The Homeschool Minute ~ Hal & Melanie Young – Should I Teach a Foreign Language?

Raising Real Men    

Hal & Melanie Young, RaisingRealMen.com

Teaching a foreign language is pretty intimidating. Melanie remembers taking three years of French in high school, but “Bonjour!” is about all she remembers now. We’ve traveled a lot and have family overseas, so we wanted our children to not only study other languages, but remember them. You’ve got a lot of options, though. How do you decide?

No Foreign Language. This one is a non-starter if there’s any chance your student will go on to college. Most colleges expect two to three years foreign language study.

Classical Languages like Latin or Greek. If you don’t want to have to speak it, but you want something academically rigorous, these are a good choice. Some kids, like our first, just take to them, especially Latin, with its regular and logical grammar.

Traditional Foreign Languages like French or Spanish. That’s pretty much what was available when we were in school and there are still a lot of resources out there for teaching these. If you decide to go with one of these, we’d tip toward Spanish, since that’s the second most common language spoken in many states these days. That could eventually open up work as a translator.

Unusual Languages such as Dutch or Norwegian. These sound like a lot of fun, but you’re going to have a hard time finding resources to use–or a place to use it.

Languages with a Non-Latin Alphabet such as Chinese, Arabic, or Russian. These definitely seem to be the hardest, but don’t pass over them too lightly. Employment prospects for those who speak those languages are great–and some kids don’t have the struggle with them you might expect. One of our sons who has dyslexia found Chinese script no more confusing than English! He’s actually done very well with it.

So, yes, we’d say you ought to teach a foreign language. Don’t worry about it, though. There are lots and lots of great, easy to use resources out there: software, recordings, web apps, phone apps, tutors, co-ops, language schools, podcasts, videos, DVDs, immersion, and more. Really, this is something you can do. What is surprising is how some of our children will just run with it! How fun to see (or hear!).

Your friends,

Hal & Melanie Young

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