Hi all! Today we’re talking about our favorite foreign language programs in the homeschool curriculum forum series!
For younger students my favorite program is PowerSpeak. It is an online program with fun games and activities that help foster general vocabulary and sentence structure. My only issue with this is price and the lack of levels available. Currently they only offer elementary level 1 and 2, then the next one up is Jr. High which I thought would be too difficult for my 4th grader.
Pros:
- Fun and independent curriculum.
- No experience necessary to begin.
Cons:
- Fairly expensive, especially if you have multiple students.
- Limited in levels available.
- Only 5 languages available
My next choice is Rosetta Stone. We tried to use this initially when Strawberry Shortcake was in 2nd grade and it just didn’t go well. The curriculum moved way too fast for her, and it assumed a certain level of maturity to infer differences in verb tenses and sentence structure. However now that she’s a bit older we will re-visit this program and see how it goes!
Pros:
- Thorough lessons
- Visual and audio lessons
- Available in 30 languages
Cons:
- Can be costly unless you can find a used version.
So, now comes the fun part!
What are your favorite Foreign Language curriculum, resources, websites, etc? Leave a comment below discussing your choices for this year and why.
Feel free to ask questions or reply to each other too!
It’s my way of doing a forum without actually doing a forum haha!
And hopefully this will help us all as we start the process of researching curriculum, and trying to decide what will be the best fit for our homeschool.
Note: Please keep today’s conversations geared towards FOREIGN LANG., I will be posting one for each subject separately so we can keep our comments organized.
Click here if you missed my previous Homeschool Curriculum Forum posts!
Disclosure: This was not a sponsored post, I may however be affiliated with one or more products mentioned. The opinions expressed in this post were not influenced by the company. They are products I have used and felt like sharing, cuz’ it’s my blog and I can if I want to.
I have also used Rosetta Stone and found the application of the language isn’t great. I think it can be difficult to pick up on the grammar rules and verb conjugations without any direct instruction. For us, the program Fluenz is a much better fit. The retention level is high and they offer instruction from a native speaker but also helpful tips from someone who learned the language as a second language. My only negative comment on it is I wish they had a program directed toward small children. As of right now, it is mostly for jr. high, high school, and adults.
For Mandarin, we use a video skype tutor through Golden Key Cultural Center. That has worked really well. We have also used Better Chinese which is good for young kids, too. It has fun little books with CDs.
We are a bilingual family and really wanted to add French to our languages, but I was having a really hard time finding something that works for my little ones (7, 5, 3 and 1) I personally like Duolingo (Free) but it was too technical and “boring” for my littles. I then ran across Languagenut.com. I contacted them and they gave me a free trial and we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! After just 2 weeks, my kids are already learning a TON of vocab. It is cute, fun, and thorough. There is no speech recognition, but that isn’t as important at this stage.
For Homeschool families, they gave me the best deal. It cost $250 a year, but I can set up “classes” and my other homeschool moms can be in my “school” so that if we have 5 families participating, it is only $50 a year and each class has it’s own log in info. I am just the administrator. It is SOO GREAT for co-ops or just groups of moms. I am in the process right now of setting up my “classes” and I hope to get a few more moms to participate so we could get it even cheaper per family.
As for me or older children, I would also recomment “Tell Me More” as it is more like Rosetta Stone (used that for Spanish at the beginning) but less expensive and they have some really great sales (like 40% off). I am not using that as well as duolingo for French.
So…check out Language Nut (www.languagenut.com). You can learn Arabic, French, German, Haitian Creole, Indonesian, 2 types of Japanese, 2 types of Mandarin, Spanish, and Latin American Spanish. And the REALLY cool thing, is that you don’t have to just pick one language. It is all online so each child can choose a different language.
Sorry…no one is paying me to write these things 😉 but I know that they are a start up company and we are just loving our experience so much! haha!
Hmmm….whenever I try to look up the sample games or stories it says “Page Not Found”. Did you have any problems with this?
Hello-World.com has thousands of free games, songs, dialogs and activities in about 25 languages.
It is intended for children, and makes learning a language fun.
Wow, just checked into Languagenut and found it’s just $13/year per student, per language!
That’s a great price, we’ll definitely be trying this! Thank you! 🙂
For my family, I look for a good program for learning english (we are french person) so if you have suggestion, you are welcome 🙂 Hope my english writing is not too bad 😉 Have a nice day
http://www.languagenut.com also offers English from French.
Thank you 🙂
Finaly, they don’t offer english course. I will continue to search for good english course.
Yes, they offer English from French. check out this English is an additional language (EAL) page –
http://www.languagenut.com/en/content/eal/
Thanks for this post! I just tried power speak with my 6 year old and she loved it! This came at the perfect time! Yesterday we sat at the computer and she tried 3 or 4 on line language programs and she didn’t like any of them but the Chinese language program better Chinese. I really was trying to change her mind from Chinese to Spanish. So this worked perfectly!! Thanks!
We started with French this year. My DD is 6 and at the first grade level. We are using the Little Pim series (Part of the Pimsleur approach) and she is loving it. It is affordable and easy to learn. She has her DVD and workbooks to go along with. She also has a Little Pim app on her LeapPad that she plays french games on and has french songs. She is doing great and progressed very well. I think we made the right choice.
AJ, I’m so glad you mentioned Little Pim is part of the Pimsleur approach. We have checked out Little Pim from the library and enjoyed it, but when we were given a Pimsleur set, I didn’t make the connection, and had been dragging my heals on trying it. Now I think we’ll try it tomorrow! Thanks!!!
We have used Rosetta Stone in the past but once it got past the pictures and they had to write sentences, they lost us. I need to pick it back up again though. I am fluent in the language that we got so I have an advantage.
Daily practice is key. You can learn all kinds of vocabulary and grammar, but if you don’t practice it, you will lose all your hard work. I created an ebook on how to teach any foreign language and it helps create sentences with the words you know so that kids get good practice.
Focused and continuous practice is key if you want to retain anything with foreign languages.
We will be using the Spanish 1&2 curriculum & audio CDs from Landmark Freedom Baptist Church for the 9th grade. It is thurough in the language study/practice work, and easy for the student to discipher. They are King James 1611 Bible based & the most exciting part is that the entire 2nd semester focuses on being able to lead a person to the Lord in salvation! Wow! What a witnessing tool!
So, if you are interested in training you child/children to be soulwinners or prepare them for future missions trips, I would highly recommend this language curriculum. And the books are very affordable & re-usable for those with multiple children 🙂
I’m going to have to follow this one. I am teaching my kids Italian but having a hard time finding resources with it. I’ve found a few books online & we use duolingo right now but wonder what else is out there.
This is such a great idea to do a forum about each subject. I have found so many great resources that I have never heard of before!! Thank you!
Hi, funny enough we’re learning english from Italy!. My daughter is 5 and we’re finishing Hocus & Lotus format (dvd + books and songs). nice, although a bit kiddish, same dvd has got italian, german, spanish, french and english to learn
What have you been using for Italian. I would like to help my boys 11,8,4 and myself learn some before we move there.