Hello!
Our High School offers several foreign languages to study, by my child is very interested in studying the foreign language that is not offered by our school district. Has anybody tried to take the language classes outside the school (from accredited institution, of course) and have your school accept the credits to satisfy foreign language requirements? Please, share your experience and thoughts… Thank you!
My son did a German 2 course online with Oklahoma State University. Long story but our HS agreed to waive him from the second year of foreign language requirement but did not put it on his transcript. My son found it to be far superior instruction to the HS German Teacher.
SwimmingDad, thank you for your reply. Did your son take on-line class DURING school day or this was his extra AFTER? I would like my child to take on-line class during his regular school day, but it sounds like this is something impossible to achieve…
The only credits my school accepts are the dual enrollment credits or a virtual high school they are affiliated with. Both would fulfill the school’s requirements. Obviously the dual enrollment class would need to be taken at the college not during the school day. I think there would be a possibility to do the virtual class during a study hall period if arranged ahead of time with guidance. You would most likely need to find an accredited program then find out (guidance?) if there is any way to get credit then ask if your child could take study and work on it then.
My child took the same German language class online, 2 semesters online during the school day and 2 semesters online after school. The Oklahoma program was what was offered by her high school through the state’s virtual public school. All classes were on her transcript. Her school had a online learning lab where students took all kinds of online classes. She worked on her German between kids taking online AP classes and online credit recovery classes. Is there a specific program you have in mind?
Honestly the language my D wanted to study was not available at our HS so she took Spanish which the HS did offer and then took a her preferred language as an elective in college and did a summer abroad program in that country.
You should be sure to talk to your guidance counselor in advance and get assurance, preferably in writing, that the HS would accept any online course your child might take to meet the HS graduation requirements.
You want to be sure that this special foreign language not offered by your HS will be accepted towards fulfilling graduation requirements.
This is going to be entirely dependent on the HS and where the language course is taken. It might take some negotiations on your part. Definitely get everything in writing.
Is this a modern language, or a dead language?
If it is a modern language, does the student speak it at home or have easy ways to practice speaking and listening (or equivalent visual and movement skills for a signed language) with other learners and/or native speakers? How strong are the listening/speaking components of the class? The longer-range goal is that the student is able to readily communicate in this language. Any course should facility communicative activity.
If it is a dead language, then speaking/listening can be pretty irrelevant, but the student will still need good support for mastering the target reading skills.
Thank you very much for all your answers!
You may be able to work something out. Our high school has a “credit flex” program that allows students to get credit for activities and classes they take elsewhere. The process to get approved can be onerous, but my DD was approved for getting a PE credit for all the dance classes she took. If you aren’t worried about getting credit, you can have your daughter sign up for a study hall and get her a good pair of noise cancelling headphones so she can “take” the class during the regular school day.
FWIW many of the dual enrollment languages classes offered at my kod’s HS was taught in the HS itself.
My daughter is getting credit for two different languages for coursework outside of school.
(1) She took AP French through Middlebury Interactive because the AP French class at her school wasn’t offered at a time that fit her schedule. The school has low French enrollment and offers a French 4 and 5(AP) combined class that she took as a Freshman and if she had taken the class as a sophomore, she would have just been given extra work for the AP part of the class. The school uses the grade report from Middlebury to put the class on her transcript and includes her grade as a weighted grade (same as it would be if she took the 5(AP) class at school.
(2) Her school has been very flexible about giving her credit for an Arabic program she’s doing through the state department this summer in Amman Jordan (NSLI-Y). We wrote up a proposal showing her classroom hours would exceed the hours of a regular high school class and they’ve said in the Fall, once a language teacher approves her portfolio of work, they’ll add a year-long credit for Arabic to her transcript. There’s still some question about whether it will be P/F or graded, but we just want all of her foreign language on her transcript.
Given she doesn’t need either one of these courses for graduation requirements and really just wants them to show passion for foreign language and for depth, maybe they’re more flexible. Her school, while a pretty standard public, houses a GT center (which is unusual for high schools) and has a reputation for being flexible with kids who need something more advanced or different
Thank you for your detailed replies!
My 2 daughters got credit for the 4 week long High School credit program they attended at Concordia Language Villages in Minnesota. Both of them were taking multiple foreign languages at school and they simply did this summer program to skip one level of their respective languages. They offer 15 different languages at Concordia, including many languages usually not offered in high school (japanese, korean, arabic, mandarin, russian, portuguese, swedish, norwegian, etc…). Your child could attend this camp for a few summers and have that count as foreign language credits.
@2018Summer2018 He actually took it during the summer. He was working at a camp 8:00-1:00 every day and then would come home and crank. It’s a long complicated story…but it is what worked best for him.
Mine took it in addition to the high school language not as replacement, they would not have allowed that. It was a private high school, I think they can be pickier about accepting outside courses.
Besides credit, see if they will include anything outside on her HS transcript. Ours did not, so when applying we had to remember to include that school’s info on common app, and have the transcripts sent to all we applied to.
@idiomas , that’s what I would ultimately want - to take the language outside and not take it in school… Thank you for sharing your experience.
@SwimmingDad, thank you for your reply.
@blueskies2day , thank you.
@2018Summer2018 - My daughter has taken almost all of her language classes online. She took one year of HS Japanese online in 8th grade for which she received no credit. She then took Japanese II her freshman year at her HS. Her sophomore year, she switched to BYU online and took a college level Japanese III class. She also took French III honors class her first semester sophomore year at her HS. She left HS in March of her sophomore year to study in Japan for 11months. She returned in February of this year. She is currently finishing up the second semester of Japanese III at the college level and the first semester of Arabic at the HS level. Both of these classes are through BYU.
She will be taking two more semesters of Arabic online her senior year of HS.
Her HS has given her credit for all online language classes that she has taken during HS. The only caveat is that they did not weigh her Japanese III college class, which was ridiculous as it was an extremely difficult class. I am assuming that they won’t weigh the second one either.
The cost for the BYU HS class is $276 and for college level $756. You also have to pay for test proctoring for the college class. This is $25 per test. Scholarships are available for these classes.
To summarize, my daughter will graduate with 3 semesters of HS language classes through her HS and 5 semesters of online language classes on her transcript.