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Angie Mc Board Moderator
Joined: Jan 31 2005 Location: Arizona
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Posted: Jan 03 2008 at 10:59pm | IP Logged
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Our family needs a way to finish the last sememster of Latin II at home. Until now, 15yo dd was in a hsing class using Ecce Romani. We want her to complete 2 years of a foreign language for college application purposes. Any suggestions? For those of you who want to hear my sob story, read on...
My 15yo dd took Latin I with a small homeschooling class last year and did very well - a solid B - not bad for a kid who never had any Latin or formal class prior to this experience. The class met once a week for 2 hours. There was a quiz each week. There was a course outline and written project directions. Then...
The teacher took a full time teaching job with a charter school after teaching hsing classes for 10 years and held the hsing class at night. This year - classes are down to 1.5 hrs. Quizzes are not regularly scheduled. No course outline - no written information. Her class size dropped from over 20 students from last year down to 6 this year for Latin II. It doesn't help that 4 of my dd's fellow students are Latin drenched (favorite subject, family knows Latin, etc.) Sigh.
At first I thought I just needed to be patient as the teacher got into her new groove. First quarter went fine - solid B. Second quarter - I just found out today through the mail - didn't. Dd did so poorly that pulling a B for the year is nearly impossible. My dh called the teacher to ask for help and clarification and she took no responsibility for her role in this. His main question was why didn't she contact us when she noticed our daughter's grades were completely going through the basement and explain exactly her criteria? Her answers were incredible. I'll just share one. Homework wasn't graded on the correctness of answers but only on if the blanks were filled in. She said our dd should have known that...even though she admitted that she never told her . HUH??? She did not feel responsible for contacting us about our dd's sudden decline...because she assumed we knew...even though she never gave the homework grades to the students or parents . My dh did a great job of forcing her to communicate and explain and it all added up to a bunch of excuse making (she's so busy with her new job) and a total lack of advocacy or concern for my dd's situation. Oh is my Irish temper flying, ladies!
Thanks for letting me vent. Lessons learned for sure...just not the lessons we were paying for .
Love,
__________________ Angie Mc
Maimeo to Henry! Dave's wife, mom to Mrs. Devin+Michael Pope, Aiden 20,Ian 17,John Paul 11,Catherine (heaven 6/07)
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Mare Forum Pro
Joined: Feb 08 2005
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Posted: Jan 04 2008 at 8:08am | IP Logged
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Angie,
Oh, wow!
High School latin is really out of my league. I just wanted to throw out the idea of using the DVDs fromMemoria Press as a possibility.
__________________
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Natalia Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 07 2005 Location: Louisiana
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Posted: Jan 04 2008 at 10:16am | IP Logged
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I don't know if you are up to another online class but we had a good experience with Memoria Press online classes last year.
Natalia
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KellyJ Forum All-Star
Joined: June 29 2006 Location: N/A
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Posted: Jan 04 2008 at 10:20am | IP Logged
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Angie, I am so sorry and disappointed for your family, especially your daughter.
Assuming you want to continue with Ecce Romani, Prentice Hall's site indicates there are audio accompaniaments available, CD-ROM test banks (which look like they can be tailored), and even a companion website to help out. Do you think she could self-teach? Is it possible to find a Latin tutor to meet with her periodically?
I am praying for a good and swift solution!
__________________ KellyJ
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KellyJ Forum All-Star
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Posted: Jan 04 2008 at 10:32am | IP Logged
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Another thought, Angie: It sounds like you'll want to assess where your daughter really is Latin-wise. The outcome might, unfortunately, mean starting at square one (Latin I).
I wonder how the quizzes were graded if the homework grades were based on the number of blanks filled in. Did the same apply for the quizzes? Was the grading "methodology" the same last year as this year? I can only imagine your frustration with the instructor.
__________________ KellyJ
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ALmom Forum All-Star
Joined: May 18 2005
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Posted: Jan 04 2008 at 12:43pm | IP Logged
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Hey, Angie, is it possible that you could contact one of the other parents in the class (one of those students whose parents is a Latin whiz?) and ask if they would be willing to tutor your child. Going the private tutor route is ideal for us (mom has no Latin knowledge) and the course moves at exactly my dd pace. If you could get a Latin tutor, then you could drop the classroom class, and work with the tutor instead. Of, course, you'd have to work out details like payment, location of tutoring, etc to see if it would work. We have the tutor come to our house, and though it is expensive, it is worth every dime and our dd is really, really learning Latin.
Janet
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Kelly Forum All-Star
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Posted: Jan 07 2008 at 10:04pm | IP Logged
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I'd second the Latin tutor approach. This is what we've used and it's been very positive. Failing that, Regina Coeli has an excellent on-line Latin program, but it's probably too late to jump in--but it might be something to consider for next year.
Kelly
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Angie Mc Board Moderator
Joined: Jan 31 2005 Location: Arizona
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Posted: Jan 09 2008 at 6:06pm | IP Logged
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Thank you all for your suggstions and sympathy. Here's how it turned out. Another student dropped from the class and her mother(who is my friend and a consultant for MODG) and I came up with Plan B:
Purchase from allcatholicbooks.com -
MODG 09/10 Ninth/Tenth Latin 1&2 Combo
Henle Latin 1 Text
Henle Grammar
Henle Latin 1 Answer Key
Henle Latin 1 CD - Seton
Latin Chant Charts 1, 2, 3 MODG
We will use the Syllabus to "comp out" our girls through taking the quizzes until we find out what level they are at. The format is about as basic as you can get.
We're hopeful that our dds were doing just fine until recently (Latin II 2nd qtr.) because they both did fine on the National Latin Exam last year. We'll have them take it again this year. We plan on having the girls work together to some degree and they are happy about that. As for a tutor, my dd has a local friend who has done 4 years of Henle who is will to help.
God is so good! Our books have already arrived and it is as if we had planned this all along.
I'm looking forward to Spanish next year ...Hablo espanol un pocito .
Love,
__________________ Angie Mc
Maimeo to Henry! Dave's wife, mom to Mrs. Devin+Michael Pope, Aiden 20,Ian 17,John Paul 11,Catherine (heaven 6/07)
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KellyJ Forum All-Star
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Posted: Jan 10 2008 at 8:20am | IP Logged
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I'm so glad for you, and I pray it works out well!
__________________ KellyJ
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mariB Forum All-Star
Joined: Dec 20 2006 Location: Vermont
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Posted: Jan 12 2008 at 6:16am | IP Logged
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How many years of high school left? We are using Lone Pine Classical School with teacher Karen Karppinen and she does an incredible job!
We really had very limited Latin experience and both my 14 and 16 year old are doing VERY well this year in Latin 100(Latin I). It is an online class and she is always emailing us and making sure the boys understand everything!
She takes great concern with every single one of her students and is very fair. She has wonderful online computer games for the kids to play so they can learn vocabulary and grammar. We had tried Henle and I was ready to throw in the towel and Lone Pine was our last try at Latin and we will continue with it.
Karen even will help with questions about what to study on the SAT for math and is helpful in curriculum choices and any other advice you want to ask her. Her email responses are QUICK too.
Hope this helps:)
Oops! I see you've got a good plan! Glad it is working out for you:)
__________________ marib-Mother to 22ds,21ds,18ds,15dd,11dd and wife to an amazing man for 23 years
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