Thread: Learning 3rd language Spanish to French? Thoughts Please.

Originally Posted by rockzmom

even though in our county the foreign language courses offered in middle school/junior high are more difficult than high school as the students must pass two semester exams instead of just one year end final and "In order for students to earn high school credit in middle school, the school must provide the same course as in high school, including the use of the same curriculum and high school instructional resources, and use the same high school exam." the college would NOT accept ANY high school credit classes taken in middle school.

May be there is a possibility for her to pass French exam upon entering (or during the first year of) high school to prove her knowledge of French is enough to fulfill the requirements and get the credit without further attending the French classes?

oh, jeez, is that yucky! Well, fwiw, I had one year of Russian in h.s. Went to college, not sure what level to take, so I had an interview with the dept. chairman and he said ok to enroll in 2nd year college Russian. I would really push any college to let me pro out of at least the elementary course. I mean, they will be bored out of their minds if they have to take Spanish.

OTOH, in order to get into grad school (in Russian linguistics) I had to pass reading exams in German and French. Four years of h.s. Spanish gave me the edge to skim through a small French for Reading Knowledge and pass the exam on the first try. If they already have taken a French class, that will be a piece of cake for them. (My use of French in grad school was miniscule.)

To answer CoffeeCup's question.... IF my daughter had stayed in Spanish, she would be at level 5 for 10th grade, level 6 for 11th grade and then, take AP (Advanced Placement) for 12th grade. IF she took AP Spanish and then passed the AP exam with a score of 4 or 5 (5 is the highest) she "might" be able to get college credit for it. It used to be if you got a 3 you could get some college credit, now some colleges are only allowing a score of 5 and the limit the number of AP credits that you can have as well.

Chaika, that is very good to know. As I stated in an earlier post.... the state only requires 2 credits of a foreign language to graduate high school and we learned that colleges want to see 4 years of a language in high school. As she had completed 4 years of high school level Spanish , I let my daughter have the choice of continuing or taking another elective. When she said she wanted to start French, I was VERY surprised and pleased. Now that we heard about the colleges wanting the 4 years to be completed IN high school and not taking into consideration high school classes taken in middle school, we thought we might have done the wrong thing by her.

I'm glad to know that besides her desire just to learn a third language, she might need it for other things in college and she made the correct choice.

I wish my parents had payed another language course for me when I was younger (other than English).

Be proud! =)