Series Sneak Peek: Apps for Homeschool Foreign Language Learning

Update: the series is live! Click over to my three-part review of Duolingo here (the good; the not-so-good; and the how-tos) and my review of Mango Languages (the good; the not-so-good; and the how-tos) as well. 

It is so awesome to be learning a language in 2017. 

I mean, consider this: right now, at this historical moment, we are experiencing a REVOLUTION in language learning. Technology is erasing borders, connecting people groups, and changing every aspect of how we learn languages. Language educators of fifty years ago—or even ten years ago—could not have dreamed of the technological resources that are available to us now. Online curricula, audiobooks, video chatting, and smartphone apps: all of these have transformed the way that we learn and practice foreign languages on an daily  basis. 

And from my vantage point within the homeschooling community? Well, I’ve observed that homeschoolers are some of the most enthusiastic and savvy users of this new technology. But you know what? I’d LOVE to see even more homeschooling families using the latest technology to support their language learning at home. 

So for the next two weeks or so, I’m going to be writing a series of posts focused on two of the most popular apps in homeschool language learning: Mango Languages and Duolingo. 

I’ve been spending a lot of time with both apps, and I can’t wait to share with you what I’ve learned. I’ll be writing about what I like about both programs—as a language teacher and as a mom—and also what’s not so great. I’ll also be sharing advice on how to maximize your use of each of these apps and incorporate them into your homeschool in practical, achievable ways. 

Since I’m writing this to serve you, the Language Learning at Home community, I’d love to know if you have any specific questions about these apps and how they work. If you do, please leave them here in the comments, and I’ll do my best to respond in the series. 

And in the meantime, if you'd like to talk about YOUR experience using apps for homeschool language learning, please join my Facebook group, where I'm planning an exclusive conversation on the subject! All you have to do is to click below. 

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How to Choose a Foreign Language to Study in Your Homeschool

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Decisions, decisions. Making short- and long-term decisions about the direction of your children’s education is one of the greatest privileges (and responsibilities) that homeschooling parents enjoy. Sometimes, the sheer number of options alone can be overwhelming—to say nothing of the decision-making process itself. Since homeschool curricula is so customizable, it sometimes feels like we’re obligated to study ANY and EVERY subject, perhaps even all at the same time. I know that I’ve been tempted to think that way, even though my kids are still young and really only need the basics. 

But let’s say that you’ve made the decision to include foreign languages in your homeschool. Where do you start? If you find yourself asking that question, well, today’s post is for you. 

Here, I’ve developed three questions that can help you narrow down your choices. They’re by no means the ONLY questions to ask yourself when deciding which foreign language to study, but they should help guide you toward the right decision for your family. Since your answers to each of these questions might not all point to the same language, you will have to decide which factors should weigh most heavily. My hope, however, is that these three questions will be a great “jumping off” point for deeper conversations in your family and help you feel like you are making a purposeful and well-informed decision. 

So, ask yourself these three things when choosing a foreign language to study: 

1. What world cultures are most interesting to your family? Since motivation is such an important part of language learning, it helps to connect your family’s language learning to broader interests. So when you’re deciding on a language, ask yourself this: Which language will help you develop your existing interests and thereby contribute to building your family culture? Do you love Italian food and Renaissance art? Perhaps studying Italian will be a way to dive deeper into these interests and help your family appreciate the beauty of Italian culture. Maybe your family is the adventurous type and has a shared dream of traveling to Buenos Aires. Why not expand that dream by studying Spanish and learning about Argentinean literature, music, and food in the language spoken by the porteños—that is, the people of Buenos Aires—themselves?
    
2. What languages might be most practically useful to your family? You can take this question in two directions. First, you can ask yourself what educational interests your children might pursue in the future. While this might be hard to predict if your children are little, your family culture might be a good predictor of their future careers and callings. Therefore, if you’re a science and engineering family, it might be worth studying German to prepare your children for potentially studying or working abroad. Or, if you’re a family of history buffs that adores reciting epics, Latin and Greek would be a natural choice—and would enrich any future historical study that your children choose to pursue. 
   
   Second, you can look around you to see what languages you might be able to put to use in your community. For many Americans, the most obviously useful language is Spanish, given the number of Spanish-speaking immigrants and heritage speakers who call our country home. But depending on your location, you might consider studying other languages. If you live on the U.S. and Canadian border, for example, French might be a language that members of your community speak. For our part, my husband and I grew up in an area with a large Portuguese-speaking population and now live in an area with a considerable number of Chinese immigrants. We could find practical uses for Spanish, Portuguese, or Chinese in our family. So considering that fact, your strategy could be to choose a language according to which cultural and service opportunities might be available close to home.
    
3. What resources are available to you to study the target language? Think of three categories of resources when developing your answer to this question: communities, curricula, and tools.

          Communities: How can you arrange real-life practice of the language for your children? Are
          there classes available through your homeschool co-op, local libraries, or dual-enrollment  
          programs that will enable your child to practice the language with a fluent speaker and
          other language leaners? Do you have the resources to enroll in on-line classes for your child
         or to hire a private tutor to teach your family?

          Curricula: Are foreign language courses available through the curricula that you already
          use? Bob Jones University, for example, has its own Spanish course for its students, while
          Classical Conversations recommends a particular Latin textbook to use. If you are not using
          a boxed curriculum or participating in a program like Classical Conversations, do you have
          the time and energy to evaluate your curriculum options? If you need a little help in this
          area, I would suggest asking around your homeschool community and checking Cathy
          Duffy Reviews to research your choices further—she has an excellent list of curricula in
          different languages. 

         Tools: Would your child benefit from any of the apps and programs that exist to teach
         foreign languages? I consider most of these a supplement to formal language learning
         curricula, but they are excellent for reinforcing new concepts and increasing student
         motivation. The apps Duolingo and Mango are a great place to start and free through many
         libraries. I’ll be posting soon on how to maximize the use of those apps in your homeschool
         language learning—so stay tuned!

         Also consider how easy it is to acquire authentic texts in the target language; are there
         foreign language books, CDs, and DVDs available through your local library, or can you
        order those materials online? Since authentic texts are one of the best ways to engage with a
         foreign language, this is an important consideration. Your ability to access authentic texts in
         a particular language may be better than another. For our family, while we can get most of
        our Spanish-language resources from the library, our Portuguese study requires a more
        serious financial investment, because our library has no Portuguese-language books and
        those that we do use have been imported into the U.S. (read: expensive). However, there are
       creative ways around this: for example, could you share some books with another family
       studying the same language, or could you subscribe to a service like Epic!, which lets you
       check out foreign language e-books for kids?

        The more resources that are available to your family for a given language, the greater your
        chances of being able to learn it well. I like a wrap-around approach to language learning
        that includes practice in all four areas of language learning: reading, writing, listening AND
        speaking. You may have to pull resources from two, or even three categories in order to
        satisfy all of those areas of learning, so the more resources that are available to you in
        general, the better. 

I know that this all seems like a lot to consider—and it is!—but I hope that these questions will help you feel more confident in your decisions about language study and help your family to understand exactly why you’ve chosen the language that you have. 

What other factors did you consider when choosing a foreign language to study in your homeschool? How did you ultimately make the decision to study a particular language?

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Audiobooks: The Secret Weapon for Homeschool Foreign Language Learning

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If you’ve been around the homeschool community for a while, you’ve likely noticed something curious about homeschoolers' "reading" habits:

Homeschoolers LOVE their audiobooks.

From Story of the World to the Green Ember Series, homeschool families are probably some of the most enthusiastic audiobook listeners on the planet.

And this is for good reason. Research strongly points to the many educational benefits of reading aloud to children—all of which apply to audiobooks as well. (If you’d like to learn more about this research, by the way, I strongly recommend Jim Trelease’s classic Read-Aloud Handbook and Sarah Mackenzie’s podcast, the Read-Aloud Revival).

Now, I’d like to let you in on a little secret….

All of the benefits of reading aloud to children apply equally in foreign languages.

I’m speaking from both personal experience and research here: over the years, our family has acquired hundreds of Spanish-language audiobooks to support our kids’ language learning.

Here are just a few ways that audiobooks in the target language can enrich language learning in your homeschool:

1. Audiobooks can improve your child’s listening comprehension by providing exposure to native speakers with varying accents. Logistical challenges can make it difficult for homeschooled students to spend much time interacting with native speakers—let alone native speakers from different countries. Audiobooks, however, provide an opportunity for homeschoolers to hone their listening comprehension skills with authentic texts (originally written in the target language) performed by readers from around the globe. 

2. Audiobooks provide convenient, on-the-go opportunities for language practice WITHOUT a major commitment from mom. If your children are struggling to make deliberate practice a part of their language study, audiobooks might just be what they need. You can redeem that fifteen minute drive to soccer practice by listening to a book in your child’s target language—and in just fifteen minutes, you’ll be helping their language development immensely, with little effort or planning on your part!

3. Audiobooks can be paced to match your child’s current language skills, while also stretching their language development. Unlike everyday conversation, where it’s easy to miss new vocabulary, with audiobooks, your child can press “pause” and “replay” as much as needed to aid in his or her comprehension. With the Audible app, you can also listen to books at 0.75 speed—a strategy that I recommend strongly for new language learners. 

So, how can your family get started with audiobooks in a foreign language? Here are five simple steps to follow:

1. Sign up for an Audible.com account—you get two free books with a 30-day trial. If your local library has a subscription to either Hoopla or Overdrive, you may also find audiobooks on those apps, but I find that their foreign language collections are extremely limited compared to Audible’s. 

2. Search for audiobooks in your child’s target language. Go to “Browse Audible” and then select “Foreign Language” to find Audible’s offerings in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Portuguese. Once you’ve selected your language, click “See All” to visit a page where you will see the “Kids” category on the left-hand side. 

3. Match the audiboooks (roughly) to your child’s level of language proficiency. While Audible does not classify its audiobooks by level of difficulty, it does classify them by age appropriateness, which we can use as a rough guide for proficiency. For beginning language learners, start with books targeted at ages 0-4; intermediate learners should steer towards the ages 5-7 category. 

4. If your child is just starting a foreign language, look for supplemental materials to support his/her listening. If your child is in his/her first few years of language study, it’s a good idea to listen to picture books that you’ve already read in English, so that your child can enjoy the listening experience rather than dissecting every part of the narrative. if your library has a good selection of foreign language books, you could also consider checking out those that have corresponding audiobooks. Following the written text while listening (for children who can read) will provide extra reinforcement of the target language in your child’s mind. 

5. Enjoy your audiobooks…again and again! Listen to your audiobooks while you’re folding laundry, eating lunch, driving to extracurriculars, playing with Duplos, drawing at the table…whenever your family feels like it! If time allows, don’t hesitate to listen to it on repeat—younger children will likely request this anyways, and the repeated exposure to the story will aid in their comprehension.

If you’re studying Spanish at home, I encourage you to check out my post with our family’s favorite Spanish audiobooks. In the meantime, I’d love to know: has your family used audiobooks to support language learning? Which ones have you enjoyed most?

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Three Study Habits for Homeschool Language Learners

Is your child just starting to learn a foreign language? 

Perhaps this is the first school year that your bambino has chosen to study Italian, or your filho, Portuguese. That’s great!

Now, how’s your routine for language study going? Is your child struggling to implement regular practice sessions and review?

If your family is still looking to find a groove for language learning, let me encourage you to keep it simple. 

Remember: when studying a foreign language, consistency often counts more than intensity. Short, targeted practice sessions are more effective than epic, sweeping reviews, so if your children develop consistent practice habits, they will be well on their way to fluency.

And this is great news, because if you can help your children develop these habits—even if you don’t speak the target language yourself—you CAN support them well in their language learning. 

So, exactly what habits should language learners practice? I’m so glad you asked! 

Here are three helpful, research-proven habits that I suggest to all new language learners: 

1. Connect language study to a bigger goal.
2. Practice the target language every day. 
3. Model a positive attitude toward mistakes. 

Let’s talk about these a little more in-depth: 

1.) Connect language study to a bigger goal. This is essential. Your child has to know the “why” behind your family’s choice to study a foreign language. Is it because you have relatives who speak the language? Or perhaps you’re planning a #worldschooling experience and want to be prepared to communicate in the countries you visit? Or maybe your daughter loves Pablo Neruda’s poetry (me too) and she wants to be able to read it in the original Spanish? Whatever the reason, write it down—on the dining room wall if you have to! Language learning can be challenging, but keeping this goal front-of-mind will help your child see a purpose to the grammar practice and vocabulary drills, because it helps them develop what’s called integrative motivation. And it’s precisely that kind of motivation that is key to successful language learning. 

2.) Practice the target language every day. In an ideal world, your child would be able to speak the language every day, but since that is near-impossible for most homeschool families, make it a goal to practice at least one element of communication every day: listening, reading, speaking, and/or writing. This is called deliberate practice and oftentimes, it can be satisfied by simple changes in your family’s lifestyle. For example, I’m a big fan of replacing everyday activities with substitutes in the target language.  For example, could your family listen to a few songs in French during breakfast? Perhaps your high school student could read one blog post in Chinese every afternoon. Work with your child to develop a loose schedule of practice that fits his/her interests and personalities. This doesn’t need to take lots of time every day, but it is best if—just like math practice—it happens every day. 

3.) Model a positive attitude toward mistakes. So let me back up a little bit. This piece of advice assumes that your children will make mistakes while learning the language—which is actually great! Making mistakes indicates that your children are taking (good) risks in their attempts to use the language. Therefore, it’s important to know that mistakes are par for the course with language learning, and that a bit of struggle is actually a good sign—not an indication that your child “can’t” learn languages. So when your child encounters an obstacle, try your best to model a positive attitude towards mistake, by treating them as the learning opportunities that they are. If you speak (or are at least familiar with) the language that your children are studying, try your best to correct the mistake alongside your child; if the language is totally unfamiliar to you, this would be where (one would hope) your chosen curriculum would give you the necessary resources to support your child. 

What habits have you helped your child develop to support his/her language study? Are there any habits that I haven’t included here that you’ve found particularly helpful?

Want to learn from other families who are successfully studying foreign languages at home?

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Why We Do Homeschool and Preschool

Ever since I started researching homeschooling options, I’ve discovered that there are a lot of opinions in the homeschool world about preschool.

Some homeschooling families are content to do preschool at home—some with a more play-based model, some with a more structured, academic approach. Some even take an unschooling approach to preschool, choosing to emphasize life skills as the core of their curriculum. 

Other homeschooling families purposefully send younger siblings to preschool in order to give older children more focused attention during school hours.

In our family, we combine these approaches, and take a mostly “life skills” approach to home education, but our older son, Xavi, also attends a bilingual, Christian, Reggio-inspired preschool for two afternoons a week.

We decided to send him to preschool because as a bilingual family, it was important to us that our son was exposed to Spanish speakers outside of our immediate family unit. We wanted him to see that people besides ourselves speak Spanish, and that by learning to speak the language well, he could expand his circle of friends and his experiences.

We also know that even with me at home, speaking Spanish to him most of the time, we will always have to devote a significant amount of time and attention to the development of his Spanish skills.

It is very common for bilingual children to resist communicating in the minority language—that is, the language that is not spoken in the dominant culture—and we found that that was the case for our son. Once, he even begged me to just let him a “niño normal”—a normal kid—which he defined as a kid who spoke only English.

And so, two months in to our preschool journey, I am happy to report that preschool is going great! It has been a very positive influence on him, and is supporting his Spanish language development in exactly the way that I hoped. Xavi is much less reticent to speak Spanish than he was in the past and comes home from school each day sharing new songs and words that he’s learned in our second family language.

His response to preschool has been so positive that I am now looking for ways to replicate this environment in the future. Besides planning for future trips to Latin America (budgets allowing…), I hope to enroll him in a Saturday Spanish School, so that he has consistent practice speaking Spanish in an environment where there are no other options.

So that’s where we are today in our education journey as “part-time homeschoolers”—learning at home, in Spanish, with some support from preschool.

I’d love to know: have you made use of preschool programs for your homeschooling family? Why did you decide to send your children to preschool?

A Day in the Life Here

Earlier this week, I wrote about our homeschool’s goals for 2017-2018 and how our daily rhythms support them.

Now, I’d like to provide you with a visual chart of our days, so that you can see more clearly how it all fits together. Consider this a “day in the life” post. 

Please note that this is an ideal—and not an exact—representation of our days. We do have weekly outside commitments, like our Bible study, that are not all included here and of course, things like playdates and teething babies also force us to shift our schedule at times. Despite that, I hope that this will give you an idea of how we incorporate language learning into all elements of our day—and perhaps give you some inspiration for how you could do so as well!

6-7 AM Quiet Time and/or Sleep

If I’ve woken up less than three times the night before, I’ll get up around 6:00 and spend a half hour reading my Bible, praying, and enjoying my first cup of coffee. I’ll then spend about half an hour reading through Feedly and updating my Twitter feed with the best new articles on homeschooling and language learning.

If the baby has been up more than three times the night before, well, all bets are off. 

7-9 AM Café + Libros/Breakfast

My older son comes out of his room at 7:00, and we usually snuggle on the couch for 30 minutes to enjoy “Café + Libros”—our Spanish-language version of Coffee and Books. We’ll usually get through two picture books or a chapter of our Magic Treehouse books before the baby starts squawking for attention. Xavi especially loves this time because he gets his daily tablespoon of coffee. As you can tell, I really am doing my best to immerse him in Latin American culture.

Sometimes our read-alouds continue through breakfast, but more often than not, we spend that time listening to Spanish music (lately, it’s been this CD) or a dramatized Bible story in Spanish. 

9-10:30 AM Playtime + Chores

While the baby is taking his morning nap, Xavi and I usually play together for 30 minutes or so before doing our daily chores. There are some challenges to living in a small space as a family of four, but getting chores done isn’t one of them! Every time I clean my house, I am grateful for its limited square footage, since I generally need only 15-20 minutes to accomplish my daily “big chores,” such as cleaning the bathroom or the kitchen. Oftentimes, Xavi listens to an Audible book while I do this, but I also pull him into these chores as appropriate. So far, he’s really good at spraying and wiping down counters, scrubbing the kitchen floor (we put down rags and “ice skate” to get it clean), and cleaning crevices with the Dustbuster. 

10:30-12:00 PM Outdoor Time

At this point in the morning, I’ve been awake for a few hours and am starting to feel claustrophobic in the house, so we head out. Depending on the weather and the day of the week, we will go to a park, a nature center, or a local Storytime. Our double stroller has repaid its cost ten times over (at least!) with these outings. 

12:00 PM - 3:00 PM Lunch + Siesta

Lunch is well, lunch, but I consider nap time to be a cultural experience in and of itself—after all, we’re participating in “siesta culture!” All jokes aside, nap time is non-negotiable in our house. I use that time to read, work on this blog, prep for my Bible studies, and complete any volunteer work that I’ve signed up for. Two days a week, Xavi spends this time in preschool, so it’s just Felix napping at home with me. 

3:00 - 6:00 PM Adventure Time

Since this is the longest period of the day when both kids are awake, this is when we do our big adventures: hikes in the forest, trips to downtown DC, and long, lingering visits to the library. I generally plan one “big” outing per week (like a hike) and reserve one afternoon for grocery shopping—for the other three days, we just do whatever sounds good that day. 

6:00 - 7:30 PM Dinner + Bed

My husband works long hours, so most nights, I fly solo with the kids for dinner and bedtime. During dinner, we like to listen to classical music and play “conductor”—Xavi and I pretend to conduct the music and Felix gets a good laugh out of it. Listening to classical and chamber music during dinner, especially when I am alone with the boys, helps me feel more like an #awesomeadult and also develops their budding appetites for good art, so win-win! Xavi has become so enamored of Wagner because of our classical dinners that we are actually heading to a (local, free) Wagner concert in a few weeks! I’m pretty sure that we won’t be able to stay for the whole thing, but I do hope that he at least gets to hear “The Ride of the Valkyries” performed live.

After dinner, Xavi picks up his toys and is then allowed to watch one show in Spanish (this month, it’s Octonauts) while I clean up the kitchen. Felix gets his last wiggles out cruising along our furniture at this point. Afterwards, we get pajamas on, brush teeth, and start in on bedtime reading. We read a picture book (Xavi’s choice), read one story from our current Spanish Bible, and finally, pray before going to sleep. The two questions that guide our prayers (which we learned from our pastor in a sermon he preached last year) are these: "What happened today that you would like to thank God for?" and "What do you need God’s help with today?” Once Xavi is down, I take Felix and put him to sleep in our room. 

7:30-10:30 PM Cooking + Blogging

After the kids are in bed, I clean up dinner and then start cooking. Ever since I had Xavi and was writing my dissertation, I have used the evenings as cooking time. Back then, I found it impossible to focus on any serious intellectual work after having already spent hours of my day poring over academic research and writing. Nowadays, I’m somewhat less exhausted (at least mentally!), but its still a good time for me to listen to audiobooks and putter around in the kitchen. I generally cook three nights a week, six meals at a time. Since we have some serious food allergies between Felix and myself, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen making meals from scratch. Although this can be intense sometimes, I love it, because it frees up our days and lets us spend the maximum amount of time outdoors, since we never have to be back home to cook dinner—it’s already prepared.

I also use the nighttime to read and work on administrative tasks related to the blog (like social media scheduling and e-mail). My husband comes home late (some nights at 8 PM, some nights at 2 AM…), so whenever he arrives (although not at 2 AM), we check in and try to spend at least 15 minutes together rehashing the day. Most of our “together time” is on the weekends, though.