AS A PARENT, HOW DO I HELP MY STUDENT TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM?

            There are many of you parents who are not fluent in Spanish, but you still can help your children study and succeed.  Here are some ideas:

  Be involved, ask questions.  My students have homework almost every night. They should have all assignments written down in an assignment book. 

Help them study vocabulary by asking them the words in English and have them supply you with the Spanish equivalent.  Spelling correctly is also very important to practice.

When their friends who are studying Spanish are over to visit, suggest that they practice using what they’ve learned in class in speaking to each other.  They’ll make mistakes and laugh at each other, but the benefit of communicating orally and cooperating among themselves is invaluable.

Be on the lookout for opportunities for them to see Spanish being used: signs; food labels and boxes; appliance and electronic boxes; TV, radio, magazines and newspapers.  They’ll be amazed at how many familiar words they can recognize.

 Learning to do anything well takes practice and it’s easier to accomplish a task bit by bit.  Keeping current with the lesson and putting that information to use are two easy ways to have a successful experience with foreign languages.