any suggestions for foreign language?

lspf72
Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:52:48 +0000

Many many good points!
JHS - has he given Spanish enough of a chance? My intial reaction was not really, esp since three of the four years have been with the same teacher – a nice person, but he does not like the class. I do think people can have affinities for certain languages, though. My daughter loved French from the time they introduced it in middle school, yet had a lot of trouble with spanish (same teacher), so she chose the former and is enjoying it.

I also am leery of choosing a language just because one “should,” for a particular major. For students interested in IR, popular choices now seem to be Arabic and Mandarin. At the same time, he IS very interested in what’s going on in the world right now, and Arabic seems a logical choice. What sounds like a real need for immersion training is something we hadn’t really considered, though.

With graduation looming, I think it’s natural to look forward to having certain subjects finally “over with.” At this point we are considering only the class he’ll take at the local CC this summer. Admittedly, I was hoping he’d stick with spanish. He’s familiar with it, and has done very well in the class (and the ability to speak it would be nice). I will have to double check college policies for outside credit (minimum grade requirement?). Jumping into somthing very difficult might be risky, but we will let him choose. Once he heads off to college in the fall, he’ll have all sorts of options ahead of him, and hopefully good advisors to help him with his choices.
Thanks again, everyone.