Hi friends! I’ve had several questions regarding good foreign language curriculum. Does anyone have something they absolutely love? We’ve tried Rosetta Stone and several years ago we did an online one from PowerSpeak. I don’t feel like either have really made my kiddos fluent. Unfortunately Rosetta Stone doesn’t count for a high school foreign language credit, so we’ll probably have to do something at our options program for HS.
Anyway, wondering what you guys recommend for foreign language?
I’m going to try Living Language next year with my eighth grader. I researched for a long time and was really confused about what to use that would be worthy for actual credit for HS. My mom, who works at the local high school asked the spanish teacher her recommendation and she said to use living language. I found it cheapest on Amazon. It comes with three books, essential, intermediate, and advanced. It comes with 9 audio cds. The set up in the book is good and it tells you when and what track to listen to on the cd. It has worksheets to use within the book as well. It also has a free online practice/review with 4 activities for each chapter in the book for additional practice. I’m planning on doing it with my daughter not having her use it independently.
A friend of mine has her son use Alpha Omega SOS Spanish and he just passed the Spanish Clep exam. She said it was very fast paced. Another pricier option would be Homeschool Spanish Academy. (I think I’m saying that right!) It has live native Spanish speakers teach your children on the computer. (SOS offers French too, and the homeschool academy may offer other languages I’m just not sure as I haven’t used it myself.)
Foreign language is a difficult subject! Especially when you’re looking for a high school worthy program. Looking forward to hearing what everyone has found out there!
Duolingo is a good free online option for supplementing a language program. I think it’s on par with Rosetta Stone, but I personally don’t think it’s worthy of HS credit on its own.
I have been seeing ads for “Middlebury Interactive Languages” in several of the homeschool blog sites.
When I was a high schooler and intently interested in studying foreign languages, Middlebury College had an incredibly good reputation for graduating fluent speakers. Alas, it was in Vermont and I in Wyoming with limited resources . . . so I am thinking that I will be exploring that program with my boys in another year or two and we shall learn together.
