How would you feel if your child went to a school like this?

[WandMParent]

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But as it is now, very few students achieve that level of proficiency – not even those who get 5s on the AP exam. One of my kids got a 5 on an AP foreign language exam and cannot speak or understand the spoken language well enough to engage in conversation with a native speaker. So what was the point of studying the language for 5 years?

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<p>Maybe it’s because we wait until secondary school to start? I mean, how well do you think you would speak English if you started it in your late teens, stopped after five years, and never ever spoke it again? If your goal is foreign language fluency, I’ve always heard that it’s best to start much younger than we usually do, probably in preschool/elementary school where it’s supposed to be much easier to master another language. I’m not talking about AP exams or anything like that, but conversational fluency.</p>

<p>Immersion is also a good idea, but I’m not sure how practical it is, especially if you’re still doing the, “most of the work is done at home, to streamline the classroom time”. Again, I question how anyone can become “immersed” language if they only use it for 30 minutes a day, five days a week.</p>