Anonymous
Post 10/06/2022 08:41     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I took both Spanish and French in high school (Spanish 5 and French 1 in 11th grade) because I loved languages. Can kids not do this now? (In college I double-minored in those languages.) I graduated early so no 12th grade for me; but had I gone I would have only had French II since I exhausted my Spanish classes. My kids are in Spanish dual immersion now at Oakland Terrace ES but I am thinking ahead. We do tons of French and Spanish language tv and children' shows. MCPS is so complicated!


At least at Blair, they have Spanish 5, AP Spanish Lang, and AP Spanish Lit. With Japanese, it's only Japanese 4 and AP Japanese Lang. Not sure how that works since they don't start teaching it until 9th grade so guessing the only way to get to the AP class is to skip levels.


I think there are something like 10 Spanish teachers and 1-2 Japanese teachers. I'm guessing these are very different. If your kid would be more passionate about Japanese, then by all means give it a try. I guess they could go back to Spanish if they found it wasn't what they'd expected.
Anonymous
Post 10/04/2022 18:51     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
In our school the Spanish speaking kids do Spanish for Spanish Speakers. Very few if any go on to AP lit or lang. I monitor the AP tests each year and there are not many native Spanish speakers in there at all.
Anonymous
Post 10/04/2022 18:38     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
Anonymous wrote:I took both Spanish and French in high school (Spanish 5 and French 1 in 11th grade) because I loved languages. Can kids not do this now? (In college I double-minored in those languages.) I graduated early so no 12th grade for me; but had I gone I would have only had French II since I exhausted my Spanish classes. My kids are in Spanish dual immersion now at Oakland Terrace ES but I am thinking ahead. We do tons of French and Spanish language tv and children' shows. MCPS is so complicated!


At least at Blair, they have Spanish 5, AP Spanish Lang, and AP Spanish Lit. With Japanese, it's only Japanese 4 and AP Japanese Lang. Not sure how that works since they don't start teaching it until 9th grade so guessing the only way to get to the AP class is to skip levels.
Anonymous
Post 10/04/2022 18:20     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
I took both Spanish and French in high school (Spanish 5 and French 1 in 11th grade) because I loved languages. Can kids not do this now? (In college I double-minored in those languages.) I graduated early so no 12th grade for me; but had I gone I would have only had French II since I exhausted my Spanish classes. My kids are in Spanish dual immersion now at Oakland Terrace ES but I am thinking ahead. We do tons of French and Spanish language tv and children' shows. MCPS is so complicated!
Anonymous
Post 10/04/2022 15:23     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
I have always found Spanish teachers to be overly demanding. They forget that to most kids Spanish is a foreign language and will always be a foreign language to them. Put kids in the Spanish classes who already speak Spanish and it adds to the pressure on kids who don’t know the language or feel very uncomfortable.
Anonymous
Post 10/04/2022 08:27     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I’ve had two kids take Spanish at Blair and they’ve despised every teacher they’ve ever had except one. I know the Japanese teacher through a non-Blair connection and can’t speak to teaching ability, but he’s a very nice person.


My DC isn't at Blair, but their non-honors Spanish 2 class seems to take a lot more time than AP Physics. Not sure if it's just this teacher or their program, but non-honors classes shouldn't require so much work. I guess at Blair, there are close to a dozen Spanish teachers, so your mileage may vary. With Japanese with a few classes, at least there are just one or two teachers, so you should be able to find out if their expectations are realistic...


It would be nice to know how world languages play out at Blair. Is Spanish 1 similar in difficulty to French 1 or Japanese 1? Is Hon Spanish 3 comparable to other Hon world languages?

DC is in the magnet, and their Hon Spanish 4 class is harder than any AP. They don't mind hard work but agree it should be in line with course designation so they can reliably plan out their future schedule and courseload.
Anonymous
Post 10/03/2022 16:26     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
Anonymous wrote:I heard there's a world lang class on Graphic Novels and Anime?

easiest way to engage kids in japanese?
Anonymous
Post 10/03/2022 14:10     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
I heard there's a world lang class on Graphic Novels and Anime?
Anonymous
Post 10/03/2022 12:54     Subject: Re:Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
Disheartening to hear about the Spanish teachers at Blair
Anonymous
Post 10/03/2022 12:06     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
Anonymous wrote:I’ve had two kids take Spanish at Blair and they’ve despised every teacher they’ve ever had except one. I know the Japanese teacher through a non-Blair connection and can’t speak to teaching ability, but he’s a very nice person.


My DC isn't at Blair, but their non-honors Spanish 2 class seems to take a lot more time than AP Physics. Not sure if it's just this teacher or their program, but non-honors classes shouldn't require so much work. I guess at Blair, there are close to a dozen Spanish teachers, so your mileage may vary. With Japanese with a few classes, at least there are just one or two teachers, so you should be able to find out if their expectations are realistic...
Anonymous
Post 10/03/2022 10:29     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
I’ve had two kids take Spanish at Blair and they’ve despised every teacher they’ve ever had except one. I know the Japanese teacher through a non-Blair connection and can’t speak to teaching ability, but he’s a very nice person.
Anonymous
Post 10/02/2022 21:07     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Can’t speak to Blair but I switched from my middle school language (French) when I had the option to take Japanese in high school. Also a STEM kid. I actually found Japanese easier — it’s a more organized language imo and people expect you to struggle. And genuine interest in the cultural aspect of language learning does help. Language was always my worst grade but I still survived and keep up my Japanese to this day.


DC really loves anime and all things Japanese so is very interested in the culture. I'm a little concerned because the foreign service rates it as one of the hardest languages to learn and the sheer size of the alphabets, but if it's comparable to other honors courses in rigor that's fine.


It probably depends on what they struggle with in Spanish. I’m the PP who found Japanese a lot easier than French and I think it’s because French grammar never seemed to make any sense to me. It’s just like English (which also makes no sense!) until suddenly it’s not and as soon as you think you learn a rule it turns out half the verbs you use are exceptions. Japanese vocabulary has fewer cognates with English and the grammar is very different but once you learn a rule there are very few exceptions. Also it lacks a lot of the temporal tenses European languages have (it has formality tenses instead) which made my life a lot less confused because I found the rules less wishy washy. Wanting to “practice” by watching lots of anime even with subtitles on will definitely help with pronunciation and reinforcing the language.


Thanks for the response. I wouldn't say they struggle with Spanish per see they have straight A's in all of their classes, but Spanish is their hardest class. In fact, MS magnet classes are easy by comparison. The best I can tell it's not them but this is true for every kid taking this class. I think they're mostly just more interested in Japanese than Spanish which may also help.
Anonymous
Post 10/02/2022 18:31     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Can’t speak to Blair but I switched from my middle school language (French) when I had the option to take Japanese in high school. Also a STEM kid. I actually found Japanese easier — it’s a more organized language imo and people expect you to struggle. And genuine interest in the cultural aspect of language learning does help. Language was always my worst grade but I still survived and keep up my Japanese to this day.


DC really loves anime and all things Japanese so is very interested in the culture. I'm a little concerned because the foreign service rates it as one of the hardest languages to learn and the sheer size of the alphabets, but if it's comparable to other honors courses in rigor that's fine.


It probably depends on what they struggle with in Spanish. I’m the PP who found Japanese a lot easier than French and I think it’s because French grammar never seemed to make any sense to me. It’s just like English (which also makes no sense!) until suddenly it’s not and as soon as you think you learn a rule it turns out half the verbs you use are exceptions. Japanese vocabulary has fewer cognates with English and the grammar is very different but once you learn a rule there are very few exceptions. Also it lacks a lot of the temporal tenses European languages have (it has formality tenses instead) which made my life a lot less confused because I found the rules less wishy washy. Wanting to “practice” by watching lots of anime even with subtitles on will definitely help with pronunciation and reinforcing the language.
Anonymous
Post 10/02/2022 16:41     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
Anonymous wrote:Can’t speak to Blair but I switched from my middle school language (French) when I had the option to take Japanese in high school. Also a STEM kid. I actually found Japanese easier — it’s a more organized language imo and people expect you to struggle. And genuine interest in the cultural aspect of language learning does help. Language was always my worst grade but I still survived and keep up my Japanese to this day.


DC really loves anime and all things Japanese so is very interested in the culture. I'm a little concerned because the foreign service rates it as one of the hardest languages to learn and the sheer size of the alphabets, but if it's comparable to other honors courses in rigor that's fine.
Anonymous
Post 10/02/2022 15:36     Subject: Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?
Can’t speak to Blair but I switched from my middle school language (French) when I had the option to take Japanese in high school. Also a STEM kid. I actually found Japanese easier — it’s a more organized language imo and people expect you to struggle. And genuine interest in the cultural aspect of language learning does help. Language was always my worst grade but I still survived and keep up my Japanese to this day.