Reply to Options for Language Instruction after DCPS Cuts?

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Reply to "Options for Language Instruction after DCPS Cuts?"

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[quote=Anonymous]I think that any one who thinks that middle and high school language programs are going to get your kid a job or fluency are misjudging.

I think a good MS/HS language program introduces kids to a foreign language and gets them hooked on language learning, but you can seriously learn as much Spanish or French in a year on Duolingo as you can in four years of high school. Even AP Spanish is nowwhere near fluency.

The people I know who became bi or tri-lingual through education (as opposed to having cultural or family backgrounds) did it through college and grad school, and almost exclusively through immersion study abroad experiences. Long ago I attended a high school that sent sophomores to France and Spain for a year—almost all of the people who did the program live overseas and speak at least three languages. But that's not a systemic way.

As long as a school HAS a language program and as long as the teachers are encouraging and engaging, I don't think it really matters the extent of the language taught or the actual language being taught. I'd rather my kid pick up a smattering but go off to college with an interest in taking serious language courses, doing study abroad, etc. than go to a MS because it has the most elaborate set of foreign languages on offer.[/quote]

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