Has anyone's child become fluent in a language not spoken at home exclusively by learning in middle or high school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, but they went to a foreign language immersion private school since kindergarten. There’s also a foreign language public immersion school in our city.

There’s usually a lottery to get into one of them they are so popular. I had French lessons with a handful of students handpicked in elementary school. Useless unless the student has a real ear for language, kind of like musical prodigies. It’s immersion or it doesn’t work for the average student. What I didn’t understand about one of the Spanish immersion elementary schools is 50% of them were primary Spanish speakers. That was just plain dumb when the slots were so limited.

Excluding Spanish speakers from Spanish immersion is not only dumb but is also unbelievably unjust.

The kids from Spanish speaking families benefit the most from Spanish immersion because it gives them an opportunity to retain their heritage language, something that is not a given for them, believe it or not. It is not just an extra skill for them it is a connection to their families and communities. To deny this to them because you think only rich White kids deserve language immersion is gross and ridiculous.

Completely agree. I’m not for allowing kids who are struggling to learn English to use Spanish immersion to get around learning English—I think that it disadvantages them long term, and I know people here who did not learn English in high school and now basically can’t work at anything other than janitorial work, construction, or nannying. But there are lots of families like mine in which the kids fully understand Spanish but resist speaking the minority language and would benefit from more explicit instruction and use outside the home.

[Anonymous]

I have worked as a highly-skilled, public facing professional for decades (think lawyer, M.D., college professor). In several decades working in the U.S., I have met 2 native born Americans who are fluent in a foreign language and were not heritage learners. However, almost everyone claims that their DC is fluent in some foreign language. So you would understand my skepticism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have worked as a highly-skilled, public facing professional for decades (think lawyer, M.D., college professor). In several decades working in the U.S., I have met 2 native born Americans who are fluent in a foreign language and were not heritage learners. However, almost everyone claims that their DC is fluent in some foreign language. So you would understand my skepticism.

Agree that Americans are quite bad at assessing foreign language proficiency. That said, I’ve met quite a few more that have managed to actually develop some degree of fluency (let’s say B2 level and above). But usually it involved living elsewhere for a period of time, or otherwise a significant amount of time and effort. I think this latter part is what Americans often fail to understand—developing fluency will take hundreds of hours of consistent, concentrated effort, not 10 minutes a day on Duolingo or twice a week for 45 minutes each at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have worked as a highly-skilled, public facing professional for decades (think lawyer, M.D., college professor). In several decades working in the U.S., I have met 2 native born Americans who are fluent in a foreign language and were not heritage learners. However, almost everyone claims that their DC is fluent in some foreign language. So you would understand my skepticism.

Agree that Americans are quite bad at assessing foreign language proficiency. That said, I’ve met quite a few more that have managed to actually develop some degree of fluency (let’s say B2 level and above). But usually it involved living elsewhere for a period of time, or otherwise a significant amount of time and effort. I think this latter part is what Americans often fail to understand—developing fluency will take hundreds of hours of consistent, concentrated effort, not 10 minutes a day on Duolingo or twice a week for 45 minutes each at school.

This is correct. I spent a year abroad learning a very difficult foreign language. There’s a very small community of people in the United States who actually speak this language as a non-native language, and all of us lived in Hungary for at least a year. I wouldn’t call myself totally fluent, but I tested at a B2 level years ago and since then my listening and reading comprehension have improved significantly through radio and online news. It’s certainly enough to easily understand and use it in my work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have worked as a highly-skilled, public facing professional for decades (think lawyer, M.D., college professor). In several decades working in the U.S., I have met 2 native born Americans who are fluent in a foreign language and were not heritage learners. However, almost everyone claims that their DC is fluent in some foreign language. So you would understand my skepticism.

Agree. I often meet people who claim they (their son/daughter/insert someone) is fluent in German. Nope. I met a Bowdoin Professor of German who completely blew me away with her German. I thought she was a native speaker—no discernible accent. She did not learn German a child, but did live in Germany for years and worked hard at her pronunciation, etc. She’s the only one I ever met.

[Anonymous]

I had great jr high and high school Spanish teachers, native speakers from Spain. We read books in class like Don Quixote and El Lazarillo de Tormes. I still can read and understand spoken Spanish but no longer can converse easily especially verb tenses.

[Anonymous]

I only became fluent through studying abroad, so I am going to encourage my children to do that (in high school or through a summer program or gap year living with a family, it's completely useless to do it in college when you're just hanging out with the other American students).

[Anonymous]

This nation is doing its children a great disservice by not starting foreign language until middle school. Our FCPS had foreign language in elementary school, but learning Spanish one day a week is basically like not learning any Spanish at all. Also, I'm going to encourage my kids NOT to take Spanish in middle and high school because it is REALLY HARD. The native speakers take it as (1) an easy A and (2) to actually learn how to write and speak properly in their native language so non-native speakers are at a huge disadvantage.

And don't yell at me about #2, I'm a native speaker of a foreign language and could not write my parents a letter or note, my spelling and written grammar are horrible.

[Anonymous]

My kids are at a k-12, and both of my high schoolers were fluent by the end of 10th grade. One started the language in 4th (but it wasn’t serious until 7th), and one started in 7th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This nation is doing its children a great disservice by not starting foreign language until middle school. Our FCPS had foreign language in elementary school, but learning Spanish one day a week is basically like not learning any Spanish at all. Also, I'm going to encourage my kids NOT to take Spanish in middle and high school because it is REALLY HARD. The native speakers take it as (1) an easy A and (2) to actually learn how to write and speak properly in their native language so non-native speakers are at a huge disadvantage.

And don't yell at me about #2, I'm a native speaker of a foreign language and could not write my parents a letter or note, my spelling and written grammar are horrible.

What? Kids are not graded on a curve in MS and HS Spanish. Your non-native speakers would only benefit from being in classes with native speakers because it would mean the average level of Spanish spoken in class would be higher, and since immersion is the best way to learn, and this would offer a more immersive experience where your kids could practice their Spanish with native speakers, this would be a wonderful boon for them.

Anyway, most countries don't start daily foreign language for students until middle school. Kids in the EU for instance mostly do not start taking English seriously until they are 11 or 12. Yet many kids in the EU ultimately become fluent or close to fluent in English. Why? Because they they continue to study it into college and beyond, travel and work in English speaking countries, and work in fields where they will encounter English speakers (whether native English speakers or other non-native speakers who are using English as the "universal" language of whatever industry it is). Many kids in the EU get jobs in the tourism industry as teens or in their 20s and this is a great way to practice English language skills without even having to travel.

So you are simply incorrect that the best way to learn a foreign language is to learn it from an early age. Many people don't. The problem in the US is not that foreign language instruction starts too late, it's that most kids don't keep it up through and past high school, and there are too few opportunities in the US to consistently practice a foreign language, because English is so dominant and even non-native speakers are more interested in practicing their English than speaking their native language to Americans trying to develop their skills in Spanish, French, Mandarin or whatever. English speakers are kind of victims of the success of their native language, which reduces opportunities and incentives for developing additional language skills. The problem does not lie in the education system or our academic approach to foreign language, which is pretty standard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This nation is doing its children a great disservice by not starting foreign language until middle school. Our FCPS had foreign language in elementary school, but learning Spanish one day a week is basically like not learning any Spanish at all. Also, I'm going to encourage my kids NOT to take Spanish in middle and high school because it is REALLY HARD. The native speakers take it as (1) an easy A and (2) to actually learn how to write and speak properly in their native language so non-native speakers are at a huge disadvantage.

And don't yell at me about #2, I'm a native speaker of a foreign language and could not write my parents a letter or note, my spelling and written grammar are horrible.

What? Kids are not graded on a curve in MS and HS Spanish. Your non-native speakers would only benefit from being in classes with native speakers because it would mean the average level of Spanish spoken in class would be higher, and since immersion is the best way to learn, and this would offer a more immersive experience where your kids could practice their Spanish with native speakers, this would be a wonderful boon for them.

Anyway, most countries don't start daily foreign language for students until middle school. Kids in the EU for instance mostly do not start taking English seriously until they are 11 or 12. Yet many kids in the EU ultimately become fluent or close to fluent in English. Why? Because they they continue to study it into college and beyond, travel and work in English speaking countries, and work in fields where they will encounter English speakers (whether native English speakers or other non-native speakers who are using English as the "universal" language of whatever industry it is). Many kids in the EU get jobs in the tourism industry as teens or in their 20s and this is a great way to practice English language skills without even having to travel.

So you are simply incorrect that the best way to learn a foreign language is to learn it from an early age. Many people don't. The problem in the US is not that foreign language instruction starts too late, it's that most kids don't keep it up through and past high school, and there are too few opportunities in the US to consistently practice a foreign language, because English is so dominant and even non-native speakers are more interested in practicing their English than speaking their native language to Americans trying to develop their skills in Spanish, French, Mandarin or whatever. English speakers are kind of victims of the success of their native language, which reduces opportunities and incentives for developing additional language skills. The problem does not lie in the education system or our academic approach to foreign language, which is pretty standard.

DP. I don’t disagree with everything you say, but this part isn’t quite right. You can’t say someone is incorrect about the best way to learn a foreign language just because of how it is done in the EU or elsewhere. There is a large body of research that shows that the brain’s ability to acquire a language and its phonology is quite strong up until 18 or 19. Losing out on many of those years and waiting until your 20s is not prohibitive for learning a language, but it certainly isn’t the best approach.

[Anonymous]

It would actually be quite easy to be one of the top foreign language students in high school if a kid would find a language exchange partner online and practice for a few hours a week, and read foreign news for a couple hours a week. Mind you the kid would still be far from fluent, but much more competent than his or her classmates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Foreign language instruction in the US is generally terrible. I was very surprised that my niece (who does not speak English as a native language and takes it in school) could speak as well as she does with my daughter (who completely understands Spanish but is resistant to actually speaking in it). Very rare that a 9-year-old in the US would have any level of foreign language ability.

lol no it’s not

I’m talking about non-native ability. Obviously there are plenty of bilingual children. But rare that a child would learn a language in school to this extent.

My DS is in spanish immersion charter in DC since K. By end of 5th grade at 10, he tested intermediate on the STAMP test which measures not only understanding but also reading, speaking, writing. We do not speak any spanish.

Overall, not many immersion schools in US but there are some and more opening I think.

I agree that the U.S. does not value or place as much importance on being bilingual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, but they went to a foreign language immersion private school since kindergarten. There’s also a foreign language public immersion school in our city.

There’s usually a lottery to get into one of them they are so popular. I had French lessons with a handful of students handpicked in elementary school. Useless unless the student has a real ear for language, kind of like musical prodigies. It’s immersion or it doesn’t work for the average student. What I didn’t understand about one of the Spanish immersion elementary schools is 50% of them were primary Spanish speakers. That was just plain dumb when the slots were so limited.

Excluding Spanish speakers from Spanish immersion is not only dumb but is also unbelievably unjust.

The kids from Spanish speaking families benefit the most from Spanish immersion because it gives them an opportunity to retain their heritage language, something that is not a given for them, believe it or not. It is not just an extra skill for them it is a connection to their families and communities. To deny this to them because you think only rich White kids deserve language immersion is gross and ridiculous.

Completely agree. I’m not for allowing kids who are struggling to learn English to use Spanish immersion to get around learning English—I think that it disadvantages them long term, and I know people here who did not learn English in high school and now basically can’t work at anything other than janitorial work, construction, or nannying. But there are lots of families like mine in which the kids fully understand Spanish but resist speaking the minority language and would benefit from more explicit instruction and use outside the home.

That’s not the school’s responsibility to give Spanish speakers extra help in their native language because they refuse to use it at home. Plus there are dozens of different languages in the city schools not just Spanish speaking children. It’s also not just the Spanish speaking kids who don’t like to speak the foreign language. You hear it all the time, the mother speaks to her child in Farsi and the child answers in English. Many parents came to the US as adults and have never been able to learn English, whether from lack of trying or difficulty.

If we want to start bilingualism in this country we need to fully immerse students whose parents are English speaking and there are not any family members who speak another language.

[Anonymous]

Yes, but it was a school with an unusually strong German language program - and the school had an exchange program with an academic HS in Germany.

German students visited the US for a month around Easter. American students visited Germany for a month in July. Students learned the German in depth at school, but the fluency usually came during the summer trip after Junior year to Germany.