Weekly Photo Challenge: Languages

In the early days of homeschooling, I knew I wanted my kids to have the chance to learn languages, but I wasn't too sure how we'd manage it. My husband and I both grew up in Canada, where French is one of two official languages (the other being English, obviously), so we were required to learn some in school. He did alright and studied French into high school, but I never got very far with it and stopped taking the class as soon as it was no longer required. (Most of my working knowledge of French comes from watching/listening to the French broadcasts of hockey games and reading cereal boxes!) At home, I grew up speaking a Low German so I have some basics in German. We live in the US, where a working knowledge of Spanish is becoming more important all the time. Other than paying for a tutor or expensive private classes, I really didn't know how we'd manage to learn any languages in our homeschool.

My oldest did learn some Spanish using Switched-On Schoolhouse, which was okay. I generally don't recommend it unless the parent (or whomever will be grading the student) has a fairly good knowledge of the language. The other kids all started out with Switched-On Schoolhouse Spanish at the lower grade levels, but it wasn't quite what we needed.

Landon and Kennady did some study of Latin with Visual Latin, which we loved. However, I'm sad to say that we took a break from doing that, and so far haven't been back to it.

This past year, Kennady and I reviewed French Essentials, and we both enjoyed it. It's a pretty good fit for us, so at least she will be getting a grounding in French. I am finding that the bit of French I did learn is coming back to me as I look over her shoulder, and we can always go to Dad for a little help too. We took a break from this as things got busy coming into the holiday season, and now we'll need to get back to it! This weekly challenge was my reminder not to let it go much longer before resuming our lessons! (Read my review HERE.)

    

I still think we should learn a little Spanish, and I would love to get back to being conversant in Low German and maybe even learning 'proper' German too. Not sure how we'll manage any of that!

You can see other weekly photos shared at The Canadian Homeschooler Weekly Photo Challenge - Languages and share your own pictures.

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