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Where can I find a Chinese program or curriculum?

Cindi,

Have you looked into finding a native speaker to teach your child? My son decided he wanted to study Arabic--not a language I have ANY experience with!--and we lucked into the fact that the mom of one of his brother's classmates is a native speaker. He took private lessons from her all year long. It was $12 per hour for one-on-one instruction. I thought that was a bargain!

If we hadn't stumbled across his teacher as we did, my plan was to check at local universities and/or at houses of worship where native speakers of the language might attend. I might also have posted something at a Mediterranean specialty shop.

Just another idea. It's always better to learn from a native speaker, I think!

Cindi,

Have you searched your area via google? I live in Austin and we have a strong Chinese community. We have the Austin Chinese School which meets on the weekend. My understanding is this is a norm. All my friends that are Chinese send their children to that school and it is for anyone.

The other suggestions of local universities is a great one and a lot of them allow for auditing or at least you should talk to the schools so they can direct you in the right direction.

Cindi,

I'd look for a local business in your neighborhood that is run by a Chinese family and then work on your relationship with them. Then indicate you are looking for a language tutor or Chinese babysitter. They will then help you find one. (You will then owe them a favor. ) The best immersion will be a daily babysitter with kids who speak only the target language. Failing that, traditional Chinese school with occasional immersion is your next bet.

Good luck!!

Thanks! I will check out your suggestions.

I'll in throw my support for Spanish. I use it frequently at work. Although we have translators and my fluency isn't what I'd like, it is great to know what is going on in the conversation and every once in a while throw in a key phrase or two. I haven't studied it formally since high school, but since the groundwork is there, it is coming back to me fairly easily. Our translator thinks I have potential!

DD11 is going to take Spanish every day from here on in. She took one semester of Latin at school, which has helped with analysis of word roots. I can't see continuing with Latin, although it is popular at school for some reason.

I was amazed to see they offered Spanish, German and French starting in 6th grade here and all students must take each language for 9 weeks (one quarter). When I was in school we didn't start a foreign language until 9th grade!! I know earlier is better (hey, I still was a French major and learned Portuguese in grad school).

I'm bumping this one because like others, I'm doing the 'enrichment' scramble this time of year.




Discovered today that our local public library affords us access to Mango.

It seems to be focused more on conversational languages, as opposed to written ones.

DD11 and I have come to the (sad) conclusion that school is basically turning out to be for teaching her how to efficiently complete tasks that she doesn't particularly want to do, or those that seem pointless or repetitive in the extreme. And we had such high hopes for high school. Darn you, spiraling pedagogy!! My kid learned Newton's laws of motion and how to identify metaphors the FIRST time, thank you very much.
Anyway. Rant off.

DD is interested in Greek literature after reading some excerpts from the Odyssey, and wants to learn to READ Greek. I realize that the Mango programs are probably not the best choice there, but they do have the attractive property of being, well... free.


If she seems serious about the interest in a few weeks' time, then maybe I'll consider investing in something more serious for self-study.


At this point, ANYTHING that gives her a little self-pacing and autonomy is much needed, however. Poor kiddo. High school is turning out to be more work than before... but without a commensurate jump in the expectations of the underlying thought devoted to that work. No more analysis or critical thinking is expected than ever before, in other words. She took a 'senior' elective that is apparently regarded as a "killer" course last term (Economics), and frankly, it was still mostly memorization-based, and she aced it. Slam dunk for the A+-- it was just a total pain in the neck to keep nitpicking for the 98% all through it. (Not worth it IMO... but what do I know.) DD feels terribly disappointed. I sure hope that the AP coursework hasn't been similarly watered down to remove all traces of analysis, extension, and integrative learning. But I'm becoming fairly cynical about the whole thing; perhaps school is merely a means to an end (ie-- a stellar official public school transcript). Bleh.

With Greek, it's not just the conversational vs. written aspect you have to consider, it's the differences between modern, Classical and Homeric Greek. Modern is different enough from the other two that, if it's all Mango provides, it wouldn't be much help for your daughter, given the interests you describe.

Dear HK,

In re: Greek, do you know textkit? (www.textkit.com) It's a wonderful forum, full of keen people self-studying Latin and Greek (and some of them are also doing wild and wacky things like Old Irish and Old Church Slavonic...). They are super-helpful (and very knowledgeable--there are several Classics profs there, too); there are lots of free downloadable textbooks there as well. They occasionally run study groups where a bunch of people work through a book together, with weekly assignments and so on. You mentioned Homer--one of the freebies there is Clyde Pharr's Intro to Homeric Greek book (works through Book I of the Iliad as you learn the language).

There are links to tons more free downloads available here:

http://www.edonnelly.com/google.html

There are more study groups here:

http://www.quasillum.com/greek/greek-activities.php

There is just so much terrific (and free!) stuff out there for learning classical languages--she might find this just the ticket for a mind-expanding, really worthwhile exercise.

Good luck to you both!

peace
minnie