French vs. Spanish - Classroom 2.02024-03-28T08:36:31Zhttps://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/649749:Topic:87222?commentId=649749%3AComment%3A518813&feed=yes&xn_auth=noMy friend Carolyn teaches bot…tag:www.classroom20.com,2011-06-12:649749:Comment:6517852011-06-12T21:09:37.958ZDr. Rita Oateshttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/DrRitaOates
<p>My friend Carolyn teaches both French and Spanish in a wealthy, suburban school district in the midwest, where parents expect their children to go to college. She says the students think that learning Spanish will be easy and learning French will be hard, and they tend to self-sort into classes that way. The students who want to work enroll in her French classes, and the ones who are taking a language to get two years and get admitted to college, take Spanish.</p>
<p>This school does offer…</p>
<p>My friend Carolyn teaches both French and Spanish in a wealthy, suburban school district in the midwest, where parents expect their children to go to college. She says the students think that learning Spanish will be easy and learning French will be hard, and they tend to self-sort into classes that way. The students who want to work enroll in her French classes, and the ones who are taking a language to get two years and get admitted to college, take Spanish.</p>
<p>This school does offer four-plus years of Spanish and French and both AP French and AP Spanish, but as far as overall enrollment, Spanish is far greater.</p>
http://stgeorgesfrench.blog…tag:www.classroom20.com,2011-06-12:649749:Comment:6511092011-06-12T15:05:05.147ZJames Edward Charles Webberhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/JamesEdwardCharlesWebber
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<p><a href="http://stgeorgesfrench.blogspot.com/">http://stgeorgesfrench.blogspot.com/</a></p>
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<p><a href="http://stgeorgesfrench.blogspot.com/">http://stgeorgesfrench.blogspot.com/</a></p> I think Spanish is the main l…tag:www.classroom20.com,2010-10-18:649749:Comment:5194632010-10-18T23:11:43.355ZTamarahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/Tamara604
I think Spanish is the main language (and sometimes only language, unfortunately) offered to students because it's more popular than other foreign languages. In my high school, the only languages offered to us was Spanish and Latin, and frankly, despite the fact that Latin is supposed to be a dead language, I thought Latin was far more helpful than Spanish because Latin teaches you to break down words and define it based on their parts. It's good that schools are trying to introduce other types…
I think Spanish is the main language (and sometimes only language, unfortunately) offered to students because it's more popular than other foreign languages. In my high school, the only languages offered to us was Spanish and Latin, and frankly, despite the fact that Latin is supposed to be a dead language, I thought Latin was far more helpful than Spanish because Latin teaches you to break down words and define it based on their parts. It's good that schools are trying to introduce other types of cultures, but I believe we need a lot more than Spanish; in fact we need a lot more than French too. Vincent--
In the USA, we are…tag:www.classroom20.com,2010-10-16:649749:Comment:5188132010-10-16T13:16:40.871ZPamela AuCoinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/PamelaAuCoin
Vincent--<br />
In the USA, we are very provincial. For example, when we discuss school reform, we rarely consider examining effective school systems abroad. Rather, we focus on homegrown ideas like charter schools, which have yet to be proven effective. This is tragic.<br />
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Regarding the French language -- I believe there are 400,000,000 francophones in the world, making French a pretty important language in my book. These days, it's easier than ever to work on/maintain one's foreign languages, since…
Vincent--<br />
In the USA, we are very provincial. For example, when we discuss school reform, we rarely consider examining effective school systems abroad. Rather, we focus on homegrown ideas like charter schools, which have yet to be proven effective. This is tragic.<br />
<br />
Regarding the French language -- I believe there are 400,000,000 francophones in the world, making French a pretty important language in my book. These days, it's easier than ever to work on/maintain one's foreign languages, since there are so many sites like livemocha, and polyglot and organizations like Alliance Francaise and the Goethe Insititute have fantastic resources for language learning. So, no matter where you live, there's no excuse to not keep up with your languages! http://www.frenchspanishonlin…tag:www.classroom20.com,2010-10-16:649749:Comment:5187462010-10-16T05:02:58.771ZJames Edward Charles Webberhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/JamesEdwardCharlesWebber
<a href="http://www.frenchspanishonline.com/" target="_blank">http://www.frenchspanishonline.com/</a>
<a href="http://www.frenchspanishonline.com/" target="_blank">http://www.frenchspanishonline.com/</a> I can speak to the fact that…tag:www.classroom20.com,2010-05-06:649749:Comment:4694322010-05-06T11:48:19.895ZCarlos Torreshttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/CarlosTorres
I can speak to the fact that our German program was eliminated from our high school a few years ago. We had strong numbers at the level 1 of the language, but there was a significant drop for levels two and beyond. So, we couldn't ask a kid to make a commitment to a language and then not offer him/her a full program for four years if the numbers did not support running upper-level courses. For one year we answered parents' questions, offered to place explanation letters in the students' files,…
I can speak to the fact that our German program was eliminated from our high school a few years ago. We had strong numbers at the level 1 of the language, but there was a significant drop for levels two and beyond. So, we couldn't ask a kid to make a commitment to a language and then not offer him/her a full program for four years if the numbers did not support running upper-level courses. For one year we answered parents' questions, offered to place explanation letters in the students' files, but after that, kids just chose other languages. Our French numbers are down from a few years ago, but I don't think the program will suffer the same fate as the German. We have a French community in our area, so we have a good number of passive-bilingual students in our classrooms that would keep enrollment at levels that would justify keeping the program. I took French in high school…tag:www.classroom20.com,2009-12-25:649749:Comment:4230882009-12-25T20:41:59.376ZJessica Eitzenhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/JessicaEitzen
I took French in high school and with I would have taken Spanish. Where I teach, about 55% of the students come from Spanish-speaking homes, and the number is increasing. While it's good to know French and all, at the rate it's going in the US, learning Spanish is a must.
I took French in high school and with I would have taken Spanish. Where I teach, about 55% of the students come from Spanish-speaking homes, and the number is increasing. While it's good to know French and all, at the rate it's going in the US, learning Spanish is a must. Very interesting discussion.…tag:www.classroom20.com,2009-11-24:649749:Comment:4100932009-11-24T20:14:23.834ZRachel Galdamezhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RachelGaldamez
Very interesting discussion. As a Spanish teacher, of course I believe that Spanish is important for use abroad as well as at home. However, there between 3,000 and 8,000 world languages, depending on who is defining language vs dialect etc. Why should we limit ourselves to bickering over Spanish vs. French and ask the question, why are we teaching more languages period. Arabic, Punjabi, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Japanese... the list goes on an on for what our students could be learning…
Very interesting discussion. As a Spanish teacher, of course I believe that Spanish is important for use abroad as well as at home. However, there between 3,000 and 8,000 world languages, depending on who is defining language vs dialect etc. Why should we limit ourselves to bickering over Spanish vs. French and ask the question, why are we teaching more languages period. Arabic, Punjabi, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Japanese... the list goes on an on for what our students could be learning and why. Why would we fight over the scraps when there is a huge world out there and so many reasons to learn more than 1, 2, or 3 or more languages. I honestly don't care about e…tag:www.classroom20.com,2009-10-27:649749:Comment:3977022009-10-27T07:06:57.545ZQuentinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/Quentin
I honestly don't care about either. Why is there a competition between them anyway? Both are beautiful languages and are useful when visiting countries like Spain and France or Mexico and several other countries who speak the languages. I will not say either so that I will not gratify your need to know which is "better."<br />
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<a href="http://www.langlearner.com" target="_blank">LangLearner</a>
I honestly don't care about either. Why is there a competition between them anyway? Both are beautiful languages and are useful when visiting countries like Spain and France or Mexico and several other countries who speak the languages. I will not say either so that I will not gratify your need to know which is "better."<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
_________________________<br />
<a href="http://www.langlearner.com" target="_blank">LangLearner</a> Double majoring in language i…tag:www.classroom20.com,2009-07-08:649749:Comment:3613562009-07-08T13:20:39.077ZTammy Silvishttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/TammySilvis
Double majoring in language is smart. My district is looking for anyone who has Spanish and any other language. The only problem is that they can throw you anywhere they need you, so be flexible. Another thing a lot of language teachers are doing is getting a second degree in ESL. It is a relatively easy degree to get at this point (but that is changing, too!). But once again, if you love the language you are teaching, you could be pulled from that into ESL.
Double majoring in language is smart. My district is looking for anyone who has Spanish and any other language. The only problem is that they can throw you anywhere they need you, so be flexible. Another thing a lot of language teachers are doing is getting a second degree in ESL. It is a relatively easy degree to get at this point (but that is changing, too!). But once again, if you love the language you are teaching, you could be pulled from that into ESL.