<p>I don’t really understand the language comparison. The students did LEARN the language at some point. Guess what - my grandfather was a biology teacher, and “taught” me biology casually for years. I completed the same work as the rest of my ninth-grade enriched (honors) biology class, and received an A. Some students watch the History channel at home, or <em>gasp</em> read books. The fact that a student was exposed to material prior to taking the course does not make them any less deserving of an A. Learning is a side effect of living life, and at some point everyone will come across material they’re expected to learn for a class that they’ve already come in contact with somewhere else. Schools are not the “keepers of knowledge”; just ask all of the CCers out there self-studying various subjects. You could call me a “native reader”. My parents read, they read to me, and I entered school knowing how to read. I’m also a “native scientist”, a “native philosopher”, a “native accountant”, and a “native historian”, simply because of the milieu in which I was raised.</p>
<p>I agree with deceptacon.</p>
<p>Tests are not intended to discover how, when, where students have learned something, but whether they do know that something, be it calculus or “foreign” languages. I put “foreign” in quotation marks because for a lot of students, English is a “foreign” language.</p>
<p>deceptacon, I agree that learning happens in and out of a classroom. What I find a bit disingenuous, is not telling your district/private school that you already are advanced/very proficient in a foreign language, and then taking it with those who do not have any prior knowledge. JMO. Spanish I for a kid who went to elementary school in a Spanish speaking country until age 12; come on, I think this student may speak Spanish better than many foreign language instructors in our American schools. I think not disclosing it, is hoodwinking the system, but JMO.</p>
<p>Northeastmom:</p>
<p>Aren’t placement tests administered to determine which level of a language a student should take? If a native speaker of Spanish were to take Spanish 1, shouldn’t the teacher discover that the student should go into a more advanced class?</p>
<p>The one time my S was placed in a class that was below his level was because that year, a more advanced level was not offered and S had to take a class in technical arts. It made everyone miserable until the teacher allowed him and another student to do a special project that was far more advanced than what the rest of the class was tackling.</p>
<p>I don’t want to read through all of the posts again, but I believe that someone mentioned learning to play an instrument. I can tell you that in our hs, if you are advanced or you are a beginner you learn at your level of expertise (or lack of). Both the beginner and the advanced student will work equally hard, and will be graded according to the skills that they come in with. The advanced musical student does not skate by like the Spanish speaker sitting in a Spanish I or II class. There is a difference, IMO.</p>
<p>marite, sorry, I did not read your last post, prior to posting. Frankly, yes that should happen. I also believe that our AP class in Spanish is child’s play for some of the native Spanish speakers. I don’t know what occurs, but they sit in Spanish 1 through their AP class, and it is a joke, IMO. It is win-win situation for the student and the school. Student gets easy As for doing nothing, and the school gets credit for having a marvelous foreign lang. program with their students scoring 5s on APs. It is a farce. Frankly, I find it unfair to the other students.</p>
<p>We tried for years to separate the bilingual students from the kids learning Spanish for first time. Class participation counted hugely for grade. No success. Teachers not sympathetic, and no screening done to put thode kids who spoke Spanish fluently from those who were stumbling over first phrases.</p>
<p>Eventually, I let S study Latin at the local college.</p>
<p>S placed into Spanish 3 for 9th grade (after two years of Spanish k-8. There’s no way the school would have allowed him to go into Spanish 1–and he’s not a native Spanish speaker. We have a bilingual program, but it’s separate from the foreign language classes.</p>
<p>“Either the noncustodial parent was so violent/abusive/unfit that this very inappropriate placement was warranted as a desperation measure, or the custodial parent is insane enough to do this without a good reason.”</p>
<p>That’s what I was thinking. Heaven help this poor kid. He’s the one that was dealt an unfair hand.</p>
<p>It is possible that there are emotional issues that they are keeping private.</p>
<p>Our high school offers Spanish classes for native speakers. Problem solved. :)</p>
<p>Mathmom,
Seems logical, but I gave up here in FL.</p>
<p>I’ve known several students who went to private schools that are known for trying to help those with mental health issues (no interest in academics, recovering from substance abuse or an eating disorder, depression). Teachers work closely to motivate. Even so, the students oftern need an extra year of high school to complete the requirements.</p>
<p>When I complained about the native Spanish speakers in Spanish 1 and asked if there should not be a separate class for them, I was told that it was because the vast majority of these kids ( in my area anyway) came from pretty impoverished backgrounds, many here illegally with a sketchy educational record. They could speak the language that they had grown up with but in most cases did not read it very well and had very little knowledge of spellings, grammar, etc. So Spanish 1 was indeed where they needed to be.<br>
My S2 is horrible at Spanish (will be retaking Spanish 2 next year) and felt really lost in the class where the teacher and the native speakers were talking a mile a minute, but at the same time his friend in the class who was Puerto Rican and spoke Spanish fluently did almost as poorly on the written tests as my S2.</p>
<p>Packmom, this can be the case, but it is not always the case. There are not any students from an impoverished backround in our hs. One student that I know was schooled in a Spanish speaking country through elementary school, and the other was raised speaking Spanish as the primary language at home, and one of the parents teaches Spanish in another school district.</p>
<p>Even from an impoverished backround, or one where reading and writing Spanish did not occur at home, the students should have an easier time with the vocabulary, speeches, and oral discussion at the very least (since they speak the language already).</p>
<p>northeastmom, </p>
<p>It seems to me, in those circumstances, that a Spanish speaking kid would be very bored in Spanish I. I’m not sure why the school would allow that, or why the family would either. If it’s one kid, I don’t really see what difference it would make to the rest of the class if that kid wanted to sit through classes where he/she wasn’t learning anything new. Most schools (and families) that we’ve experienced would not allow that. They won’t even allow it if, as marite said, the kid has taken the language prior to 9th grade. If it was an entire class of Spanish speaking kids, as in packmom’s example, then it really isn’t fair to the new learners to have to sit and listen to the teacher and the Spanish speaking things converse and not be able to understand them.</p>
<p>There are 2 kids that I know enough about to discuss this issue. There are more students doing this. We have a highly competitive hs, and they are doing this to boost their gpas and look good. Frankly, our foreign language programs have much to be desired, so I can understand why the parents don’t care. Parents really care mostly about where their kids will end up, and whether they can afford the tab. In other words, their kid is bilingual already, which puts them ahead of the kids who are not, so they don’t stress about a 3rd language (that won’t learn to speak, read or write very well anyway). In a small district, a few kids doing this, BTW, makes a difference. The school turns a blind eye towards this. They are happy that some of their students are scoring 5s on their AP tests. They also cannot force a student to take an alternative FL (the school offers 3 options), and they don’t have the $$ to invest in a class for native speakers (nor the student #s to support it since the hs is small). They are probably worried that if they pushed the issue, parents would ask for just such a class.</p>
<p>I can add that one student who already is fluent in Spanish did take an informal course in another language. It was a type of adult class, that he could include as an EC, but he was not graded in it. He took that class with his parents for fun.</p>
<p>This is far from the original topic of the thread, but a similar issue also arises at colleges language classes. For example, my daughter began Chinese as a freshman, with no prior knowledge of the language. There are Chinese-American students who can speak Chinese from hearing it at home, but cannot read it, because, unlike Spanish, the characters need to be memorized so learning to speak and to read are totally disconnected. Larger universities can have separate classes for this category of students, but in small LACs where there are only a few such students who desire to study Chinese, they are placed in the same classes as the total beginners. My daughter has studied with several such students.</p>
<p>Spanish 1 is not what they need at all. They need a different approach that recognizes that they have a certain amount of oral fluency. I can’t imagine spending weeks learning to conjugate “to have” and “to be” or memorizing stupid little dialogs.</p>
<p>I guess I just don’t see why anyone would care if another kid is doing this to “boost their gpa and to look good”.</p>
<p>Back to the original topic - after reading CC for years, there are SOOO many inequities in the college admission process that, as someone mentioned before, the situation presented is small potatoes. (and frankly, I think a little compassion is in order for this poor kid. S/he didn’t ask to be put in that school, or to be in whatever hellish custody situation s/he is in the middle of)</p>
<p>On to fairness:</p>
<p>How about that rank is considered so heavily in admissions(try living in Texas where it is ALL about rank) and that there is absolutely no basis of comparison between competitive and non-competitive schools? </p>
<p>How about the fact that many pay top dollar for private coaching for standardized tests when others can barely pay for a book to self study?</p>
<p>How about the fact that some schools weigh “honors” courses and others don’t, therefore you have a bunch of kids taking shop and earning the same gradepoints as someone taking AP Calculus?</p>
<p>There are so many others that I could be typing all day!</p>
<p>Welcome to the real world…</p>