Don't start over. A B is not struggling. If she wants an A, get her a good tutor, preferably a current or retired teacher who can prep her for the tests, pals . . . . My daughter was initially disappointed with her first quarter grades in both Spanish 2 and 3. She made appointments with her teachers and gave a bit more effort. Went on to take AP Spanish senior year and is a Spanish minor in college.

My son took four years of h.s. Spanish and three years in college. He could barely speak the language. Six months in Panama? He speaks like a native. Stick with one.

Anonymous wrote:My son struggled with Spanish. Some people recommended he try Latin. He ended up just stopping after 2 years of Spanish. He was a good student but not going for Liberal Arts and not a very top school. He had plenty of college choices. We just decided he would focus on his strengths rather than being miserable over Spanish..and lowering his GPA.

I struggled with French, then *also* struggled with Latin. Begged to be let out of my school's language requirement because I just could not learn these languages. Got into Oberlin, then Columbia Law School. Life will go on for your kid, too, I imagine.

Sure, it's better to learn one language. But I also think if you're dumb in that way, you're dumb in that way, and learn to compensate by being good at other things - and keeping your expectations in check.

If you care more about college than right now, she should probably continue with Spanish. As other PP's have pointed out, colleges all have different requirements, so 2+2 will in no way prevent her from going to college. It just may make some colleges more of a reach.

The concern right now for me would be that she's working hard and not seeing the pay off. Do you know why? Is it something that tutoring or something like an immersion summer camp might help? One thing I noticed when my DD was in middle school was that she'd study with her vocab right in front of her. That's going to help her memorize, but it doesn't test if she has it memorized. I showed her the difference by having her turn over her vocab sheet, and suddenly the vocab she thought she'd memorized she really only knew half of. I got her into the habit of making flash cards and that's helped her dramatically. It's possible it's just a small thing in her study habits that needs to be tweaked to make her studying more effective.

All that said, my DD started latin in HS and loves it. The stress of having to talk isn't there. And she's coming home and saying how now that she's learned something in latin, she understands what she was meant to be doing in her modern foreign language. Some of this is that the study habits she learned with her modern foreign language, she's used from the very beginning with latin, but a lot of it is just that she just really enjoys the language.

Depends on the kid. I would not force a kid who was floundering in Spanish 2 to take 2 more year of Spanish. I doubt that her teacher would recommend that, either.

I would do 2 years of Spanish and 2 years of French.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would have her switch - she can decide later how many years of the new language she wants to take based on her goals at that time.

My DC switched from Spanish to German after a pretty bad Spanish 1 teacher and a truly incompetent Spanish 2 teacher (he assigned grades arbitrarily, didn't assign homework, and didn't even bother with PALS testing half of the time). He liked my DC and gave her an A- but there was no Spanish happening. She found German to be very easy and fun and the teacher was her favorite in high school. She didn't need any foreign language classes for her major in college.

Our kids must go to the same high school. My DC did the same thing!

I was just thinking that!!!!

Anonymous wrote:I would have her switch - she can decide later how many years of the new language she wants to take based on her goals at that time.

My DC switched from Spanish to German after a pretty bad Spanish 1 teacher and a truly incompetent Spanish 2 teacher (he assigned grades arbitrarily, didn't assign homework, and didn't even bother with PALS testing half of the time). He liked my DC and gave her an A- but there was no Spanish happening. She found German to be very easy and fun and the teacher was her favorite in high school. She didn't need any foreign language classes for her major in college.

Our kids must go to the same high school. My DC did the same thing!

Anonymous wrote:My DC did 3 years of Latin and then decided he wanted to try a spoken language and did 2 years of that. (He skipped language his Senior year.) While not HYPS, he did get into some fairly competitive colleges and isn't a STEM major. I think the general rule at a lot of these places is that they "like" to see 4+ years of the same language as it shows rigor. But, there are other ways to demonstrate rigor and outside the very top schools no one factor is going to get you denied.

+1. Many, many kids at TJ bail after Language 3. There are too many extra classes they need to get in. A lot of kids bail after Spanish II and do III in summer school. It does not hurt college admissions because they are taking post- APs instead.

" If she can't get Spanish, she's not going to get another language. There's no language easier than Spanish. Maybe she needs to repeat or get a one on one tutor or go to Mexico for some immersion speech therapy.

It isn't true she won't get another language, even though you are right that Spanish is pretty easy. At some schools, the teachers in one language are better than others. Latin appeals to a different kid - and especially those who don't really care about speaking.

My kid switched to a really hard language and did WAAAAAY better than he did in Spanish. A bit of maturity and better teaching meant that he got the fundamentals right with this language in a way that never happened with Spanish.

OP, you do need to think about why she's struggling, though. At least for now, I recommend a tutor to sort these things through. Also, can you help drill her on vocab?"

There are lots of subtleties that come into play. First how is she doing in English? Math?

Some kids are naturals at learning how to study and some need lots of help. The answer isn't always the same for every subject.

Some that I know who studied the hardest languages were successful in the beginning because the early steps were small and they built up slowly.

Others who struggled with easier languages had little trouble reading and even speaking but spelling was a huge issue.

Talk to the teacher and see get a better understanding of where DD stands in each part.

My guess is that she would be better served by retaking Spanish 2 to reinforce basics rather than starting over.

I would have her switch - she can decide later how many years of the new language she wants to take based on her goals at that time.

My DC switched from Spanish to German after a pretty bad Spanish 1 teacher and a truly incompetent Spanish 2 teacher (he assigned grades arbitrarily, didn't assign homework, and didn't even bother with PALS testing half of the time). He liked my DC and gave her an A- but there was no Spanish happening. She found German to be very easy and fun and the teacher was her favorite in high school. She didn't need any foreign language classes for her major in college.

Anonymous wrote:If she can't get Spanish, she's not going to get another language. There's no language easier than Spanish. Maybe she needs to repeat or get a one on one tutor or go to Mexico for some immersion speech therapy.

It isn't true she won't get another language, even though you are right that Spanish is pretty easy. At some schools, the teachers in one language are better than others. Latin appeals to a different kid - and especially those who don't really care about speaking.

My kid switched to a really hard language and did WAAAAAY better than he did in Spanish. A bit of maturity and better teaching meant that he got the fundamentals right with this language in a way that never happened with Spanish.

OP, you do need to think about why she's struggling, though. At least for now, I recommend a tutor to sort these things through. Also, can you help drill her on vocab?

If she is floundering, it really doesn't matter whether 2/2 or 4/1 is better in the abstract because two more years of crappy grades is best avoided.

Cut your losses and move on to a new language through most of high school. But choose Latin instead of ASL. ASL will fade in value. Deaf people write in English in the US, so unless you are going into a helping profession, you won't need ASL.

My DC did 3 years of Latin and then decided he wanted to try a spoken language and did 2 years of that. (He skipped language his Senior year.) While not HYPS, he did get into some fairly competitive colleges and isn't a STEM major. I think the general rule at a lot of these places is that they "like" to see 4+ years of the same language as it shows rigor. But, there are other ways to demonstrate rigor and outside the very top schools no one factor is going to get you denied.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meh, my Senior is applying to colleges right now. If going for s STEM degree, then generally, they don’t care about the depth of 4 years.

Definitely not true with top-flight engineering programs at elite universities. They want to see four years of a foreign language.

Which ones are you talking about? You don't need to go to an Ivy for a "top-flight" engineering school. In fact, the best engineering schools are at state publics.

Caltech doesn't care about 4 years of a language: http://admissions.divisions.caltech.edu/apply/first-yearfreshman-applicants/academic-preparation-requirements

Neither does Berkeley: http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/requirements/index.html

Carnegie Mellon? 2 years is fine: https://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/academic-requirements

MIT? 2 years is cool: https://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/highschool/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meh, my Senior is applying to colleges right now. If going for s STEM degree, then generally, they don’t care about the depth of 4 years.

Definitely not true with top-flight engineering programs at elite universities. They want to see four years of a foreign language.

Which ones are you talking about? You don't need to go to an Ivy for a "top-flight" engineering school. In fact, the best engineering schools are at state publics.