Speaking a foreign language has so many benefits. From
college entrance and career availability to becoming a missionary. Knowing
another language beyond your first is almost mandatory. Middlebury Interactive Languages
offers full semester German courses for grades 3-12, Chinese for grades 3-12,
Spanish for K-12 and French for grades 3-12. We reviewed the middle school French
Courses for grades 6-8. Julia, my sixth grader, worked on the first
semester of year one of the course.
The semester is comprised of 9 units, each of which contain
10 lessons, with the exception of the 9th unit which deals with the
final exam, for a total of 90 lessons. A midterm is also included between units
4 and 5.
Middlebury recommends for both the middle school and high
school programs that the student complete a lesson a day for 18 weeks.
Thankfully, the lessons are self-paced so she could work as slow or fast as she
needed to. Julia completed all of unit 1 and part of unit 2, moving at
approximately 3 lessons a week. The lessons vary in length and complexity. Some
of the lessons she repeated either because she didn’t do so hot or just needed
the review.
This online language course is a graded one. The quizzes and
tests are all recorded with percentages, date completed, the unit and lesson it
belonged to, as well as being able to go back and see what was missed- all from
the grade book. Being a Charlotte Mason-esque homeschool, I don’t assign grades
to my children before high school. That being said, my Julia is an over
achiever and settles for nothing but perfect. She was highly motivated to do
her best to achieve the best grades. Perhaps I should assign her grades to get that kind of motivation for our everyday
school work! J
Unlike other online foreign language programs, this one
incorporates listening, speaking, reading and
writing. The course is quite comprehensive when it comes to what they
learn. Being taught everyday, applicable vocabulary, grammar and sentence
structure, Julia was exposed to real life conversations. With Mom being on the
Schoolhouse Review Crew, she has tried a few other foreign language programs. She’s
told me that not only is this one her favorite so far but she wants to continue
on to semester two when she’s finished with this one. Score Middlebury
Interactive!!
Middle school French One (grades 6-8) is available without a
teacher (self-paced) for $119 per student, per semester. There is an option to
have a teacher actually grade and work with your student; this is an additional $175 per
student, per semester for a total of $294.
My bottom line
Every once in a while, a program or course comes along that
not only captures your child’s interest and becomes something they look forward
to using but also helps build their confidence as a student. For us, this has
been Middlebury. Seriously, she loves it. Julia talks about someday being able
to use her French to set up an orphanage in a French speaking
country. By the way, did you know that French is the second most taught language,
after English? Yeah, she’s definitely going to be able to use this down the
road. Thank you Middlebury Interactive Languages!
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