A Plea to the Now and Recently Colleged

[captainsblog]

So the kid had her first day of school yesterday, and a question came up. One I'm hoping to get some input on, from those of you currently or recently experienced in such things.

Em's been in French classes since middle school. For the most part, she's done very well in them, and on arriving at the high school level last year she was put in the honors class. She had a little trouble on the oral presentation part of last year's final, but with some help from Mom (help that continued over the summer), she wound up with a good grade.

She came home yesterday from her first day in the sophomore honors class and said she wanted to transfer out of it. Into what, we're not entirely sure. Maybe the non-Honors class covering the same material (known as the Regents track in this goofy state), maybe to a non-language course. 

Beyond the immediate choice, though, was her statement that, no matter what level she took (H, R or none), as far as she was concerned, she was done with it after this year because she only needs two years of a language in order to graduate.  This came as a surprise to both of the parents here, since we both took our respective language classes all the way through high school and on into college. Where, at least for me, additional foreign language work was a requirement for that graduation.

But before running out in my socks and slippers and telling her to get off my damn quad, I thought I'd turn to voices of far more recent experience.  If you're in an undergraduate program, or graduated from one recently, did your school have a foreign language requirement, and if so what was it?

And to what extent did those courses expect you to have kept it up at the high school level?  It seems to both of us older folk that your foreign brain cells are a terrible thing to waste, but that it's easy for it to happen if you don't maintain contact with the subject matter. And no, sitting at home watching Amelie isn't going to be enough.

If you can offer some cogent thoughts, please to go ahead. If I hear the sound of crickets, I'll probably come back later and put this in the form of a poll.

Thanks:)

Comments

[i-beckygardens.livejournal.com]

Zach took spanish but had never had a foreign language, he also took ASL. I would let her dump it, she's young and maybe would enjoy something else, she can always pick it back up in college if she needs it. Oh... when I was going back for my Associate's one of the girls in my class was Hispanic, and only got to skip Spanish 1. The idea wasn't profiency but taking the classes. Maybe other colleges do it differently.

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

Canisius requires two semesters of a language. If you took the language in high school, you had to start at the advanced level. If you took AP, that only counted for one of your language classes, and as far as I know you had to still take a second. (I went through Spanish 4 then skipped AP to take Sociology.) If it was a new language, you could go with the beginner-intermediate track. My particular major required advanced proficiency in a European language (the European studies thing), so if you started a new one, you had to get through three or four semesters to get to advanced.

Penn State requires three semesters of language. The intro track is 001-002-003, which is the equivalent of 101-102-103 at other schools. They use a wacky numbering system here. Anyway, you at least have to pass 003 to graduate because some girl sat in on our summer class (in the loosest sense of the word) because she needed the credits to graduate. But I don't know whether you can test out of it if you're proficient enough.

PS

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

Actually, it occurs to me that even if you can test out of a language, you still need to take some credit in it. My Russian class is half filled with native speakers and kids of immigrants who wanted easy language credits (under the guise of "brushing up on grammar" - HA!).

[ceetar.livejournal.com]

I took Italian myself. (there is no Italian AP or Honors class where I went)
I didn't take it my senior year of high school , because it didn't fit with my schedule. SUNY Buffalo requires 'intermediate proficiency' in a language for graduation. (From the Arts and Sciences college, which ironically my major moved out of after I left) intermediate proficiency was three semesters, but someone told me if I knew some I could just register for the third semester class so I did that.

Honestly it depends on how into it you are. I was horrible at learning and absorbing the language. I'd probably put my oral and writing proficiency at a 2/10 (graduated college 4 years ago) and reading proficiency at 3/10. It's nice I guess to have a foreign language, especially if it's one of the romance languages that eases learning one of the others. However unless you're really proficent at learning language, or you use it every once in a while, it's pretty worthless and doesn't really stick. I was able to fake my way through my college requirements by barely recalling high school stuff, and by now I'd be absolutely clueless if I found myself in Italy.

[thatyousay.livejournal.com]

Ok really quickly because I need to go get some chicken wings...

My high school only required 2 years of foreign language to get a HS Regents diploma. Every college I've heard of has had some sort of language requirement in order to graduate with a degree, mostly 2 semesters of whatever is offered.

When I was in HS, I had the opportunity to take Spanish for three years, then during my senior year I would be put into a college Spanish Class and graduate high school with 6 college credits in Spanish from Niagara University (up to SPA206 or something like that.)

I did that, did fairly well on the exam, and have not had to take any language requirements in college since I did that. All of the credits transferred. Smartest move ever, because there are so many more cooler classes I would rather be taking than Spanish.

And college language in HS is way easier than college language in college.

So if she has the opportunity to take a college level class in HS, I would recommend it, because the extra classes in college are way cooler than the extra classes in HS.

Hope that helps!! :-)

[luckycee.livejournal.com]

I went to Nazareth College, which had hefty Humanities requirements, but no foreign language requirements unless you majored in it.

[miss-katelynne.livejournal.com]

Neither University of Idaho nor Lewis Clark State had a foreign language requirement.

Francais

[swingdancefan.livejournal.com]

Sara took a year of French in 8th grade, then took it in 10th and 11th after we moved to Montana, with As all the way. It is not a graduation requirement here, but our students are strongly encouraged to do two years of the same foreign language to increase their chances of college admission.

Sara is now completing her first week at BYU, which does require foreign language through the 202 level (I think) as part of the general education/core requirements. She is doing accelerated French 101/102--both classes in one semester. According to the online pretest, she could have skipped 101 and gone straight to 102, even after not taking French at all last year.

Similar thing happened to me with Spanish--took it 7th through 9th grades, didn't do any for three years, and did fine in accelerated 101/102 in college.

YMMV, natch.

V.

[katesti.livejournal.com]

I took Spanish in 7th and 8th grade, then 9-11. I dropped it my senior year, which was awesome. When I got to college, there was a bunch of confusion about the requirement - up until the end of my junior year, I thought I'd have to take at least a term or two of language, until someone finally got around to telling me that, since I'd taken two years in junior high and three years in high school, I didn't have to take it in college (I think I would have been okay if I'd even only taken two years in HS...). I often think I probably should have continued taking it, if only because I wish I was fluent in another language, but I'm glad I didn't - I didn't enjoy it, and I was happy to stop.