experience of an older adult who's trying hard to learn French with Rosetta Stone.
I speak excellent French. Took it in high school and college and got a good
grounding in grammar. Then I abandoned it until age 40 when I finally
made the commitment to learn to speak it well after a frustrating week of
trying to speak it in Paris.
My friend has been working pretty hard on Rosetta Stone for well over two
years. Trust me, it's not working. He has finally turned to reading some
grammar books that are helping him a great deal But he refuses to find a
native speaker with whom he can regularly converse. Until he does, he will not
progress much further than he has. I can guarantee that.
With kids? I don't know. If yo ask me, the only way to get a kid get fluent
in a language that is not his mother tongue is to immerse the kid in a
world where he has no choice but to learn the second language. Maybe that's a
parent who is a native speaker who will only speak the second language to
the kid and doesn't abide the kid's responding back in English. Or maybe
it's on the playground with his friends who do not speak English. Given those
circumstances, kids learn real fast.
Adults? You gotta work at it assiduously. Read newspapers and novels.
Listen to it on the radio. Study its grammar. Talk to people who have all kinds
of different regional accents. Endure feeling stupid and inarticulate in
the beginning as you speak to native speakers. And you gotta be content with
the fact that the more you know about the second language, the more you
know you don't know about it.
In my opinion, Rosetta Stone's advertising for adults is misleading. Will
it work for your students? I'd want to see a lot of hard evidence of its
effectiveness before forking over kind of money they're asking.
Please don't hesitate to call or e-mail me if you'd like to talk further.
Best, Peter
In a message dated 6/18/2010 6:07:13 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
rramig@sevenhillsschool.org writes:
Does anyone have some licenses for levels 1, 2 and / or 3 Latin American
Spanish of Rosetta Stone on CD (network or individual workstation) they
are no longer using and want to sale? (I checked with the Rosetta Stone
Rep, and they said a school could sale their perpetual licenses if they
were no longer using them.) It is fine if it isn't the newest version.
And...if you do use Rosetta Stone, especially in middle school, can you
let me know how well you feel it is working? How often are you using
it?
The cost seems incredibly high (Over $6,000 for 10 concurrent licenses
for levels 1-2). My Spanish teacher really wants to try it next year to
help differentiate in her classroom since she has levels from very
beginner to bilingual in her class.
Thanks,
Renee Ramig
Seven Hills School
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Peter Wylie
1666b Euclid Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-332-7571
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