German as a foreign/second language

We're doing it! We're doing J's German School homework!

He can be in the advanced or beginner class. The advanced class includes children who spend the summer in Germany. The beginner class includes children who have never been exposed to German as a spoken language. He doesn't really fit into either group, as he understands way too much German to be a beginner and doesn't speak well enough to be advanced. We made a deal with the advanced teacher that J would try out her class for a month and then we'd reevaluate.

With that in mind, we really have to prepare for class. He can't just do spontaneous oral drills, we have to practice beforehand. We have to go over everything covered last class and preview everything he'll be doing the next class.

This discipline has been great. After looking for some sort of German curriculum to provide extra practice for the kids for a few years, we finally have one, preplanned and prepared for us. We have the discipline of class time and homework, and J has the reading skills necessary to do well with German in a spoken and written way.

We're still doing our own things to achieve my goal for German this year: that the children can understand stranger-produced German. We're reading books and listening to CD stories and music. We speak German in the afternoons after we've finished our other homeschool tasks for the day. This is the heart and lifeblood of our German learning. The German School and homework has just added the bones to keep things in place.