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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No. My daughter will take AP Spanish Lang next year, and despite straight As, is nowhere near fluent or bilingual, even though we're French and entirely fluent in that language.

I learned German and Spanish at school in France. I was never fluent. This is not an "issue", it's normal. It happens to all kids learning foreign languages the world over. You would need an immersive environment to be entirely fluent and bilingual and that's not given to most people. The only reason I ended up fluent in English is that I lived in the UK from 8 to 12 years old and upon my return to France, was placed in an international school with half of my classes in English.

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I agree with all this but it does seem like a lot of foreign language instruction here is just awful.  I had Spanish teachers who were both native speakers and trained educators.  In public school.  My kids have had at least 9 different Spanish teachers at McPS and only one was really good.  (A second was a good teacher but had such an awful accent.). At least one of them spoke almost no Spanish and another speaks a little Spanish but not nearly enough to teach at the level she is teaching — my kids repeatedly sees her using good translate in class to translate words she is supposed to be teaching.  There was another that never showed up to class and then just quit mid year to move to another state.  Especially in MS, it seems like the Spanish teachers are some of the worst teachers in the system.

I could understand this a little for a rare language but Maryland is full of native Spanish speakers, many of whom are very educated.  There should be a quick certificate program for native speakers to be trained to teach.  [/quote]

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