Middlebury Interactive Languages~ High School German (Review)

We were fortunate this fall to receive the offer to re-review  High School German I  for Middlebury Interactive Languages. You may recall that I reviewed it last fall, but due to various constraints we were not able to continue it for the 2nd semester, so my son was not able to receive a full language credit for the course. With a second chance to check it out, I am hopeful that he will be able to complete the full course so that I can give him credit this time around. :)

As a refresher, the course *is* interactive, and hits a number of learning styles, with exercises in listening to native speakers, recording auditory answers, and watching videos. Not entirely immersive, but close. Each unit has a similar layout in that they introduce new vocabulary, grammar patterns, culture videos, speaking and writing activities, reading and listening activities. The units have a variety of interactive exercises to help reinforce the vocabulary and grammar concepts.  There are also pop quizzes and tests which are automatically graded.

Here is a look at the first semester objectives. you can see the pop out where I clicked on Unit 3 to show what would be learned that week:

The lessons are accessed a couple of ways.
Via a calendar (which still doesn't have the ability to be adjusted to accommodate personal homeschool schedules, as we weren't able to access the program until after the lessons had "started" on the calendar, so started out "behind." I'd also like the ability to move lessons over a day to account for field trips and holidays ~ homeschool teacher access to the calendar is still on my wishlist,)

You see that you can click on the calendar date, from there click on the Unit Lesson, and the list with checkboxes and lesson slides show up. If the lesson hasn't been done, the student simply clicks on the slide and it begins. The green checkmarks are for the activities that have been completed.

The other way that the lessons can be accessed is through the table of contents. Here you can see the "Tips to Become a Successful Online Learner" slide from the introduction. As with the calendar view,  the checkmarks on the left of the screen show which activities have been completed. The bold letters show the current slide. You can also see that I randomly clicked on Lesson 2 to open up the menu and check to see which activities were done.

If you want to check on the student grade, you also have that option, via the dashboard:

If you click on the "grade-book" link on the left hand side it opens up a list of the quizzes and tests that have been taken with their grades. You can then click on the "Grade Report" button on the left side to see the student grade average. 

So far my son is still reviewing the lessons he went through last fall, but he definitely has a better handle on the language at this point, and it shows up in daily conversation, which is fun. He enjoys the breadth of the activities, and the fact that they aren't all exactly the same.

I think this is a great way to learn a language, and with a few little tweaks (ie: calendar access for the homeschool teacher), I think it would be fantastic!

The Elementary and Middle School courses look like they would be great also. It is worth noting that they suggest going straight to High School German II if the student has completed Middle School II.

  

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Middlebury Interactive Languages
• Product: High School German I 
• Ages: High School
• Price: $119/semester without teacher support. There is also an option *with* teacher support for $294/semester (not included in this review).

Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Review Crew and see what others had to say. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids, Spanish Starter Set 1

Although Youngest is still getting a handle on correct English, his pronunciation has gotten much better, to the point that I was willing to consider introducing him to a "living" foreign language. When the opportunity to review the Spanish Starter Set 1 by Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids we were both interested to give it a go.

Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids' program is appropriate for beginning learners aged 3 (With parental oversight) and up. I think it is most suitable for children in the elementary years, but can be used by older individuals to gain a quick grasp of some basic Spanish, or possibly prepare for High School Spanish courses.

The program is based on the immersion-style videos that are the spine of the program. As reviewers, we were sent the complete Spanish Starter Set 1, which includes a DVD with the first three levels of video (along with workbooks, teacher/parent guides, flashcards and stickers for each level). The videos follow a family with three boys, who are our "immersion instructors." They are seen in familiar settings, and introduce words and phrases that are part of their daily life. There are other scenes interspersed throughout the main story that emphasize the particular word or phrase being learned, along with written cues for the words.

The Teacher/Parent guides give suggestions for scheduling lessons as well as extra activities that can be included in the learning time. We both enjoyed the stories and the personalities of the boys as we learned some basic words. The only minor issue I had with the DVD was knowing how far to watch for each lesson~ it appears that those may be more clearly defined in the online version of the videos, another alternative in which some people may be interested.

The workbooks are of such a high quality paper that my son didn't want to write in them, so we just did the exercises verbally. They are bright and colorful, with fun activities that enhance the learning from the video. One of the pages I found most useful included very helpful information that introduced the concept of noun genders in Spanish. This was obviously a totally new concept for my Youngest, but Spanish would seem to be one of the easier languages to learn this, as the "gender articles" typically relate to the ending of the word... fantastic!

There are some flashcards included which can be used for any number of games, including the Go Squish Cardgame, instructions for which are included in this Starter Set. We chose to do a variation on Concentration as a solitaire game for my guy. We also used them as basic flashcards to test his memory. I appreciate that there are "Key" cards included that give the number of each picture card along with the accompanying Spanish word/phrase card. Smart! (Because otherwise, I may have been confused by some of them, even though each photo is taken directly from the action of the video).

The final component included in this set is one that we personally have not used, and probably won't use as intended~ a set of vocabulary stickers. We just don't *do* stickers or labels on objects around the house here, but in another setting or home, I think they would definitely add to the "immersion" quality of the program.

So, how did we use the program?
We mostly followed the suggestions in the Teacher guide for lessons, making sure that we repeated the video portions, as a part of review. The times required varied a lot, from 10/15 minutes to 1/2 hour or 3/4 hour, which was actually a nice thing for us~ some days being more or less appropriate for shorter or longer lessons. There is a "Rapid Review" portion that can be used as a determining factor as to whether your child is ready to move to the next level or not~ Sort of a Video Flash Card with a race to see if they can say the Spanish word for each picture before it is flashed on the screen.

Youngest has started to use some of his Spanish in daily life which has been fun to see. He likes that it has been fairly easy to pick up some words and phrases without too much trouble, although he does have to work to remember other words. He thought all the puzzles in the workbook were fun, and the flash cards/card game was a lot of fun, but really challenged him.

I think that Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids is a wonderfully gentle introduction to Spanish that has gotten my son excited to be learning new words in a new language.

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids
• Product:  Spanish Starter Set 1
• Ages: 3 years old (minimum) and up (Particularly through elementary, in my opinion) 
• Price: currently $140.25 for the physical products. There are also number of "online member" options available~ check the website for those! :) 

Visit Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids on Facebook.
Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Review Crew and see what others had to say. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

Middlebury Interactive Languages: High School German I

I took German in high school in part because I had German ancestors, and in part because it was offered! I wore a Dirndl my sister sent from Germany (When she was in the army) and had my hair in braids to sing Nur Ver Die Sehnsucht Kennt  at our State Music Competition, where I was asked if I was a German Exchange Student due to the fact that my name had a German spelling, and my accent was "native." My German teacher said my ear for language and accents was such that I would make a good spy... too bad I didn't/don't have the stomach for it. ;)

I must admit I was a little bit disappointed when my Eldest determined that Latin would be her Foreign Language of choice for high school. Middlest didn't do any foreign language study last year, but as he is a Sophomore this year, it *is* getting to be time for him to make a choice. He had mentioned an interest in German (hurrah!) a couple of years ago, so when the opportunity came to review a 6 month, 1 semester course of High School German Level 1 through Middlebury Interactive Languages I signed up!

Middlebury Interactive offers courses in Chinese, French, German, and Spanish 

Grades K-12

Each class is offered by semester, with a full course being two complete semesters. Almost everything is done online, with the exception of some "written" work that the parent/teacher is supposed to grade. This might be a little tricky for someone who doesn't already have some familiarity with the language, but so far I haven't run into any major trouble.

The courses are immersive in that they involve the student in 4 key areas of language learning: the auditory aspect of  Listening and Speaking, and the ability to Read and Write. Some exercises include listening to native speakers, then recording the same phrases, listening to native speakers and translating what they said, reading phrases and dragging them to the correct translation, watching videos, and more. Most of the activities are interesting and engaging.

A couple of things that could use some improvement:
Clarification
We did have *some* confusion with a couple of the listening/writing exercises, where the directions weren't totally clear~ I could wish that there was a little more homeschool parent guidance when using the independent version (aka a key to the answers, so that we could guide our students toward the correct sort of answer).

Assignments
As a homeschool teacher, I would like the ability to move the assignments around on the calendar. Because we had a two week vacation scheduled during the review period, I would have preferred to have control over the assignments rather than having my son's assignments constantly behind. I expect that the calendar is set up for the interactive teacher, who provides support, encouragement and feedback if you should happen to choose that option, but it would be good to have access to it as a homeschool teacher as well.

My son actually prefers the process the of accessing assignments via the calendar: with each section shown on the left, and the arrow buttons at the bottom to move back to a previous lesson or go on to the next lesson.
(Note that the presentations in the lesson that have been completed have blue/greyed out titles and the slides themselves are tinted. In this screenshot you can see the last part of the lesson, Pronunciation Practice 1 has a white title, and therefore wasn't completed...)

The Table of Contents is another way to access the lessons, and can be more straight-forward if one is not up-to-date with the pre-programmed calendar assignments. It makes it easier for the teacher (and student) to see which sections have been completed (green check box) and which haven't (unchecked box). I think that if a "Forward" and "backward" button could be added to these presentations, the "user interface" ( or "UI" to quote my son) would be much smoother. Currently when using this method to move through the course one must click back to the title in the side menu. Not a big deal, but Middlest did request that I mention it. ;)

By and large, I find this to be an interesting method of teaching German, and a far cry from my high school classes which started out learning the alphabet, conjugating verbs, and learning noun gender right away. Conjugations don't show up until the third unit, after the student has some good conversational phrases under their belt. He had enough after the first lesson to have a little fun with it. Learning to say "Herr ____ ist ein freund von mir" made him think of a slightly cheesy little song their youth pastor introduced them to... Jesus is a friend of mine: (so much better in German!)

Middlest's thoughts: I like it a lot~ it is one of the things I look forward to doing. It has renewed my interest in learning German, and I enjoy learning about German culture in the videos. I like that I can understand some conversation, and I am starting to get a feel for the language. 

I am looking forward to brushing up on my German as well, so that Middlest and I  can try to converse a little bit.

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 

• Company: Middlebury Interactive Languages
• Product: High School German Level 1
• Ages: High School 
• Price: per student: $119/semester without a teacher, $294/semester with a teacher

Visit  Middlebury Interactive Languages Social Media:
Facebook 
Google+ 
Instagram 
Pinterest 
Twitter

Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Review Crew and see what others had to say as they reviewed other languages and levels. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

French Essentials (Online Multimedia French Lessons)

Finally, after YEARS of mentioning the potential of learning “French” to my eldest, she finally acquiesced when we were given the opportunity to review French Essentials's Full Access Online Program  Middlest came along for the ride, and Littlest sometimes participated.

French Essentials is a unique product, in that it offers something of a classroom experience in the comfort of your own home using a variety of multimedia presentations. 

The "Core" lessons are downloaded pdf files with audio and video enabled. They must be viewed through Adobe Reader and not a generic pdf viewer (like Preview on my MAC) in order for these special features to work. 

We were fairly impressed with these techie pdf files! 

We particularly enjoyed watching M. Legnetil as he spoke the words of each lesson. Very clear and precise! We decided that this was quite helpful, as sometimes the woman in the audio portions of the lesson wasn't quite as clear.

*Funny story that goes with that last comment. Eldest was doing the very first workbook page from Lesson 1, with the following instructions: In this exercise your instructor will spell out an English word (with French letters). Click the box (in the pdf on your computer) to hear the letters. Then, fill in the blanks (on the sheet you printed) with the letters that you hear to complete the word. 

She found the first 6 words to be rather easy, but the 6th word had her stumped... "BEOBNU.... What kind of word is that?" Turns out that she had trouble catching some of the sounds... the word really was PEOPLE. It gave us a laugh, at any rate. 

Back to the beginning:

Once you have logged in, you will see something like this: 

The Download area is where you will download the mulitmedia PDF zip files for each lesson in each module.
In some of the Modules there will be a "parent corner" that is found at the bottom of that modules lesson download page~ this usually includes a "Checklist" as well as the printable exercises and the "key" to those exercises... make sure you scroll all the way down to find them!

Here are a couple of samples of the videos found embedded in the lessons:

and as the lessons and vocabulary grow, so do the videos~ real conversation here!

The online Exercises make use of the website Quizlet for each lesson's exercises and tests. They are reached easily by clicking through to the correct module (As seen below) and then to the correct exercise or test for each lesson.
My kids have enjoyed using Quizlet in the past, so they were pleased to have something familiar to use in this curriculum.

The final area of that can be explored online focuses on the culture of France, with some interesting information found in various pdf files and photos.

There are samples of each Module (Found on this page... scroll down).

Some of the unique hallmarks of this learning experience include:

• Audio: the ability to hear the words spoken as they are seen on the page
• Video: which incorporates watching, listening, repeating and speaking
• Workbooks: printable exercises that reinforce grammar and sentence structure

The authors of the curriculum are a married couple from Quebec who got their start tutoring homeschoolers by request. They clearly have a background in the language, teaching, and they understand the homeschool community.

Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 
We have been very pleased with our first foray into French Language education.
There are a couple of quirks, like sometimes having a hard time hearing/understanding some of the female instructors in the lesson audios. However, that isn't much of an issue, when M. Legnetil speaks so clearly~ and he usually shows up somewhere in the lesson. :)

By and large I think this is a very well laid out program, with many ways to engage your learner, whether their strengths are audio, visual, or kinesthetic.

• Company: French Essentials 
• Product: Full Access Online Program
• Ages: currently 3rd/4th grade - 7th/8th grade 
• Price: $149.95 for full access to all modules for one year
  (Stress-free download the lessons and workbook exercises)
  $69.95 for access to an individual module for 90 days
  *Note~ once the lessons and workbooks are downloaded, you can access them at any time, including up to and beyond the year or 90 days~ that time frame appears to be strictly for downloading purposes. 

Please click the banner below to visit the TOS Review Crew and see what others had to say. As always, I hope that this review was useful to you as you choose where best to spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

Relax, Enjoy, Aspire, Learn (R.E.A.L. Spanish)

I recently received the downloadable version of Homeschool Spanish for review as a member of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew. I received a downloaded Textbook, Activity Book, Answer Book, and Audio Files recorded by native Spanish Speakers.

This is a curriculum that uses a variety of options in order to teach Spanish to your children. However, this is not a "Set them loose, and off they go" sort of curriculum, it is much more teacher driven. Here is the "Weekly plan" from the text to give you an idea of how the curriculum is set up with additional notes on how we used it in that framework (There is a handy reproducible "planning guide" included in the book which makes it easy to keep track of what you're doing and where you're "going" each week)~

Weekly pattern of use of the material is the following:

1. Plan which vocabulary you will study and how you will present it using the Tips to the Home Educator section for each unit. Use the Audio if you need it. (Um... yep... needed it here!) Dr. Karyn Williamson-Coria, the author has provided loose guidelines on multiple ages, as far as how quickly or slowly one might choose to move, or how to integrate multiple ages into the learning. I basically used it with my 11 yo Middlest, but Eldest listened on the sidelines, so learned some vocabulary, and Littlest may pick things up, but he is not my focus at 4 years old. :)
2. Present the new vocabulary and have you and your child become familiar with the new words and sentences in the Vocabulary section. (We accomplished this by listening to the audio while looking at the vocabularly/phrases page. Because we were reading from the computer, it was fairly easy to pause the audio and repeat if necessary.)
3. Use the IDEA section to come up with fun and interesting activities to continue using the language throughout the day/week.  Have your child listen to the Audio to reinforce his/her listening and pronunciation skills. (Did the audio as mentioned above already~ our favorite sort of "Activity" tends to consist of using the vocabulary throughout the day as we remember, and singing songs, generally practicing in appropriate situations)
4. Practice writing the language with the ACTIVITY BOOK. (These pages were my "homework" for Middlest. At 11 years old, he found certain aspects of the work very challenging, and various activities would definitely be appropriate for an older student)
5. Set aside some time for CULTURE learning with the FREE CULTURE LINKS section found on our website. (We didn't have a LOT of time to spend on the culture, but there are some great links included~ you can easily check them out. There are definitely some sites that bear revisiting!)
6. Above all... Relax, Enjoy, Aspire and Learn Spanish!!! (R.E.A.L. Learning!)

I will say that at first I found the multiple files (text/activity/answer/audio) a little disjointed, and would really prefer to have a hard copy in hand (Seems like I always feel this way when presented with a new e-version of a curriculum), but I have gotten into the flow of how to use them, so it's working nicely now. (*note to self ~ don't give up on e-books~I generally get along with them fine after an "adjustment period")

Now for a quick set of pros and cons~
Pros~

• written by a highly qualified homeschool mom 
• many tips and techniques and ideas on how to engage a variety of personalities and ages 
• (auditory, visual and kinesthetic, all covered)
• interesting worksheets for the mid-older students

Cons~

• a little more teacher intensive, particularly for the younger ages (Although not my focus at this time)
• not much material in the "Activity book" for non-readers or early readers~ again, more teacher intensive for that age, but as I mentioned~ many ideas  in the "Text" for engaging the younger student
• occasionally background or "room sound" in some of the audios is distracting

Nitty Gritty~
The course could be taken very slowly (3 years or so) for early elementary, or used as a fairly intensive 1st year high school Spanish course. Either way you should end up with a decent conversational Spanish ability.

• Age~  adaptable for Elementary-Middle School (With a High School Supplement coming soon)
• Price~ $49.95 download, $89.95 hardcopy (Purchase here)
• Includes~ Text, Activity Book, Answer Book, and Audio Files
• Samples are available

There are also monthly drawings at the site for Spanish Language Related gifts, which is a fun addition!
For more reviews and opinions, please visit the TOS Homeschool Crew blog.


As always, I hope that this review is helpful to you as you choose where to best spend your homeschool budget.

Blessings~

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this/these item(s)/service for free as part of the TOS Crew Review Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."