6th Grade: Take a language or no?

[Anonymous]

My son is moving from a private school to MCPS 6th grade. He has taken about 5 years of Spanish already but you'd hardly know it. I need to pick his courses for the fall and I understand he can choose to take a language or not, but if he does take Spanish, his grade will appear on his high school transcript (!!). So, since I have no idea if he will do well in any of his classes this fall, do I enroll him in Spanish and hope his 5+ years of Spanish help him get a decent grade or wait until 7th grade, at which point he'll probably have forgotten a lot of what he learned? I'm told taking a language will involve a lot more homework. I'm also concerned about the transition from a progressive private that had almost no homework and no consequences to MCPS 6th grade where he'll finally get actual grades and take tests. Has anyone been there, done that and have some advice?
Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

No language.

[Anonymous]

It is my understanding that middle school language courses count towards high school GPA so I'd be inclined to skip.

[Anonymous]

If it 1A (one year split across two) then I say OK. If it the full year and he'd be in spanish 2 next year - no way.

[Anonymous]

We advised our kids to take the hardest classes they thought they could still get A's in if there were several options... so I would advise only taking a language in middle school if the student already has some exposure to the language and seems to take to it well.

Given your concerns about your son's grasp of the language, I would suggest either he take Spanish 1A if you are prepared to either help him or get him a tutor if needed, or he postpone taking a language until 7th or 8th grade and keep up/improve his Spanish skills through informal practice at home in the meantime.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the responses. Very helpful.

[Anonymous]

After 5 years, I would think he would be quite solidly prepared to take 1a which starts at the very beginning. 1a is a 1/2 year HS class taught over the whole year. It goes very slowly. I would do that rather than losing whatever skills he has.

[Anonymous]

I'd suggest waiting until 7th grade to do 1A. And then do 1B in 8th grade, and 2 in 9th grade.

Another option would be starting 1A in 6th grade, which means 2 in 8th grade.

How many years do you think he'd take? All the way to Spanish 6? Or stopping after Spanish 3 or 4? If stopping earlier, I'd probably start in 7th grade.

[Anonymous]

We are new to MCPS - why do middle school grades appear on a HS transcript? That seems ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are new to MCPS - why do middle school grades appear on a HS transcript? That seems ridiculous.

If you are taking a high school class in middle school (only options are foreign language and some math courses) you will receive high school credit for them and they will count toward graduation. Therefore the grades will count as well.

If you don't wish the grades to count, don't have your child take those classes, but accept that he/she may not be on the so-called accelerated track.

[Anonymous]

So that if a college wants (for example) 2 years of a language, the classes taken before HS will count. They are the same course so you might as well get credit.

[Anonymous]

OP,
How is your DS at spelling in English?
If he is a good speller, taking 1A as a 6th grader will be no problem.
It won't really even involve homework, it moves pretty slowly.

Level 3 language is where things get hard so you want to put that off until high school so 1B in 7th grade.

[Anonymous]

If he takes AB in 6th and doesn't do well he can always take AB again in 7th grade and the 6th grade grade gets wiped out. I've heard the A only moves so slow that many kids tune out they are so bored especially one with some past experience in the language

[Anonymous]

Let me be a different voice here -- you would have DS not take a language because of grades on his transcript? You value grades more than education itself? Yikes.

Let me channel my inner Dennis Miller and go off on a bit of a rant here (trigger warning, I'm about to get unnecessarily harsh here to make a well-intentioned point) ...

Learning a foreign language enriches the student in many ways that transcend grades. Had my parents taken that same attitude, and not encouraged me to take a foreign language in 7th grade in my public middle school, then I would not have:

(i) opened my eyes to the world, eventually becoming fluent in multiple languages;
(ii) gotten the full scholarship (100% free ride) to college; and
(iii) gotten the jobs I did after college and business school.

My annual income is now in the low 7 figures, which would certainly not be the case had I not taken a foreign language in 7th grade. These are the choices that separate the high-earners in Cleveland Park from the GS-15s in Herndon.

But hey, by all means let junior take basket-weaving for the "A". Maybe my kids can hire him some day.

Ok, Dennis Miller off.

Good luck with your decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me be a different voice here -- you would have DS not take a language because of grades on his transcript? You value grades more than education itself? Yikes.

Let me channel my inner Dennis Miller and go off on a bit of a rant here (trigger warning, I'm about to get unnecessarily harsh here to make a well-intentioned point) ...

Learning a foreign language enriches the student in many ways that transcend grades. Had my parents taken that same attitude, and not encouraged me to take a foreign language in 7th grade in my public middle school, then I would not have:

(i) opened my eyes to the world, eventually becoming fluent in multiple languages;
(ii) gotten the full scholarship (100% free ride) to college; and
(iii) gotten the jobs I did after college and business school.

My annual income is now in the low 7 figures, which would certainly not be the case had I not taken a foreign language in 7th grade. These are the choices that separate the high-earners in Cleveland Park from the GS-15s in Herndon.

But hey, by all means let junior take basket-weaving for the "A". Maybe my kids can hire him some day.

Ok, Dennis Miller off.

Good luck with your decision.

This is 100% accurate. Everyone saw the new report, right? That the way MOCO is going to close the achievement gap is to enforce a foreign language starting from kindergarten on through grade 12. Turns out that's they key to success.