Learning a Foreign Language

Wow, I haven’t even thought of that yet. I am sorry, I don’t have an answer to your post, but you made me think of what lies ahead for our family. My dyslexic son is only 8 and I am only beginning the battle of fighting for a good education for him.

I hadn’t even thought of foreign languages, but you are right—in order to get into a good college, or, once you are in college, you do have to learn a foreign language. I would be interested in what people have to say about this.

Kim

What language is your child taking? To make it easier, have him take a language with regular grammer and phonetic spelling. My son took Spanish, and although wasn’t an A student, passed the 3 years needed for college entrance requirements.

Other hints:
Pick a language that you know, so you can help.
I’ve heard that languages with character-based writing (Japanese or Chinese) can be easier for dyslexic kids.
Talk with the teacher on a regular basis, and encourage your child to do so as well. If he’s having problems, the teacher may be able to help. Even if it isn’t specifically in the IEP, you may be able to get the teacher to help out. My son’s teacher his last year in Spanish really liked the way he interacted with her, and even tailored some projects with his strengths in mind.

If your son is just going into 9th grade I’s suggest repeating the first year of the language again. If two years are required for college consider sending him to concordia language camp for a month next summer (do a google search to find out more). He could do a whole year in a month. The program is more hands on. If your son has an LD give the camp a heads up on the situation. My son followed this pattern and got his foreign language requirement out of the way. If your son needs three years don’t do the language camp until the last year. Do not do anymore language then is necessary as it is an area of difficulty.

Helen

Thank you for the advice and the recommendation for language camp. My son will be repeating Spanish 1 in 9th grade. He has had tutor support all summer to give him jump start for the school year. We will be talking to his Spanish teacher to request that projects can be tailored to his strengths.

His tutor has been a big help and since I posted the original message, we have started to see some progress. She is having him produce gestures and say words out loud to help him learn. (She evaluated his learning style prior to teaching the Spanish.)

Taking a language we know would be wonderful. However, we are a single language family. I took Spanish so long ago that I can barely remember enough to help him.

Thanks again for advice.

I have read a discussion of this elsewhere, where a number of people said that what really helped, was watching Spanish movies/ videos.
Whilst they have English sub-titles, the value is in hearing the language as is commonly used.
It also associates words with visual imagery as well.
Given that it is a video.

Geoff.

You may want to consider supplementing his class room instruction with some online one such as Rosetta Stone program. It is an immersion program that I am using with my son. You can have access to the program through some libraries.

Ideally an older child who speaks native Spanish would make the best babysitter. Children look up to older children and if the babysitter only spoke Spanish and made it fun then your child would be learning without the pressure on paper and through the ears.

Many high schools now count sign language as a fulfillment for the foreign language requirement. This is much easier for alot of students with auditory processing deficit, since it is a visual instead of auditory process. Check it out.

Unfortunately, many colleges and universities no longer accept American sign language as fulfillment of the foreign language requirement for a degree.

Nancy

My dd is taking Spanish IA this year in 7th grade and will take Spanish IB in 8th grade. Most likely we will then repeat Spanish I in 9th grade, depending on how well she does.

I was really worried about Spanish because my dd has a language disability and really struggles with word/retrieval and auditory memory. So far (knock on wood) it has been going ok, she has a solid A. Granted we’ve spent some long study hours day before the tests. Our trick we discovered was to ‘write it down’ as she said it. I would quiz her orally only, and she just couldn’t remember anything. But when I quizzed her and had her write it down as she spoke it, it seemed to stick.

My own personal experience with foreign language was I preferred learning Italian vs Spanish. I struggled being able to understand Spanish (the words just seemed to all flow together) vs. Italian (where it’s enuciated and articulated much clearer and spoken a little slower). Italian was very similar to Spanish in many of the words and the way they conjucate is similar. Too bad not very many schools teach Italian. But if you have a Spanish base and go to college, I highly recommend seeing if the college teaches Italian.

Thanks everyone for the great ideas. My child has short-term auditory and visual memory problems as well as a reading and writing disability. He is a auditory and haptic learner. So, some of the ideas may work for him, but other will not be as effective.

I’m happy I started this post because I’m sure all of the suggestions will help the other families in similiar situations.

We have since found a great Spanish tutor who assessed my child’s learning style and is focusing efforts on presenting the information via auditory and haptic learning styles. The visual stuff still gets in the way, but he is doing great.

Thanks again to everyone.

I just took my son, who is a junior, out of foreign language (Spanish) because he was struggling so much. He tried German in 9th grade, Latin (!) in tenth, and now Spanish. It’s just too much of a struggle. He plans to go to community college first, and I told him if he needs to take a language he can take it there, where he can take only two or three classes at a time instead of 7!

What are your son’s LD’s? As I have taken Japanese despite having CAPD I have taught myself a few tricks to learn how to recognize differences in the verbs of this language. I found out watching the instructor’s lips as she spoke in Japanese really helped me with the auditory art of the language. This method seemed to work 60% to 70% of the time though. I only earned A’ and B’s in those classes as my writing of the kanji characters and written grammar made up for what I lacked in auditory memory.

So I wonder if your son’s LD is auditory a language that he can learn that he will be able to use his learning strengths in would be a good idea.

I found this topic interesting as my daughter was recently taken out of Spanish as it is not required until H.S. (she is in 5th grade). At her IEP meeting I asked the Director of Special Ed what will happen in HS - for all the reasons mentioned here - and she replied that the foriegn language requirement will be waved for her. I am shocked - never even considered the college requirement. That seems like such a long way off, but something to think about and plan for. Thanks.