"Mom", queried my son "Can I learn German?" This a day after I mentioned that we had a chance to do a review for Middlebury Interactive Languages. Therefore, for the past few weeks, we've been studying German with the online language course Middle School German 1.
Middlebury is a company that has created online coursework that teaches the student through a course that is rich in sight, sound and written work. Each Middle School Course provides 90 days of content. The material neither dry or boring, but filled with native speakers providing content in a variety of ways to meet the needs of different students.
Middle School German 1 is a foreign language study program geared for youth in grades 6-8, my son is just starting 6th grade. We have been working with this course for three days (Tuesday - Thursday) every week and we are making progress. :) It helps that the German language is somewhat similar to Dutch which is the language of my parents. I won't say that we are moving through the course quickly as they cover alot of material in one lesson, but joy oh joy... Middlebury is set up in such a way that we can go back over lessons until a lad feels more confident in his abilities. :)
When you first go to the Middlebury course you land on the dashboard, which shows you, three things. 1. any announcements 2. where you are in the course 3. where you would be in the course if you followed their schedule.
When you first go to the Middlebury course you land on the dashboard, which shows you, three things. 1. any announcements 2. where you are in the course 3. where you would be in the course if you followed their schedule.
I have to admit, when I first saw where the schedule would have us I kinda panicked, thinking that we were already behind and how in the world would we ever catch up, but then I realized that we could work through the course at our own speed and it would turn out just fine. :)
We are currently in the middle of lesson six, each lesson has a number of interactive panels to help you learn what the lesson topic is. This includes both listening, speaking and writing skills. My son and I are working on this course together, so occasionally I will say "Doesn't ________________ mean _____________?" Or I'll ask him, where are our German sheets? Will they help us out? It's funny though, as sometimes I will have no clue what they are talking about and the lad will say "Mom, he's asking how you are doing today". (or something else). So learning together is definitely aiding us. Anyways, back to one our favourite parts of Middlebury...the abililty to move back and forth in the lesson.
If you look in the upper corner of the lesson photo you will notice a little button that says "browse activities". If you click that you will come to this page. The check marks show activities completed, the colour pages show work left to do. You can skip around forward and back until you think you have a good grounding in the lesson taught. We love this feature! :)
As you work through the lessons, they have a rolling sidebar that shows your progress through the lesson.
My son likes this bar as he's learned we scroll up to five panels back and forth in the course of a day, so he uses this screen to count.
What can I say...like every child he likes to know when his lessons are over.
He is liking the learning of German, but he also finds it hard, much harder than he thought it would be.
I've been suggesting that we will occasionally have meals where we will practice our German using flash cards... he thinks that might be fun but hard to do. Good to put a challenge forward for the lad eh?
My son likes this bar as he's learned we scroll up to five panels back and forth in the course of a day, so he uses this screen to count.
What can I say...like every child he likes to know when his lessons are over.
He is liking the learning of German, but he also finds it hard, much harder than he thought it would be.
I've been suggesting that we will occasionally have meals where we will practice our German using flash cards... he thinks that might be fun but hard to do. Good to put a challenge forward for the lad eh?
Our Thoughts:
My Son's:
I like it, most of the time it is easy, it is not too hard. Most of the different activities are easy, a few of them are challenging, I like that they have different things I can do.
Mine:
Overall I like it. I have found it advantageous to move back and forth within a lesson to help with retention as it is a quick moving program. It does an excellent job of covering each lesson material in a variety of ways which helps ensure the student is learning utilizing different skills.
Being able to print off a PDF of our lessons has been a great boon to our study, and I have found the support by Middlebury to be second to none. Every time I have a question, or can't find the sheet I want to print off, all I have to do is ask and they are immediately helpful.
It has been great to catch the "I got that" moments. Or when he corrects me in my pronunciation or in defining words. I LOVE THAT. I have to say the Middlebury Interactive Languages works well. My son and I are learning to speak German and I hope that we can meet a German-speaking person sometime so that we can actually practice our burgeoning language skills! Wouldn't that just be fun? :)
My Son's:
I like it, most of the time it is easy, it is not too hard. Most of the different activities are easy, a few of them are challenging, I like that they have different things I can do.
Mine:
Overall I like it. I have found it advantageous to move back and forth within a lesson to help with retention as it is a quick moving program. It does an excellent job of covering each lesson material in a variety of ways which helps ensure the student is learning utilizing different skills.
Being able to print off a PDF of our lessons has been a great boon to our study, and I have found the support by Middlebury to be second to none. Every time I have a question, or can't find the sheet I want to print off, all I have to do is ask and they are immediately helpful.
It has been great to catch the "I got that" moments. Or when he corrects me in my pronunciation or in defining words. I LOVE THAT. I have to say the Middlebury Interactive Languages works well. My son and I are learning to speak German and I hope that we can meet a German-speaking person sometime so that we can actually practice our burgeoning language skills! Wouldn't that just be fun? :)
The crew reviewed materials the courses below. Click in the image to see what other reviewers thought about these online language courses.
Spanish Courses
French Courses
German Courses
Chinese Courses
Spanish Courses
French Courses
German Courses
Chinese Courses
 | Price for the Middle School German 1 course is $119, prices for the other courses varies greatly from $119-319, depending on course and level taken. You have the course for a whole year, along with excellent support from the staff. |
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