<p>OK my D and S, actually my whole family find languages impossible, bu they are required. D has muddle through Italian 1 & 2, even went to Italy this summer. She is failing Italian 3. Any suggestions? She is trying to get a tutor, but they are students and therefore flakey! I just ordered Rosetta Stone software...anyone with experience with this?</p>
<p>I speak Italian fairly well, definitely at the third year high school level. Honestly, there's no trick to mastering a language, particularly at the high school level. It depends mostly on practice, memorization, and and knowledge of grammar at a basic level. I never had a hard time with languages, so I can't give great advice. My sister did, and she basically just plowed through it. I'd advise your kids to find precisely where they're struggling, either in terms of grades or understanding, (i.e. grammar, memorizing tenses, "extras" like impersonals or reflexives which usually aren't given much reflection, understanding versus utilizing knowledge, etc.), and work on their weakest areas. I'd also suggest more practice speaking the language if that's the major weakness (as it often is), which can happen by volunteering more in class, completing optional assignments, or requesting additional time with the instructor.</p>
<p>If all else fails, I do know a few college students who met the language requirement with sign language. It's much different than most languages because it requires just an elementary knowledge of grammar and does not require much memorization, etc. If your son or daughter honestly cannot master a language or earn competency with one (or is actually interested in sign language or deaf culture), sign language is worth consideration.</p>
<p><em>thread hijack to follow</em>
Corranged, I'm sure you meant no slight to ASL, but if anyone is truly learning ASL (vs Signed-Exact-English [SEE]), grammar and strong memorization skills are necessary. ASL is based on French grammar and language structure. English grammar may only be marginally helpful, but a student struggling with Italian may find similar issues with the grammar of ASL. In addition, ASL uses hand shapes, positions, movements, facial expressions, and body movements to convey meaning; it's quite a bit more involved than random signs or fingerspelling. Learning ASL requires a wider range of skill sets than those generally taught with spoken language, and gaining understanding of Deaf culture is an integral part of learning ASL. Certainly ASL is worth consideration, but no one, IMO, should consider ASL with the idea that it is inherently easier than verbal language.
<em>end thread hijack</em></p>
<p>I struggled with languages all through high school. Then I spent a full immersion year in France it was as if a switch got turned on - when I took German in college it was much easier than French had ever been. However - I still had to work at it much harder than most other people in the class. I went to the language lab every day until I was truly comfortable with the material. There's not getting around the fact that languages require a huge amount of memorization and (at least for me) being vigilant about working at it daily. There aren't any shortcuts. Watching Italian movies might help a little. Try watching them once with subtitles and then again without.</p>
<p>If all else fails she can try being tested for a learning disability in languages, I had a friend who finally got out of the language requirement that way. However she flunked the first semester of the languages she was taking - twice.</p>
<p>Please excuse me, Mezzomom; I didn't state my last post very well. I didn't mean that sign language was necessarily or inherently easier, but it's quite a bit different than a spoken language, so someone having trouble with a spoken language likely won't face many of the same problems with sign language. ASL doesn't have the same type of memorization as a spoken language and in my understanding has more fluidity with grammatical structures. I know a few students who had a lot of trouble passing a language but found success with ASL.</p>
<p>We got my D a tutor through a business...he is a french teacher at a different HS...so worth the money....contact local colleges, etc and i bet you can find a tutor,, also try Craigs list if you have one in your area</p>
<p>I don't know what year she's in and how the sequence of progress goes, but could she possibly retake Italian 2 for the rest of this year and then plow on to Italian 3 starting next year?</p>
<p>Before even suggesting that to the school, it might be good to figure out if she's struggling because she just didn't catch enough fundamentals in year 2 to manage year 3. I feel for you. We have this experience with the math. </p>
<p>I learned a lot from the top several posts discussing ASL back and forth, btw.</p>
<p>Couple of thoughts: </p>
<p>1.) I do use Rosetta Stone (Spanish). I use the online version (side note: I used to subscribe monthly and then found out I can get it free via my public library website). It is a good program, imo, and might help; although it's difficult to tell without knowing how closely it might track with what she's learning in class and what aspects are most difficult for her. It certainly will give her more practice and she might enjoy working with it more than with books, etc.</p>
<p>One nice thing about Rosetta stone is that there are several different ways you can use it: listening, reading, speaking (it will even "rate" your pronunciation), etc. At least this is how the online version works; and with that version you can switch seamlessly between the different approaches. So she might find one approach helps her the most or she might use several.</p>
<p>2.) When my son was struggling in a college course (in a field he usually excels in), it was partially a problem of disconnect with the particular professor's communication style. It helped him to seek out a different textbook, which he bought, and which worked better for him. So the Rosetta Stone might serve that function for your d. As might a tutor, as suggested above, if you can find the right one (perhaps, as others have suggested, not a hs student).</p>
<p>3.) Even though my S felt the prof communication style didn't work for him, he regularly visited prof ofc hours to get help. I bring this up because, if your d hasn't, I think she should go to speak with her teacher to ask for guidance on how to improve in the class. This serves two purposes - first, the teacher may have the best insights; second, teachers are human and, imo, they respond to knowing that a student is really trying and wants to do better. I think that they are likely to take this into account at grading time, maybe giving that extra little bit to move an F up to a D or a D up to a C, etc.</p>
<p>Let us know how things go.</p>
<p>As someone who has studied many, many languages (Japanese, Arabic, Italian, and Spanish [informally], and ASL), and has generally done quite well, I can say ASL was by far the hardest one to learn because the structure, the intonation, and the concepts of the languages were often things that couldn't even be touched or described in "hearie" languages. The easiest for me--and I also the one I'm most advanced in--was Japanese.</p>
<p>If grammar is the stumbling block, my daughter likes the books, "English Grammar for Students of ..."; they do have one for Italian. It may be too basic for an Italian 3 student, but my daughter likes having it on hand for reference and brush-up.</p>
<p>Corranged, no problem...I didn't actually think you were implying ASL was inherently easy(ier), but since I have run into that attitude elsewhere, I thought I'd throw in my $ .02.</p>
<p>I've used Rosetta Stone (I actually thought they ended the library thing late last fall). It is supposed to be the equivalent of 2 years of high school language-- and really doesn't cover grammar so I would think it's too easy for her. </p>
<p>Honestly, immersion is wonderful and the best way to learn a language and achieve true fluency but she is learning and being tested on a discrete body of information. If she's failing, she may need to focus what she learns a bit more than Rosetta Stone or an online program would provide. Identify her mistakes-- e.g. vocabulary, verb conjugation, etc. Then, have her study that. If you can get her Italian 2 textbook for vocab, that would be helpful. Grammar may be easier to learn with one of those workbooks readily available at a major bookstore (like Practice Makes Perfect). If you can find a tutor who would work through it with her, it would give her the greatest chance of passing.</p>
<p>2collegewego seems to be correct about this, as I just tried to log on that way and couldn't. I have actually been in the Spanish-speaking country since late fall and hadn't tried to log on since then.</p>
<p>Oh well.</p>
<p>:o ok, back to the actual topic:</p>
<p>As a Spanish teacher of level III, who speaks 4 languages, I can tell you that the foundation that a child receives in or retains from I and II is crucial to success at Level III. Whereas a child could plow through the first 2 years, if the student was a weak student, III is more problematic. The approach is different, with a whole language approach, and for many kids is much more difficult. If the student didn't retain their vocabulary from the prior 2 years, it is an up-hill battle. It is expected that the student remembers all those words, and there are hundreds, so my advice would be to get copies of the vocabulary lists from prior years and plug away at them along with the new words. The biggest problem I see is that my kids can't read the sentences (now all in Spanish - no translating anymore) in order to understand what they are to answer. Tough on True-false, especially, when you don't understand the statement itself. Also, many of my kids were not that well grounded in English grammar in order to understand Spanish grammar. I have to teach and reteach all of that. But, supposedly, that was done in I and II, and in III they are expected to know a lot of it. It is a year of adding intricacies into the language. For a kid who never got the frist 2 years that well, III is extremely difficult. Advice: old vocabulary review and get her a tutor who can work with her one-on-one.</p>
<p>Thank you for all your comments, btw, this is college level Italian. ejr1, your comments are most helpful. I think part of the problem is she took Italian 2 spring 2007 and was unable to fill Italian 3 in her fall schedule, so it has been about a year! We are seeking a tutor and I am an educator too, so I have given her some memorization learning techniques. </p>
<p>She has spoken to her professor...her last professor was very helpful and worked with her weekly, this one just isn't as helpful. She just tells her to not worry!</p>
<p>Thanks everyone!</p>
<p>Well here's a different idea to practice Italian and build vocabulary in a pleasant way. Since you're an educator, perhaps you know how to fit it into a larger program for remediation.</p>
<p>Get CD's of all the major Italian operas by Puccini and Verdi. Sit and listen to them with an English libretto (word-by-word translation of the script). It might be a pleasant way to add or reinforce vocabulary. It's not an organized language program but might add some vocabulary and grammar experience. It's an add-on, obviously.</p>
<p>We find a lot of people come to language support saying "I am no good at languages" "I am the worst in the class" "I can't speak Italian" when they could do OK, but they freeze and convince themselves that they don't know anything, and will be wrong, and will look stupid. Then of course it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, because they panic and their mind goes blank, so they feel even more that they don't know anything, and they hate to study because this is the subject where they are stupid, and they can't, and it's pointless because they will never be able to do it.</p>
<p>So in addition to tutoring, etc, we recommend that people think of an activity that they normally enjoy and could do in Italian (or whatever language). Things we suggest include: reading popular novels or entertainment magazines, listening to music, writing a blog, watching tv or sporting events. Also if they can find someone to make a language pair, someone who speaks English and wants to improve their Italian with someone who speaks Italian and wants to improve their English, and not tutor each other, but just talk as friends about anything that interests them. The aim is not particularly to increase vocabulary or comprehension, although of course these things can, but to get people to be more relaxed when dealing with the language, and see it not as something frightening to be got over with, but something that could even be fun.</p>
<p>^^along those lines of doing something relaxed to practice a language, I'm curious what you think of this advice given to me by a bilingual Francophone in Canada (native speaker of French who was also fluent in English). I thought it excellent and it might help this OP.</p>
<p>When we moved our family to Ottawa, Canada for H's work, my old high school and college French was rusty and clunky. I was halfway-able to speak it but too embarassed to try among those fluent in that language. Adding to my hesitation, there were political inhibitions to my using French poorly, since
in the early '80s was heated discussion in adjacent French-speaking Quebec, renewed interest in separation. With language and economics hotly discussed everywhere, I felt inhibited so stayed pretty quiet when we first moved there. </p>
<p>Personally I noticed that the bilingual Francophone community in Ottawa-Hull handled English beautifully, but use of the "other's" language was not yet reciprocated by Anglophone adults in community conversation, although well-handled at workplaces, including many federal government offices. </p>
<p>We were only Americans then, although became dual citizens within several years so I didn't exactly have "a dog in that fight." It just added to my hesitation to use poor French in public. It seemed better to use none at all. </p>
<p>Still, I wanted to try out my French and at least improve it while we lived in Canada.</p>
<p>I mentioned my inhibition to my Francophone neighbor. She said (in English, naturalement...), "No problem. Just say your sentence in as much French as you know, and when you get to an unknown word for you, say it in English right in the middle of your French sentence. We're bilingual so everyone will still understand what you mean, but you'll be practicing and building confidence in French."</p>
<p>I figure this method wouldn't be used in a high school or college language classroom, where students are told to speak simple, entire sentences very accurately. Still, I thought it was brilliant for informal development of confidence in expressive language. Suddenly I was speaking 75% in French, although grammar was faulty and many words popped in as English. At least I began to use what I knew and converse readily with others. (The problem was that the answers came back so quickly in l00% French that I couldn't keep pace, so they'd switch to English. At least I got in a paragraph of practice each time.) </p>
<p>To the OP and previous poster above: I wonder if speaking between two classmates in any foreign language, or even as a strategy for developing foreign language speakers in an actual classroom, if you language experts think it's a good system? I know it helped me greatly in a non-academic situation (no tests = freedom to try).</p>
<p>paying3tuitions, I think that kind of conversation is a good idea for building confidence, because it lets people see that they do know something, they can understand things, they can speak. It's also a non-threatening situation for people to work out what they do and don't know, and then hopefully go away and look up vocabulary or grammar they didn't know (if the person they are speaking to doesn't tell them). </p>
<p>It is similar to the rationale we use for the activities we suggest. As well as making language enjoyable, we try to show people that it is not the end of the world if they don't know every word, because with the things we suggest they almost certainly won't. That way, they get a sense of achievement and confidence from the things they can do, whether it's just being able to pick out the odd word, understand the general idea, etc. They don't have to feel embarrassed by things they don't know, because the expectation is not there that they will be perfect and know everything.</p>
<p>Personally, I think it's a useful approach to use in the classroom. I find it a more intuitive, dynamic and living way of learning language. To use it most effectively, you'd probably need some basic level of competency, and to supplement it with more formalized teaching of vocabulary and grammar so that people had the foundations to build on.</p>
<p>The problem I would forsee with it would be that you have to be quite motivated to learn, and people being forced to fulfill language requirements are not always that motivated. There would be a temptation to switch to English as soon as you felt unconfident of a word or because you weren't willing to try and would lazily just settle for understandable, 'good enough', which wouldn't fit well with other teaching approaches. Like the approaches we use, it could be seen as a time-consuming approach that doesn't teach anything. We sometimes get complaints because some students don't recognize they have learned something unless it has immediate tangible and testable outcomes. It's a slow, almost subliminal, approach to learning the language, it isn't 40 vocabulary words, 3 sentences in the future tense, and walk away with an A on this chapter's test and a salvaged GPA.</p>
<p>I wonder how it would work when speaking to people who were not truly bilingual, as would usually be the case, and sometimes even the preference of the language learner? I don't know if the conversation would become too stilted, like it often is in the classroom anyway, or if the temptation to interupt and correct would be too great because of a greater awareness of the switch between languages. I guess that keeping the conversation going in a fairly relaxed and informal manner would be the biggest challenge in a learning environment.</p>
<p>Another thing that I found helpful was to read books in the foreign language that I had already read in English. So for example reading Le Petit Prince is much easier in French if you've already read The Little Prince and easier still if you keep them side by side.</p>
<p>Paying3tuitions,</p>
<p>I remember talking to classmates in high school when i was taking Spanish. It was a challenge to keep the vocab going! In college it is a little harder...everyone is so spread out, but hey, there is always facebook!</p>
<p>Thank you everyone...lots of good ideas to share with D! Rosetta was delivered today, S stole it and is having fun with it. D will be home later in the week for spring break, We will see how she likes it. we will try it all!</p>