Foreign language in high school

[Deleted]

For those with high school kids, does your high school offer more than just Spanish and German? I don't get that with colleges requiring 2-4 years of a world language that the choices are so limited (at least here).

We're a global company and I would say Mandarin or Thai would be the most beneficial here. Spanish and German? Uh...no.

[swamp]

most of our hs's offer spanish and french.

[happyhoix]

Our local HS only offers one foreign language right now - just one!! And that's Spanish. Given that our area has a large hispanic population, Spanish makes sense, but VW just located a facility here, so German would be a good option, too.

I know at our HS it's a budget problem. No way they have the funds to hire on a Mandarin teacher. They had to get rid of their driver's ed program last year, and art classes the year before.

[steph08]

Dec 5, 2012 15:28:10 GMT -5 swamp said:

most of our hs's offer spanish and french.

Same here. I took Spanish - I figured it would be more useful.

It helped my DH pass his college Spanish classes.

[CarolinaKat]

Spanish and French are the standard around here. Some of the magnet schools offer Japanese, Mandarin, German, Italian, Russian and I don't remember what all else.

FWIW I took Spanish. This worked out well for me since my company was bought by a company out of Barcelona, Spain.

[midjd]

We had Spanish, French, and German. I'd say 70% of the students took Spanish, and the other 30% pretty evenly split between French and German.

I took 4 years of Spanish and 2 in college, but still only know enough to communicate with the migrant workers ILs hire each summer... and even then really only enough to ask if they're doing OK and if they want a cerveza.

[Deleted]

They used to offer French here as well as Spanish and German, but that's been gone for years.

It just seems odd since neither language seems to serve anyone in our area very much. We have several large companies here and they are tied mainly to Asian countries. No Hispanic population around here either. The immigrant workers we have are Somalian.

Older son's stepmother is Chinese, and just moved to the US a couple years ago. I'm hoping he picks up some of the language from her.

[The Captain]

Yeaa, I took Latin. Really useful...

[midjd]

I would've LOVED a Latin class!!

We had etymology, it was the closest I could get.

[The Captain]

Oh, I gotta admit learing some of the root words to several of the "romance" languages was pretty cool. However trying to learn all the different declensions and memorize the different tenses was a bear (past imperfect, future imperfect...there were five to seven different "rules" to remember depending on the usage of the word SHUDDER!)

[chiver78]

my school had French, Spanish, and German. I think they offer Latin and Italian now, too. I would have taken Italian if it was available. I took French instead, until I grew tired of being penalized for speaking/writing the dialect I knew instead of the Parisian being (badly) taught.

[giramomma]

MPL-
I live about 4 hours of a drive east of you.

We have a HUGE hispanic/latino population. You name it, cleaners, migrant workers, hospitality, roofing, etc. It's gotten so that jobs for things like housekeeping are advertised in spanish only on craigslist.

I could see how teaching Spanish would be useful.

[Phoenix84]

Well, it's been a while (I graduated HS in 2003) but I know we had french and spanish, because I know I took those at some point. I'm pretty sure we had German and Japaneese and Latin. I don't think we had Mandrin or Thai.

Colleges require forign languages now? Man, I'd be screwed. I lasted only one semester of French and two semesters of spanish and barely made it.

I think english is more or less a international language, so I don't think you're hindered too much if you don't speak something else. Besides, unless you practice a lot you tend to lose the ability to speak a language, and most Americans don't have the opportunity to practice much.

[Deleted]

Dec 5, 2012 15:51:23 GMT -5 giramomma said:

MPL-
I live about 4 hours of a drive east of you.

We have a HUGE hispanic/latino population. You name it, cleaners, migrant workers, hospitality, roofing, etc. It's gotten so that jobs for things like housekeeping are advertised in spanish only on craigslist.

I could see how teaching Spanish would be useful.

Well, that's Wisconsin. We don't interact with those people.

[midjd]

Colleges require forign languages now? Man, I'd be screwed. I lasted only one semester of French and two semesters of spanish and barely made it.

My college required two 100-level courses or one 300-level course of a foreign language to receive an English degree... I don't think it was required for all degrees.

I took Spanish 301 and passed by the skin of my teeth... for some reason I just don't comprehend other languages well at ALL. It irritates me. It never seemed that hard to learn English, I don't know what my problem is.

[973beachbum]

My kids school does have a few languages to choose from. I think Spanish, French, Latin, Italian and German as well at ESL. The hitch is that most colleges require 2 years of the same language and ESL only rarely counts at all for that. So if they want to go to college their choices are really only Spanish, French and Latin.

Captian my DD said exactly what you did about Latin. She did her two years and said I'm done!

[CarolinaKat]

Dec 5, 2012 16:00:03 GMT -5 midjd said:

Colleges require forign languages now? Man, I'd be screwed. I lasted only one semester of French and two semesters of spanish and barely made it.

My college required two 100-level courses or one 300-level course of a foreign language to receive an English degree... I don't think it was required for all degrees.

I took Spanish 301 and passed by the skin of my teeth... for some reason I just don't comprehend other languages well at ALL. It irritates me. It never seemed that hard to learn English, I don't know what my problem is.

I got past the college requirements because of my High School scores. I didn't have to take any foriegn languates, but 2 semesters were required if you weren't given a pass. One of them could be a class that wasn't strictly learning the language, but learning about the writing/art/culture of another country. The other one was srtiaght up, learn the language. Most people I went with didn't get a pass.

[lynnerself]

Our high schools teach German, French and Spanish. They dropped Japanese 10 years ago in budget cuts. I also believe they teach sign language and our state universities accept that for the language requirement.

[Deleted]

Dec 5, 2012 15:55:14 GMT -5 Phoenix84 said:

Colleges require forign languages now? Man, I'd be screwed. I lasted only one semester of French and two semesters of spanish and barely made it.

I meant as a high school prereq for admission. Both high school course catalogs I'm looking at now (public and private), list 2 years of a single language as a requirement for those planning on going to a Traditional 4-year college and 3-4 years of a single language for the Selective 4-year colleges.

[andi9899]

Dec 5, 2012 15:25:08 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

For those with high school kids, does your high school offer more than just Spanish and German? I don't get that with colleges requiring 2-4 years of a world language that the choices are so limited (at least here).

We're a global company and I would say Mandarin or Thai would be the most beneficial here. Spanish and German? Uh...no.

The one my daughter goes to offers those listed. It also offers French and I think they still offer Latin. When I went there way back in the day, it was a graduation requirement that you at least take Latin I.

[Phoenix84]

Well, I was going for a science degree, so they were more concerned about my science and math classes. I don't know if this is recent but all the colleges I looked at didn't require a forign language for their science/engineering programs. But, as I said, maybe things have changed.

I more than made up for it by taking lots of science classes. I took biology, chemistry, physics, Earth Space science, Astonomy, and meteorology.

[andi9899]

Dec 5, 2012 15:43:26 GMT -5 midjd said:

I would've LOVED a Latin class!!

We had etymology, it was the closest I could get.

My daughter's school replaced the Latin requirement with etymology.

[Deleted]

Entrance requirements at our local state school.

16 High School Preparation Requirements

4 years of English
3 years of mathematics (2 years algebra; 1 year geometry)
3 years of science (1 year biological science; 1 year chemistry or physics; all should include labs)
3 years of social studies (including 1 year U.S. history)
2 years of same world language (no sampler/review courses; American Sign Language accepted)
1 year of specified electives (world cultures, computer science, arts, music)

[Phoenix84]

"I meant as a high school prereq for admission. Both high school course catalogs I'm looking at now (public and private), list 2 years of a single language as a requirement for those planning on going to a Traditional 4-year college and 3-4 years of a single language for the Selective 4-year colleges."

I figured that's what you meant. I'm just saying if that's really the expected way now, the change must have been recent because when I was applying to colleges in 2003 it wasn't required.

Or maybe it's just your state.

[Phoenix84]

Dec 5, 2012 16:10:03 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Entrance requirements at our local state school.

16 High School Preparation Requirements

4 years of English
3 years of mathematics (2 years algebra; 1 year geometry)
3 years of science (1 year biological science; 1 year chemistry or physics; all should include labs)
3 years of social studies (including 1 year U.S. history)
2 years of same world language (no sampler/review courses; American Sign Language accepted)
1 year of specified electives (world cultures, computer science, arts, music)

That's pretty much what our college prep cirriculum consisted of in Indiana. Except for the forign language.

[973beachbum]

Dec 5, 2012 16:10:03 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Entrance requirements at our local state school.

16 High School Preparation Requirements

4 years of English
3 years of mathematics (2 years algebra; 1 year geometry)
3 years of science (1 year biological science; 1 year chemistry or physics; all should include labs)
3 years of social studies (including 1 year U.S. history)
2 years of same world language (no sampler/review courses; American Sign Language accepted)
1 year of specified electives (world cultures, computer science, arts, music)

That is pretty standard for every college I have seen. DH teaches at a CC and they don't have much in the way of requirements but it really wouldn't matter much. The state requirements for graduating HS really are about the same. I think the foriegn lang requirement can be a year each of different languages but other than that they are about the same.

[saveinla]

Language and arts are the first to go when there are budget cuts. Our school offers only Spanish and French now and ASL is offered in 11th and 12th grades.

[Deleted]

Dec 5, 2012 16:11:55 GMT -5 Phoenix84 said:

"I meant as a high school prereq for admission. Both high school course catalogs I'm looking at now (public and private), list 2 years of a single language as a requirement for those planning on going to a Traditional 4-year college and 3-4 years of a single language for the Selective 4-year colleges."

I figured that's what you meant. I'm just saying if that's really the expected way now, the change must have been recent because when I was applying to colleges in 2003 it wasn't required.

Or maybe it's just your state.

This is Purdue



Undergraduate Admissions >
Applying >
High School Course Requirements

High School Course Requirements

Students who plan to apply to Purdue should meet or exceed the minimum high school course requirements listed below. Those who pursue the strongest-possible college preparatory program and take advantage of any available Advance Placement (AP), higher level International Baccalaureate (IB) or honors courses generally are more competitive candidates for admission and more qualified to succeed in college.

Students interested in applying for technical programs (engineering, science, health-related majors, technology, and agriculture, etc.) should take as much advanced coursework as possible in math and science (pre-calculus, AP/IB Calculus, AP/IB Biology, AP/IB Chemistry, and AP/IB Physics). Other courses students could consider:

AP Computer Science
AP Statistics
AP/IB English
AP/IB social science courses
Speech

Work/career exploration opportunities (internships, cooperative programs) or Project Lead the Way courses in high school can help students explore career interests. However, they should not replace the academic subject-matter preparation described above.

Minimum High School Course Requirements
Applicants must meet these course requirements either in high school or through subsequent college-level (not remedial) coursework. A semester of college coursework is equivalent to two semesters of high school.

Math (1)


8 semesters


Lab Science (2)


6 semesters


6 Semesters For engineering 2 science semesters must be chemistry.

For nursing, pharmaceutical sciences, prepharmacy, and veterinary technology, 2 science semesters must be biology and 2 must be chemistry

English (3)


8 semesters


Foreign Language (4)


4 semesters


Social Studies


6 semesters


1Purdue expects 8 semesters of college-preparatory math. View a list of college-prep math courses that Purdue can and cannot accept toward this requirement.

2 Lab science includes biology, chemistry, physics, anatomy, physiology, earth/space science, etc.

3 English includes grammar, composition, literature, speech, and vocabulary, but not journalism, newspaper, yearbook, or theatre arts.

4 Students do not have to take four semesters of the same foreign language. American Sign Language counts if it is part of a secondary school's curriculum.

[simser]

I graduated high school 11 years ago and we had Spanish, French, German, Latin and Japanese. I think Mandarin, Hindi or Arabic would be the most helpful with Spanish.

I took 5 years of Spanish, got straight A's and only could speak Spanish after I made a lot of Mexican friends and went to Argentina. Basically it was worthless...

[wvugurl26]

WVU's arts and sciences department was the only one that required 4 semesters of a same foreign language to graduate. It translated to two 100 level course and two 200 level courses.

Engineering's in a different department of its own.

I had two years of Spanish in high school. It got me through most of college Spanish easily. I would have been screwed trying to learn Spanish with the teachers I had for 101 and 102 at WVU.

My high school offered Latin, Spanish and French.