Hi All,
Son is a HS junior with an auditory learning disability. We were warned that foregin language would be tough for him as it moved from ‘book’ learning, into auditory/immersion…and it is proving true. He works hard for his grades and has been an A- french student until junior year. His grade is currently in the 80’s but he says he understands about 50% of what is being said. This is causing anxiety for him and he is putting considerable time into self-learning.
His options are a) stick with it and possibly have a big drop in grade as the semester progresses, b) drop it and take a study hall or c) switch to pass/fail but stick with the class. I’m leaning toward the last option as he may end up with a college program which requires a third year of foreign language and (hopefully) this year would meet that requirement. Additionally, I would like him to have every opportunity to learn another language, and this sounds like the best option to preserve his gpa, but allow him to relax and just learn. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.
I would agree that pass/fail seems to be the best option and reaches a nice balance between maintaining GPA, meeting college recommendations/requirements, and benefitting from the experience of learning a language. All three are important, IMO.
What kind of assistance is your son getting in that class? Is it possible for his instruction to be individualized to better accommodate his learning needs? Has the teacher been counseled on the best ways of working with a student with your son’s type of disability?
I do not know of any college or university that specifically and absolutely requires three years of foreign language study for admission. Yes, they might prefer it, but many otherwise strong students who have good reasons for not taking more than two years of a foreign language (massive scheduling problems, various learning differences, etc.) will also end up being admitted to those institutions. So it is fine if he ditches the language class if that works out to be best for him right now.
However, a longer-range concern would be that he might face further challenges in meeting the foreign language graduation requirements of whatever college/university he does end up attending. In that case, continuing language study either P/F, independently, or in the summers would be important.
What has his guidance counselor advised about this all?
GC is not terribly helpful. Decision is ours. Yes our greater concern is the college/university requirements for graduation (though he likely could get a waiver due to his disability), but I still do not want doors to close for college admission based on a less difficult courseload (additional study hall).
It is pretty difficult to individuate instruction in foreign language without significant time for the teacher. One option is using an FM device (microphone/er piece) but speed is also an issue. It is just not realistic to record and spend significant time listening and relistening at night, when most of his other classes require him to ‘re-learn’ the material that was lectured to supplement class notes.
What have other students done with auditory ld’s? Unfortunately, sign language and Latin are not an option.
The pass/fail option sounds like a good plan to me. (I didn’t know that high schools HAD that option!) He just has to make sure he passes: don’t relax TOO much.
It’s an issue. For what it’s worth my youngest has similar issues, but no one was ever really able to pin down what LDs were causing issues and by the time he got to high school he’d decided to drop his 504 plan which gave us fewer options. He was taking Latin (which at least doesn’t have a big aural component.) Each year his grades got a little lower - but he did three full years in high school - I think he got an 81 the last semester and he would tell you it was a gift - he got 40’s on tests, but always did his homework came to class and participated. The NYS Regents test in Latin also had a bunch of questions about mythology and history which he was fine with and ended up bumping his grade up a bit. I think he ended up getting a fair amount of forgiveness when it came to college acceptances. (He got into U of Chicago, Vassar, and Tufts. His SAT scores were good, his course load was rigorous and he was in the top 6% of his class.) We asked the GC to write in her letter that some of his low grades were probably due to the fact that he had dropped his 504 plan and no longer received accommodations. I did not see the letter, but assume she did something of the sort.
FWIW he ended up at Tufts majoring in IR which required taking a language all four years. So he took the notoriously difficult Arabic. He got a C the first year. He then did a summer abroad in Jordan after freshman year, and got a B the second year. He spent his entire junior year in Jordan, doing an immersion program the first term, and his senior year he got A’s in Arabic. He would tell you now, that for him, he is convinced that is the only way for him to really learn a language. (I had a similar experience with French and to a lesser extent with German BTW.)
In any event I think P/F is a good option, but you run the danger of simply not learning enough to keep up. If you can afford it even a few weeks of immersion can be immensely helpful. You might be able to find a tutor or native speaker he could work with outside of school.
Having the 4th year of a foreign language can mean meeting college graduation requirements so none needs to be taken for either a BA or BS degree while in college. Three years can suffice for a BS (UW-Madison usually lets you choose which one regardless of major, other schools may have different rules). Never heard of P/F in HS but if your HS offers it- do it. Colleges do not care what grade was received, just that the year was completed.
Have him keep the class since he likes it and take the pressure off with the P/F option. With his type of disability I doubt he will consider foreign languages for a major so needing to keep up with it for college is a nonissue. btw- UW requires placement tests for those continuing a foreign language with completion of a UW semester giving retroactive credit but this is not worth it to most students. Likewise your son will not need to be placed in a class he won’t take. If he needs more foreign language in the college he attends he can likely meet requirements with only 2 semesters and deal with his disability then.
There is merit in continuing a foreign language for the literature and culture knowledge. If a study hall is not needed he would be best off spending his time being enriched with the class.
Thanks everyone. I appreciate the feedback. P/F is only an option for him due to his LD’s. I don’t think this is frequently given as an option. The possiblility of going p/f was agreed to prior to son starting french, due to our concerns that he may stumble once the class became more aural. I know several other students in his class who have dropped foreign language after two years to save their gpas. They were not given the p/f option as they do not have ld’s. The GC called me today and said he currently has an 86 which is the class average. She doesn’t want him to go p/f yet. The learning resource director has said we can make this decision at any time, so we will wait it out and see how he feels. It’s not going to get easier though. It sounds like no one thinks it will have a major impact on college admissions which is great. As @wis75 states, there is merit to sticking with language beyond speaking it, however. So i’d like him to get through year 3.
@mathmom, thanks for the feedback on learning via immersion programs. I have wondered if this might work for son. He needs a great summer plan so maybe I can convince him to give it a try.
My son has some processing issues and he did not continue a language beyond two years; the option of P/F was never presented to us. He would never be able to speak on the fly as would be required of him for III and beyond. He plans to be an engineer and the colleges he’s interested in do not require a third or fourth year.
Thanks again all for your input. He stuck with it Fall semester and ended with a B+. It’s taking him a lot of effort to keep his grade above a B, but the school feels that it doesn’t make sense to go P/F if he can keep his grade at a B or better. It does lower his gpa, but it also shows grit. While his GC hasn’t been great, he has an excellent college counselor who has offered to write about this in his counselor letter.
I just want to clarify that we learned of DS’s Auditory Processing issues in 8th grade. We had been warned by the audiologist as well as his neuropsychogist that foreign language learning would likely be difficult. In light of this, we discussed ds’s academic path with the high school learning resource center before enrolling as we were concened DS would not meet the academic requirements. We arranged the possiblility of p/f for foreign language as an accommodation as the school did not offer other options such as Latin or ASL. DS is in a private school and they likely have more flexibility with this.
I think this should be an option/accommodation offered to all students with auditiory/language LD’s.