Thoughts about forgien language

I am not a teacher, however, my choices would be in this order, spanish, german then maybe french. I took spanish for one semester in 7th grade and german in high school.This was over 20 years ago.I live in germany. We visited spain this past summer and I could still read some of the signs and recognize words. In german, a lot of the nouns look like english words(some are, like das computer,das auto). One thing about german also is that vowel combos always sound the same every time you see them, there are no silent letters, all action verbs are conjugated the same. It would depend on the teacher, also accommodations needed. On a personal note, I cannot for some reason make the sounds required to speak french, and I can’t read it at all. We took a guided tour to france :o) On a different note however, my son’s middle school took out the german choice for electives for him. I didn’t think he would be successful if his grade was going to be based on things he had trouble with in english, like spelling. My other son is in elementary, they have a class called host nation, he does fine in it, but doesn’t have difficulty with language. Maybe if you discuss this with the high school counselor and possibly the language teachers they can give you a better idea also, I mean before it is time to actually make a decision. Nothing wrong with going in a little early.

Lisa,

In the last day or two, on another thread the point was made that a child needs to have a very good foundation in his native language before attempting a foreign language. Our high schools (in NC) advise students to take foreign languages their junior and senior years so they will retain it for college. I might consider at least waiting until tenth grade so you can see how he does with the other academics first.

I have always understood that Spanish was the best choice. I did have an LD student take Spanish last year and he did fine, but his reading and written language delays were very minimal.

Janis

Traditionally people say Spanish if his choices are those three you mentioned. But I’d advise this. Go for the best, most understanding teacher. Put your ear to the ground on what other parents and students say about these three teachers and figure out which teacher will be the best match for your son.

Good luck.

I was a high school Spanish teacher for several years. I would
suggest Spanish for your child. There are a lot of words that are very
similar to English. He will probably be able to guess their meaning.
I also taught junior high/high school English for many years.
A child really needs a solid foundation in English before attempting a
foreign language. Unless your child is very motivated to take a foreign
language in 9th grade and knows he will really have to study, he
probably should wait. I agree with the post above that 11th or 12th
grade is best, because then you go straight to college without
“losing” as much of what you learned.

My 9 year old wants very much to learn Spanish and I mentioned this to a teacher who teaches Spanish kids English she said teaching the younger kids is much easier than waiting until they are older.

I think kids should have the opportunity to take foreign language in elementary school. That would give time to see if they are getting it or not.

Does your son’s school offer American Sign Language as a foreign language option? More and more schools are offering it, and many colleges now accept it as a foreign language credit. I teach ASL in a public high school and I have several learning disabled students taking my class. They still struggle with learning a new language, but since this is not a written language they may not have as much difficulty with it as they might with the spoken languages.

Lynne

Thanks for all the suggestions, we will keep in mind as the time gets closer.

My son is a dyslexic - the slingerland tutor who first worked with him also was an Italian teacher with a dyslexic child. She said that Italian and Spanish are good languages for dyslexic kids because they are phonetically consistent - in fact I’ve read articles that state that there is much less dyslexia with Italian and Spanish speaking children. She felt that foreign languages could be taught to children using the same multisensory techniques she used as a slingerland tutor .

In her classes kids would cook, play board games, act, sing - whatever it took to keep them involved.

My son wanted to learn French - not a good language for dyslexics because of all the irregular verbs, spelling rules, etc.(like English). Nonetheless, I consider motivation a strong part of the success package so I have a French tutor working with both of us. (We homeschool). The teacher is great - we aren’t trying to match anybody’s pace but our own (I’m learning, too). She finds out my son’s interests and incorporates them into the lesson. Because we set the pace, we can slow down and repeat before reaching the frustration level.

If you can find a teacher who is flexible and loves working with different learning styles - they exist - I think your son could be successful.

My 7th grade son who has tremendous difficulty with reading and all language processing, does very well in Spanish and he likes it. I would not recommend French or German because these languages have different phonemes that English. Spanish, with a few exeptions, is phonetically about the same - not all the letters make the same sounds, but all the sounds are familiar.

I say let him give it a try.