FLES

[Anonymous]

Can anyone comment on the quality of the instruction here? Are the kids differentiated by skill/ability or just grade level? What kind of fluency is obtained? How often is it offered in a week. Sorry to know so little about it. We're at a small private and moving to our local public next year.
Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Instructional quality varies. We had one terrible Spanish instructor (as in screaming at the kids and teaching them very little) and others for French and Mandarin that were fair to excellent. The program itself is a good concept, they just need to screen instructors more carefully.

[Anonymous]

Agree to pp. My child's (2nd grade at that time) spanish teacher was not good at teaching and controllng the class. Towards the end of the course, the classroom was turned into chaos and nobody was learning anything..

[Anonymous]

At our school it is once a week for 1.5 hours after school. I'm not sure what exactly the levels are called but our school basically has Spanish 1, 2, and 3. The kids take each level for a year. My son and my friends' kids came in to these classes without any Spanish knowledge, so I'm not sure what they would do with a kid who wanted to start at a higher level because of prior knowledge. We have liked his teachers and been impressed at what he has learned, but really it's only 1.5 hours a week. I just figure it is good exposure.

[Anonymous]

Oh, I just re-read your question. No fluency is obtained. A child would need much more frequent or intensive language experience for that.

[Anonymous]

We had a terrible Spanish teacher in lower elementary-- I'm hoping it didn't permanently turn my kid off Spanish. I think she actually used a dunce cap.

As best I can tell, they tried to teach it as a immersion class, with no English, which seems unwise for a 6 year who is going once a week or whatever.