I'm not asking for giving the youngsters a formal study of comparative grammars. But practice with something like the following might be nice:
- Voy a la oficina.
- Vas a la oficina.
- Él/Ella va a la oficina.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
When Is One Old Enough To Conjugate (a Verb)?
As far as I can tell, my kids' "Spanish" lessons at school don't really teach how to speak or understand Spanish. I think they meet weekly, so I can't expect much, I know. But if all you're learning are colours or parts of the face, what is the point? I suppose I should appreciate what they get, but as far as I can tell, they have no idea how to construct a sentence. My son recently told me that his teacher asked the class to come prepared with questions about Spanish, so I suggested that he ask her how to conjugate a verb. He actually asked her that, and he said that she said they wouldn't learn how to do that until high school. Wow. Maybe my expectations are too high, but if you can't tell your hablo from your hablas and your hablamos, what's the point?
I'm not asking for giving the youngsters a formal study of comparative grammars. But practice with something like the following might be nice:
I'm not asking for giving the youngsters a formal study of comparative grammars. But practice with something like the following might be nice:
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3 comments:
Donde esta la biblioteca?
I had French classes in elementary school (starting in Grade 6) and verb conjugation was certainly something they taught us right away, so I don't think its common to wait until high school.
My son is now in French immersion and while they don't explicitly teach verb conjugation, the kids pick it up by osmosis just from hearing the language spoken constantly. He's only in Grade 1 and I don't think they'll get to proper grammar lessons until Grade 3 at the earliest. By then, he should be nearly fluent in French simply from use, sort of the same way we all learned English as babies.
I'm more concerned about getting the schools to start teaching foreign language to everyone starting in Kindergarten than I am about kids conjugating verbs. If they were taught a language from kindergarten they would pick it up naturally-although it is a concept that they should be aware of at an early age as it helps in developing the big ideas of "language".
A gifted teacher
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