<p>Question. My son came home yesterday and said next year the school will be offering a beginning french class as one of the options. He is currently in 9th grade. Do you think its wise for him to add french to his classes next year. He currently takes all honors classes in 9th grade including spanish. Which means when he graduates he'll have 5 years of spanish, and 3 years of french. Or do you think he should save the room in his schedule for either an elective (an easy A class to bring up his rank or an additional ap class in his junior and senior year). What are your thoughts?</p>
<p>It really depends on what your son's interests and strengths are. If he is interested in the humanities or social sciences and learns foreign languages easily, adding French might be a good idea.<br>
Electives need not be frivolous or easy. My S has been greatly enjoying his semiotics class (a senior English class). He also enjoyed a class in biotechnology, for which he did a very sophisticated project.</p>
<p>Well I'm not a parent, but I did graduate with six years of Spanish and three of Latin. I really enjoyed the grammar part of the languages and thought the classes were fun... but, if I had not gotten along well with my teachers or didn't enjoy the classes it wouldn't have been very fun. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that it depends. The language classes actually raised my gpa since I enjoyed them so much and put a lot of effort into them. But even if a student's gpa were to drop as a result of two languages I'm sure it would be looked at as a positive thing by colleges, because it shows that the student isn't afraid of a challenge. With that said, he can't go wrong with saving that space for an elective that will boost his rank or one that simply interests him. I remember taking accounting to fill a space and really enjoying it. Even though I'm into engineering now, I still have accounting in my mind as a possible career path. He could use the space to take an AP class (although an added bonus was that my last year of Spanish was AP and I got a 5), or not take anything and just focus on his other classes. Sorry I can't give you a clear cut answer, but maybe one way to start is to ask S if he is really interested in taking the class. If he's excited about it, go for it. If not, that's not the end of the world either.</p>
<p>Marite is correct. Some electives can be a lot of work, such as Debate, Yearbook Editor, Computer Science (non-AP) etc. If you S love humanities, then foreign languages are great; on the other hand, if he just likes languages, and really wants to go a science route, then an AP science is probably more in order. </p>
<p>My S will take 4 years of Span in HS, but he said he wants to try a diff language in college, perhaps Greek; not sure why, but I say go for it.</p>
<p>I think it would be truly sad to pick a class because it might pull up someones class rank. What does he want to do, don't you think electives are an opportunity to explore, to play with something outside of the core classes? What are we doing to our kids?</p>
<p>I agree with others, let him do what he wants. Isn't it true that some of the lesser electives don't much count anyway? I think I recall hearing that some classes aren't used as part of the calculation of the GPA - such as Philosophy or Art History. Language is always a big plus. My son dropped his language after 10th grade because he struggled with it after coming from an elementary school where langauge classes weren't really full immersion. It's great that your son really enjoys languages and I also think it will look great to colleges! So, you're good to go.</p>
<p>My daughter is now a senior and is in AP French, Spanish 3 and Latin 2. She obviously loves languages and it made her different than the rest of her class. Latin pulled everything together. She hopes to continue her language studies with adding more at Wesleyan University this coming fall. I would advise taking 2 to someone who really likes languages. If your son wants to take a second language encourage him it certainly can't hurt.</p>
<p>Lisa</p>
<p>It doesn't have to be all or nothing. How about starting the French as a junior, and taking it for two years with the intention of continuing in college. That way he has room to explore another elective next year - and another year to decide if a second language is really what he wants to do.</p>
<p>Well I did pretty much the same thing as your son wants to. Here's my story:</p>
<p>In freshman year, I dropped a course and decided to start taking Spanish along with French. I took Spanish up to Spanish III (I could not continue with it this year because of a schedule conflict), and I am now also in AP French. I believe that taking Spanish was one of the best choices I ever made while in high school, and also an important factor in my admittance to Georgetown University back in Fall.</p>
<p>Also, it is not simply an "elective;" it shows real determination and interest in languages to take two different classes. It is no "public speaking" class (which is, at my high school, a complete joke)- it takes serious prep time and you actually have to want to learn. I believe that this will look much better on your son's transcript than some superfluous class he took to simply raise his rank. :)</p>
<p>I think that you should let your son follow his interests. Three years of French will also give him more of a command of a foreign language than if he just takes it junior and senior year. </p>
<p>Since your son likes languages, if you can afford to it, it would be good if he could do a language immersion program one summer while he's in h.s. Concordia College in MN offers some wonderful summer language immersion programs (including a French voyager canoe trip in Canada and a Spanish bike trip in Spain as does AmeriSpan, which offers Spanish programs in South and Central America as well as the Caribbean. One also can find French immersion programs in France and in Quebec Province.</p>
<p>I did this. I took french only till my sophomore year, then I started taking spanish. Now I am in AP French (second time), AP Spanish, and am taking a fourth semester arabic class at my comm. college. I would def. reccomend pursuing this, for several reasons.</p>
<ol>
<li>It sets you apart</li>
<li>If you love language, its a lot of fun </li>
<li>You never know who you'll meet who speaks that language</li>
<li>Language is a lot easier the second time around</li>
</ol>
<p>I would also recommend a study abroad program- I spent two months in France this summer and it was easily one of the best and hardest experiences of my life.</p>
<p>Regardless of the college process, if your sun truly likes languages and has a knack for learning them, then why not?</p>
<p>If your son likes learning languages, then he should definitely go for it!<br>
Like the other student posters on this thread, I also take two languages, Chinese and Spanish. Like one of the previous posters said, it's always easier the second time around. And with Romance languages, it's fascinating to see how words across languages are joined by common roots, and look at the differences in conotation and denotation. Also, languages are a skill that can be universally useful outside of school.<br>
I don't see any way that your son can lose out by taking a second language, if that's what he wants to do. If you're still worried about his GPA, keep in mind that the beginning levels of language classes are generally pretty easy.</p>
<p>honestly.</p>
<p>the electives probably won't hurt. everybody needs a break once in a while. i'd die if it weren't for things like cooking. yeah, it's an easy A... but sometimes you need that. not everybody is god and can handle all AP classes every period.</p>
<p>If you S enjoys languages and wants to, I say go for it. With all his previous language experience, it is very probable that the new language will be an "easy" A for him, and probably without a huge amount of work. As Calidan said, it does show perserverance and determination to tackle a third language.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that some colleges require 4 college semesters of one foreign language or 3 of one and 2 of a second one to graduate and will allow a year of HS language to count as a semester, without requiring any testing to prove knowledge. Depending on how much your son likes each language he may wish to use this in planning his schedule. It pays to get the language req met in HS, many kids who need to finish foreign language credits in college often have to repeat a HS course level based on their placement test results, or end up taking a different language (eg instead of 2 HS plus 2 college courses, or 3 plus 1, they may need 3 semesters of the HS language in college despite getting A's or AP credits).</p>
<p>Well, I wonder how it all turned out considering the OP wrote nearly 4 years ago!</p>
<p>yes this is an old thread. My D started a second language as a sophomore. Languages come extremely easy for her, and although they aren't no-work classes she enjoys both and they are among her highest grades. Hopefully this will show in the application process. Only downside is that it limits what other classes she has room for. She would like to do a third as well, I vetoed this idea even though she objectively doesn't have room, but if she were to get a jump over the summer before her Sr year and go in at level 2, that might be acceptable (to me, trying to keep some balance)</p>
<p>Never looked at dates- wonder why people are reviving the old threads? Still a pertinent topic. Jackief- your D would probably learn a different vocabulary in college than the one in HS- I remember a difference eons ago, and not just in the censored words/phrases the TA could tell us...</p>
<p>wis75- she wants to start a third language in HS! I agree that she would pick up different aspects in different settings, I think an immersion program would be fun for her. Her first language (Latin) doesn't lend itself well to conversations.. :) We'll see where her focus is when she gets to college.</p>
<p>Wow I was surprised to see my old thread revived. Here is an update. My son just graduated from high school. He never did take the 2nd language that he was considering. Looking back with all the ap and honors classes he had to fit in, in later years, he never would have been able to schedule the second language. Our school is very small and each year he had to adjust his schedule just to get into the required ap and honors classes. He did continue with spanish and took ap spanish in 12th grade. He graduated in June and will be attending Northeastern in the fall in the pharmacy program.</p>