<p>UW-Madison’s L&S college has a graduation requirement of either 4 HS years/college semesters of one language or 3 of one and 2 of a second foreign language. Most HS students who start in middle school (7th grade around here) will take level 2 as freshmen and be able to get 4 years by the end of junior year, freeing up senior year for another elective and meeting the university graduation requirements as well as saving college time for other courses. Taking the AP exam will not get a student into any level of college courses- they administer their own language placement exams for those who wish to continue in a foreign language (none needed to have met the requirements, no proficiency requirements)- retroactive credits are given upon successful completion of the next level college course. UW-Madison requires 2 years of foreign language for admission and most admitted students will have had 4. Tried to summarize- hope it isn’t confusing.</p>
<p>The above shows how a major flagship public U handles foreign languages. The message is that taking 4 years of a foreign language saves college time while stopping after 3 years in HS means 8 semester credits need to be devoted to meeting a requirement that could have been met with HS level work. The 5th year of a language is for those into the culture and language, time often better spent with other courses.</p>
<p>HS freshmen/sophomores are usually clueless as to their specific college plans and should be encouraged by parents to stick with the foreign language through the 4th level. By the end of the 4th level a basic understanding of the language is obtained. This is useful in understanding how our own language works regardless of any college requirements.</p>
<p>Thank you all. I guess I’ll check with the school. hopefully one way or the other the advanced level will be recognized.
I know EXACTLY how you feel. How did you deal with that??? Even my D.'s teacher pronouces French that way. Are you French? I’m not French but I was taught by French teachers and lived in France for 3 yrs. I’m really concerned about the pronunciation. I had friends though about my age pronouce perfectly so there’s hope.</p>
<p>Well, I gave up. The funny thing is that my S almost placed out of French, mostly based on his knowledge of Spanish and Latin! But he refused to learn French properly because his older brother had spent a couple of summers in France where his uppity younger girl cousin kept correcting his pronunciation.
If your D is trying improve her spoken French, she should watch French TV (my nieces and nephews learned their English watching American programs; one of my nieces was a fan of Britney Spears :(). Many years ago, Wellesley had produced a series of episodes called “French in Action” which I remember being fun to watch.</p>
<p>I think that it is not the best approach for foreign language study to take 2 years of one language and 2 years of another. In terms of results it’s a clear case where 2+2 does not add up to four. Best is 4 (or more years) of a single language. And for students who have a knack for languages 4 years of one language, and 2 or more of another is even better.</p>
<p>I think that colleges recognize this equation, and are likely to give preference to someone with 4 years of a single language, and SAT II and/or AP results for that language.</p>
<p>Insofar as how to count middle school language study with high school study, what I think matters is how your high school treats the middle school language results. Not all middle schools teach languages at a high level, and indeed there are middle schools (with immersion programs) that teach languages at the college level.</p>
<p>In practice many high schools give a placement language test to incoming freshman, and based on the results allow them to take the language the at level that the placement indicates. And what if the high school doesn’t offer the continuation of the middle school language? That’s hard. Unless the student was in an immersion program, best is to take 4 years of a new language.</p>
<p>For college admissions applications I don’t think it wise to provide middle school transcripts. It just muddles the application review process.</p>
<p>I agree it’s not a good approach to have 2+2 FL education. esp. our middle school gives one year French and one year Spanish, that’s really strange. so we plan to have our children do one year French then as they learn spanish in school, they’ll continue french at home (given enough interest from themselves) and then when they go to HS they’ll do higher level french.</p>
<p>I suspect the middle school is exposing students to both languages offered in HS so that they can make an informed decision as to which language to choose in HS. Allowing 2 years of the same middle school language allows students to get ahead in HS. Both systems have some merit.</p>
<p>I doubt many HS’s offer placement tests- they will assume their local community public and private middle schools will teach to their expected level. Students with out of class learning opportunities are the exception and parents should deal with their school for appropriate class placement.</p>
<p>idk, my school does exactly that - 1 yr french, 1 yr spanish. i didn’t learn any language except for counting 1-100, and things like that. it shouldn’t be called french, it should be called french culture.</p>
<p>During discussions, many mentioned native speakers of a FL and the 2nd FL. Here come my more questions:
What is the definition of a native speaker? My S is the 2nd generation and was born here is the US. He did speak a FL before 2 years old and gave it up gradually. We made him to re-learn the language by sending him to a Sunday school. Is he a native speaker?
He did get a 790 on SAT II of the FL. Do colleges like HYPMS recognize it as a 2nd FL in addition to Spanish?</p>
<p>It sounds as if he falls into somewhat of a grey area on the first FL. Do you speak it in the home? At what age did he start re-learning it?</p>
<p>Are you saying that he studied your family’s country-of-origin language outside of school and took the SATII in that language, AND studied Spanish in school? A lot of kids from Greek and Jewish families study Greek or Hebrew that way.</p>
<p>I think that colleges like HYPMS are probably happy to have mulitlingual kids on campus, but that they are unlikely to view a high score on a native FL SATII as a strong admission credential. Since supposedly “everyone knows” that the SATII in Chinese, for example, is designed for kids who have studied Chinese for a few years in HS, not kids who have been using it in the home for 12 years.</p>
<p>^^concur with Consolation. Perhaps instead of “native speaker” (whatever that is supposed to mean), the real key is whether the language is spoken “at home”. Psychologically, adcoms can’t be too impressed with a high subject test score in the FL spoken at home (with the exception of URMs).</p>
<p>Since URMs include Hispanics, a high subject test score in Spanish from a Hispanic applicant will be viewed differently from the same score from a non-Hispanic one. The same logic applies to Chinese students with Chinese surnames. If the applicants do not speak the FL at home, it is important to note this.
“native speaker” is generally interpreted as meaning “language spoken at home” rather than language of the country of birth. A lot of assumptions hide behind that label; sometimes, they are inaccurate.</p>
<p>The logic I referred to has to do with how FL scores are viewed. Sorry to say, but it is assumed, rightly or wrongly, that a Hispanic speaks Spanish at home, so a score of 800 is not going to impress adcoms. Similarly, someone with a Chinese surname will be assumed to be speaking Chinese at home, so similarly, a score of 800 on the Chinese exam will not be impressive.
It has nothing to do with being URM or ORM, but with the language that is presumed to be spoken at home.
If anything, being a native speaker of a foreign language may raise concerns about the applicant’s English.</p>
<p>so the following person can take advantage of this scenario:
Not Asian, not Chinese, but under a special situation, he spends at least 1/3 of his home time speaking Chinese. Goes to Chinese school, reads reasonably well in Chinese. He speaks more Chinese than some of the Chinese family kids I know but colleges can’t tell. </p>
<p>Another person can take advantage of AA:
African American, both parents are white. (adopted). got the best edcuation her family could think of. straight A, I assume she’ll get good SATs because both her parents have Ph.D.s and are wonderful people in terms of educate their d.</p>
<p>You’e got it.
One Caucasian prof of Chinese literature once claimed he’s more Chinese than many Chinese as he thinks about Chinese history and literature all his waking hours whereas his Chinese-born students probably watch a lot of American TV.</p>
<p>My D took Latin III in 9th grade, but by that point didn’t like it and wanted to learn a living language. In terms of college acceptance, perhaps moving into IV and taking an AP in a language would have been the better choice, but in terms of her education, switching languages was better for her. Let the chips fall where they may! We made the decision not to have our kids live their lives in high school doing everything for the sake of college admissions, and I think they’ll end up okay!</p>