I'm trying to learn a language and I cannot help but wonder why I wasn't made to start sooner. It's seriously frustrating. Studies show that the best time to teach a child a second language is during the very young years of his or her life; preschool and, most importantly, prepuberty.
In that case, why do we start language learning at the high school level? Did any of you take a language before ninth grade? I'm not sure if this just happened in my high school, but I know that I was only required to take three years of Spanish to graduate.
What were your experiences with language learning like?
In my high school, we were required to take an International Language course in 8th grade. This course introduced us to a few of the main languages. We probably learned a couple vocabulary words, but more about the culture. Then in ninth-twelth grade, we had to take either 2 or 3 years of a language. In your second year of that language, you got the opportunity to go to the elementary school and teach them a lesson on how to speak the language. I think we got to go once a week for five weeks. That's about the extent of learning languages early at a young age for my school though, I agree, I think it should be earlier.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. I wasn't able to take a language course until I was in 9th grade, which seems entirely too late. I'll be honest, I took 4 years of Spanish and didn't take much from it. I wish my parents had taught me a different language when I was first learning English because it is frustrating trying to learn later on. I definitely think schools should start having students take language courses in elementary school.
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