<p>Ditto ReneeV. I like the video courses at learner.org. They also have French and German. My kids did the French course (btw, exactly the same course their dad had at Yale 20 years ago--he still remembers the script). FREE, painless, and good for comprehension.</p>
<p>Just to add my two cents in...</p>
<p>I am linguistically impaired as well. I did extrodinarily well in Spanish 1 (8th grade), got a good grade in Spanish 2 (teacher left part way in year and I never really learned the past tenses too well, so I won't say I particularly did as well as the grade states). Due to my lack of prep in Spanish 2, I struggled through Spanish 3 (got a C) and went on to Spanish 4 mostly because I wanted to go on the biannual trip to Spain. </p>
<p>Well, Spanish 4 didn't go so well for me, I ended up with a C- for the year and barely pulled a D for a few marking periods. I barely exempted from my language requirement in college. I still think I did the right thing, I was able to exempt from college-level language and I still know enough Spanish to get around. I'm not fluent by any definition, but I do understand most written Spanish to get around in a predominately Spanish-speaking area. </p>
<p>The only problem I can see running into is if he wants to go on for a PhD someday and having to struggle through a language requirement. However, even in the sciences, many departments are dropping their language requirements. I got lucky and mine dropped it a year or two ago, before I entered and thus I don't have to worry about the possibility of learning a new language to graduate. </p>
<p>My theory is that another year of Spanish will not hurt him. It will likely hurt his GPA, but I think that is a tiny factor considering that he would be learning the language still to be able to be semi-conversational in basic situations. Whatever the grade may say, he will still have learned something out of it, whether it is to the level that the teacher wants or not.</p>