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Lesson Planning - Foreign Language

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Parlez-vous francais? Hable usted espanol? This week's planning series topic is foreign language.


Learning a foreign language has always been a goal of mine. I know a lot about French and Spanish, but have never had much of an opportunity to speak them on a consistent basis. But now, since we live in Germany I have lots of opportunities to practice German. Although I wouldn't describe myself as fluent I can converse well with native speakers.

Since learning language has always been interesting to me I've used many resources. Here are my recommendations.
Duolingo - It's brand new and free on the internet. Best for ages eleven and up.
Rosetta Stone - Very natural way to learn language. Best for ages nine and up.
Muzzy - Entertaining children's cartoon all in target language. Episodes begin with easy language and increase in difficulty. Some of the cartoons are disturbing to young or sensitive kids. Best for ages eight and up.
Salsa Spanish - Free entertaining children's cartoons in Spanish only.
Music and cartoons created for children who speak the target language are great tools for kids trying to learn those languages. I've listed some resources for Spanish and German in these two blog posts: Language Learning - German and Spanish and Educational Videos.

This year the kids will continue to study German and Spanish. In addition, my daughter is working on French and my son on Chinese. It sounds like a lot, but they work in 10-15 minute sessions two to three times per week per language. So they spend a maximum of 2.5 hours on language learning per week.

I'm interest to see how you are studying language and the resources you have found.


Speed!



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