Hi, it’s been awhile…my son graduated high school in 2010, my daughter will be high school class of 2017.
My daughter went to a Catholic school through 8th grade and is now finishing her sophomore year at a public high school.
The high school has been great for her except the language options were less than ideal. She went into the school as a second year French student and will be completing year 4 during her junior year. They do not offer an AP option.
I would like to see her be able to get more French in somehow during her senior year or through summer enrichment programs. She is probably the top French student in her class, and she may end up at least minoring in French in college. A year gap would really be a shame.
Does anyone have suggestions, or is there a better forum to ask this question? I did ask her French teacher, but she was new to the school, I have yet to bring it up with guidance, but the only comments I’ve gotten so far were that she can take a year of Spanish or something.
The only possibility I’ve come up with so far is an online class associated with one of the state colleges.
Are you near any state colleges where she could take a regular summer class? Many allow high school kids to take summer courses. At her level, an online class would be fine to expand her reading/writing skills; for verbal skills I think a “regular” class is better. Look into Alliance Francaise, to see if there’s a chapter near you. Many offer programs for both learners and natives.
Thank you. I checked the local community college, but I think they are more like high school level classes. The local state U sounds promising for a summer class, I don’t think it would work during the school year.
I think working on her verbal skills would be most useful. We had a relative visit over Christmas from Norway, he speaks at least 4 languages. He and my daughter spent much of the evening conversing in French - it was pretty cool!
Our public HS does offer languages through AP, but my S was in a similar position, in that he would be completing AP French Language as a junior. The French department and the G/T coordinator combined forces to enable him to do AP French Literature, a 2-year course of study, as an independent study, meeting with one of them once a week during his (sole) study hall. The G/T coordinator read the books in English, he read them in French, they discussed them together in English. The French teacher read, graded, and commented on this essays. And of course they discussed everything in French. Of course, this depends on having a teacher who is willing to put in the extra time.
Maybe your school could manage something of the sort. The Alliance Francaise would be good for further conversational practice. Don’t overlook watching sub-titled (as opposed to dubbed) French films.
I majored in French in college and did several study abroad programs, and worked in French-speaking countries. I don’t see that an online program would offer anything of value; you need to be speaking French with actual people to improve.
I would try real classes somewhere, or even just meet French/Belgian/Swiss friends, if there are any. Maybe a Meetup?
Or better yet, do a short-term exchange program or community service trip to a French-speaking countries. Church groups have tons of options, as do things such as Rotary. That would be far better than even a class here.
Thank you for all of the great suggestions! I looked into the Alliance Francaise, and they have a two week summer immersion class for teens that I think would work very well for her. And I will work with her school to see if she can do some kind of independent study for her senior year.
When she is in college I hope she will take advantage of opportunities to go to French speaking countries. At this point, I do not feel she is mature enough to be sent off on something unless it was highly supervised - her situational awareness needs some work.
I agree that an online class is not optimal - at this point she needs experience speaking the language.
Have you considered a private french tutor? What about a tutor on-line via Skype or similar? My neighbor is learning Hebrew from a teacher who is based in Tel Aviv - they Skype regularly. My sister-in-law, a Carnatic vocalist, gives lessons via Skype from India to kids all over the US. I’m betting that if you don’t have a qualified French tutor locally, you can find one internationally.
@martina99, for what it’s worth, I certainly wasn’t mature enough when I went overseas; being shipped overseas at a young age makes you grow up pretty quickly, which can be useful for a parent!
There are a couple of different avenues for different objectives.
If learning the language to acquire a reasonable level of fluency is the target, one could embark on a journey with programs such as https://www.duolingo.com/ or http://livemocha.com/ The instruction will be vastly superior to anything you’ll find in a summer course in college as most teachers are academics who are not natives.
If the objective is more academic, this program is very good and could accrue HS credits if presented well to the school.
My younger sister did the latter when she completed the program in French at her school. The focus was more on grammar and what routinely appears on the AP test. Again, for practical purposes, the first type of courses are more productive.
@xiggi, at this point I am just looking to ensure she doesn’t lose any ground between her junior year of high school and when she starts college. Having academic credit would be nice, but I imagine that colleges offer an assessment before placing students.
@Consolation - the course at Middlebury looks lovely but is not within our means.
My daughter is completely undecided on what she wants to do in college. She does very well in science, math, French and art, but her interests do not run to math and science, with the exception of the social sciences or perhaps environmental science. My husband and I are in the sciences, as well as my oldest son, so I am trying to come up to speed on choices and opportunities in things that may not be science
My thought is that if she at least minored in French or did a dual major, it would give her more options in the future. I would be very happy as well if she decided to major in French, and I think an opportunity to be in an immersion program would give her a better feel for what being truly fluent in another language could mean for her.
Her current teacher in high school is a native speaker (this is her first year at the school), the other teacher is not and he is kind of a dud. I will be speaking to guidance and the native speaking teacher about possibly doing an independent study her senior year. And the shorter term immersion programs offered by the Alliance Francaise look promising as well. ( thanks @katliamom & @consolation )
@happyalumnus, I understand what you are saying. When I was her age I was traveling by myself across the country. I knew what to do when I was in Penn Station and approached by pimps looking to recruit me. My daughter is very intelligent but unfortunately her head is in the clouds most of the time. She is 15 and looks like a 22 year old model. She might as well have a big bulls eye on her back. I think a good start will be to have her take a train by herself into the local big city for an Alliance Francaise course. We’ll need to work up to shipping her off to Haiti for a relief mission.
Yep, and that is exactly why I suggested both avenues. She could take the AP Course over the summer via Apex. It runs much deeper and takes longer than a two week immersion cum vacation program. With the interest in French, she could remained focused on keeping it fresh until taking the AP program. Placement in college is only one part of the puzzle, as the school will probably have her take a test to establish her level. The placement tests are pretty simple.
The online programs such as Duolingo or Livemocha are both excellent and very affordable. Chances are that the contacts will have a clearly superior command of French than your typical US based academic, short of having a teacher who happen to be an expat. I have found the teaching by US educated to be quite lacking when it comes to French.
Just a happy follow up. My daughter and a couple of other students did an independent AP class with their teacher this year (D was a French IV student as well) . The school has agreed to offer a French V course for these students next year. It sounds like it will be a lot of fun, they will really work on their conversation skills, read and discuss books in French, and take some field trips as well. The biennial trip to France will be next year as well.
I am so thankful for this teacher, she started at the school two years ago and has really stepped up to offer the few advanced French students a lot of enrichment opportunities.
Daughter is still planning on minoring in French at college, so now we are looking at those options now that the college search has started in earnest.
Your daughter should look at Wellesley! My D is a French major there (it was just a minor, but she will have enough credits to add it as a double major) and is currently studying in France at their Wellesley-in-Aix program. She will live in French House (just what it sounds, an off campus French-only residence) next year to maintain her fluency.
She had a similar trajectory to your daughter in high school. She maxed out on their classes, but her teacher added a French V her senior year, which was basically an introductory French lit class for students who were interested. It really helped prepare her for college level French.
I am currently in the process of reviewing my French as it has been over 25 years since I spent a year in Paris. When I lived there, I was fluent. While my grammar was/is VERY rusty, my comprehension, both verbal and written, was/is at a higher level. There is a French radio/learning site named “Rfi.fr”. I have been using this sight to ameliorate my French. There are exercises on comprehension that include the transcript. You listen to a 1 - 3 minute audio clip and answer questions. These audio clips go from level A1 - B2. The reason that I find this very helpful is because after I listen to the audio clip and answer the questions. I go back and read the transcript out loud. While it doesn’t help with conversation, per se, it does help with my French accent and fluency. Also, it reinforces vocabulary and grammar.
Another thing I find that is very helpful is watching French television. I use a VPN to access French stations and watch the news and other series. Many of the programs have closed captioning in French. While the cc doesn’t necessarily follow the dialogue exactly, it is close. This practice is great for comprehension at a very high level covering a broad range of subjects. I find that French television shows are especially helpful for idiomatic expressions and every day French spoken at a very fast pace. Write down all the new phrases that you learn and have a conversation with yourself.
@martina99. I did want to add that the exercises on rfi.fr do not work on tablets. I do these exercises on the computer. I haven’t had a problem with the quizzes.
