

Jw is an myp school and 1a is the only option for 6th graders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our MCPS MS does not have an option for 1A to go a full year. All of the languages are A/B.

Same for us. Is your school an IB MYP school? Ours is, and I wonder if that is the reason for ore stringent foreign language requirements.

No- but our HS has an IB program.

[Anonymous]

Haha. Some schools you don't need to take 1 until 11th, and 2 until 12th.

[Anonymous]

The major thing to watch out for is that if you take 1A/1B in 6th grade, in at least 9 middle schools you'd have to go to the high school for 3A/3B in 8th grade as it is not offered at those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The major thing to watch out for is that if you take 1A/1B in 6th grade, in at least 9 middle schools you'd have to go to the high school for 3A/3B in 8th grade as it is not offered at those schools.

My kid's MS (Cabin John) doesn’t usually offer it, but did last year, given the large number of students taking it.

[Anonymous]

Just a warning for those who start 1a/1b in 6th- my son breezed through these classes in middle school but was unprepared for 4a/4b in 9th. My understanding is thst there is a lack of continuity at the high school level and the middle achool classes are taught with lower rigor. He had no idea what was going on in 4a-- he and a bunch of friends dropped down to 3a.- but I had to fight the school to move him (they referenced his strong grades in middle school). It was disruptive to his freshman semester. I would recommend considering repeating 3a/3b at the high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just a warning for those who start 1a/1b in 6th- my son breezed through these classes in middle school but was unprepared for 4a/4b in 9th. My understanding is thst there is a lack of continuity at the high school level and the middle achool classes are taught with lower rigor. He had no idea what was going on in 4a-- he and a bunch of friends dropped down to 3a.- but I had to fight the school to move him (they referenced his strong grades in middle school). It was disruptive to his freshman semester. I would recommend considering repeating 3a/3b at the high school.

I think it depends on the MS/HS. My son had a rough first few weeks of Spanish 4 in HS, but it didn't make sense for him to repeat Spanish 3. Turns out his MS teacher had put together a review for the summer, which he totally ignored, so I had to get him to complete it and do some extra practice... but overall, Spanish 1 AB in 6th was way more challenging than Spanish 4 in 9th. Despite this, he actually really appreciates his MS Spanish teacher and feels like he learned a lot. We did get him a tutor after Spanish 1A (so the first semester), because foreign language classes involve a totally different kind of learning than other classes in MS (memorization, practice outside of school etc.)

[Anonymous]

I agree that kids that complete 3AB in MS should plan to do review in the summer to make sure they are ready for 4AB in HS. MCPS is not doing these kids any favors by taking it easy on them in MS.

[Anonymous]

FYI think ahead. These middle school language classes end up on your child’s transcript that get sent to colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just wanted to add that if your child struggles with language, they can take one year of two different languages to fulfill the requirement.

Or they can repeat what they took in MS. I wish someone had suggested that to us

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The major thing to watch out for is that if you take 1A/1B in 6th grade, in at least 9 middle schools you'd have to go to the high school for 3A/3B in 8th grade as it is not offered at those schools.

This will likely become way more common if the MSDE math minutes mandate doesn't get repealed... if electives spots are cut, then likely even fewer students will take foreign language in middle school than do now, and I doubt many schools will be able to offer Spanish 3 (some may not even be able to offer Spanish 2 anymore.)

[Anonymous]

I would definitely just do Spanish 1A if they aren't that into languages. (I have one kid that loved langauges and did 3 years in MS, took the AP after sophomore year...but that's not every kid.) The college counselors will all tell you that colleges want to see four years of language IN HIGH SCHOOL. If that's true, what is the point on kids taking all this in MS. I really wish my kid had just taken 1 year in MS, then took 2 in freshman year, which puts you on track for AP in senior year. My younger one took two years in MS, but hated it and really didn't want to go into Spanish 5 or AP, so dropped it, but it's a huge problem for college admissions.

I think the best option might be just to wait until 8th grade and take 1A/B. 1A itself is a really stupid class -- they don't really learn much.

[Anonymous]

In retrospect, I wish we'd done 1A in 6th and 1B in 7th. Instead, my kid took 1A/1B in 6th, and did pretty well, Then 2A/B in 7th, also did pretty well. Then couldn't take 3 in MS and we couldn't make the HS option work due to family schedules, etc. So now he's in 9th taking 2A/B again. It's an easy A, yes, but he's bored and it seems like such a loss of fun elective time he could have had in middle school.