Latest / Making Everyday Magic: The Podcast / How We're Building a High School French Plan Without Being Fluent

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How We're Building a High School French Plan Without Being Fluent · Making Everyday Magic: The Podcast

• 0:00
  Okay, so,
• 0:02
  if you are like me and my husband, you took a foreign language.
• 0:07
  And if you are like me and my husband, you remember, like three phases,
• 0:12
  three, three phrases and
• 0:15
  and that's that's that's been great.
• 0:18
  So my goal is to do this a little differently.
• 0:21
  And today we're going to talk about it.
• 0:23
  So welcome back to Making Everyday Magic.
• 0:26
  My name is Shanna.
• 0:26
  If you are new here we are a family of four.
• 0:29
  We are entering high school
• 0:32
  for the 2026 2027 school year.
• 0:35
  We'll have a ninth grader at a fifth grader.
• 0:37
  And today I want to share with you what my plan is for foreign language
• 0:42
  in a manner that maybe
• 0:45
  has us speaking a foreign language.
• 0:49
  Leslie.
• 0:55
  Before we go any further, guys, please
• 0:56
  scroll down and hit the big red subscribe button.
• 0:58
  Turn on the bell for notifications and give this video a thumbs up.
• 1:00
  As always,
• 1:01
  you can find me right on
• 1:02
  down in the comments or over on Instagram at Making Everyday Magic.
• 1:05
  I am going to tell you right now, this is not a sponsored video.
• 1:10
  The things that I am going to talk about,
• 1:11
  I have bought and paid for myself or have discussed previously,
• 1:16
  but while it is not a sponsored video, these are the things we are really using.
• 1:20
  I do have links for you down below.
• 1:23
  Special offers, special discounts, things like that.
• 1:26
  So I will be sharing those if you are on a similar path.
• 1:29
  If you want to replicate a path, if you see one thing
• 1:31
  where you're like, oh man, that looks so cool, let's do it.
• 1:34
  So not a sponsored video.
• 1:36
  Real life
• 1:36
  really what we're going to use for 2026, 2027 school year real secular materials.
• 1:41
  But I do have links, so check for those down below.
• 1:44
  Okay, so here's the scheme.
• 1:47
  A lot of you gave me a really hard time
• 1:49
  about the fact that my child is choosing French.
• 1:51
  Shawna, you live in Texas. That's a border state.
• 1:53
  That's so dumb. Why would you let her choose French?
• 1:55
  Because I am a huge fan of letting people choose what they want.
• 1:58
  Also, I studied French. Why? Because I got to choose what I want.
• 2:01
  My husband took German.
• 2:02
  We speak next to no Spanish, which honestly is probably a huge
• 2:08
  not greatness where location and it would serve us really well.
• 2:12
  But here we are. We all do French.
• 2:13
  Okay, now the things that I have told you we are going to use for a French
• 2:18
  are the things I'm going to show you today.
• 2:20
  One of which, the big main.
• 2:22
  Well, you know what? Let's start here.
• 2:23
  I need to be able to credit this for high school.
• 2:27
  Most colleges want 3 to 4 years out of a foreign language or language
• 2:31
  other than English.
• 2:32
  I was hoping she would pursue ASL American Sign Language
• 2:36
  because I think that could benefit her performing career moving forward.
• 2:39
  However, she doesn't want to do that.
• 2:41
  Possibly is an elective later, and not every college.
• 2:44
  It's very few of them don't accept ASL as foreign language,
• 2:48
  because the requirements to qualify as a foreign language credit,
• 2:52
  or that you can speak it, that you can read it and you can write it.
• 2:56
  I don't know how you write about.
• 2:58
  So I think that it doesn't check all of those boxes showing a complete,
• 3:02
  comprehensive knowledge of a foreign language.
• 3:05
  So I think that is the holdup there.
• 3:07
  So in that vein, she wants to do French, which is great.
• 3:10
  I hope hopefully, hopefully in the next year or two have a trip to
• 3:15
  Paris planned for us once I can find a ride, deals and the right
• 3:18
  dates, it'll be coming,
• 3:20
  but that would be really fun and handy
• 3:21
  to be able to do a little bit of an immersion
• 3:24
  while we're studying that in the next few years.
• 3:26
  I think it'd be super fun.
• 3:27
  Now here is what I am doing the resources at my disposal.
• 3:31
  If you do not know there are print
• 3:36
  actual workbook, teacher assessment, evaluations, units,
• 3:41
  literature selections available through Rosetta Stone.
• 3:46
  And I'm going to show you how that's doing.
• 3:48
  We have a lifetime full every language membership to Rosetta Stone
• 3:52
  that I purchased on my own because it was a great deal
• 3:54
  and a couple of years ago, and we are going to use that
• 3:58
  as the kind of general framework
• 4:01
  for our French studies.
• 4:04
  It will not be exclusively that, because, again, that wouldn't qualify
• 4:07
  for the credit.
• 4:08
  However, like I said, they have test assessment,
• 4:11
  writing, multiple choice
• 4:12
  literature selections, all of the things that go along with their units.
• 4:15
  If you know where to look, I'm going to show you where to look.
• 4:18
  To do so, we are going to scaffold our initial learning.
• 4:22
  And because we are not speakers.
• 4:24
  So how do we do this? Okay, I'm not a speaker.
• 4:27
  If I like my my French teacher in high school was a native speaker.
• 4:31
  And that's how you do that. I don't do that.
• 4:33
  How are we going to do that?
• 4:34
  How are we going to do that?
• 4:35
  And we're going to trust the professionals,
• 4:36
  we experts from a platform that has been around like 30 years.
• 4:40
  And so that is what we're going to do.
• 4:41
  So we are going to start the scaffolding with Rosetta Stone.
• 4:44
  Now I forgot to mention this.
• 4:46
  We are doing this as a family. Why?
• 4:47
  Because I think it will have the greatest amount of reinforcement across the board.
• 4:50
  And my husband and I need to keep our gray matter fresh
• 4:53
  so that we don't see slip slowly into dementia and Alzheimer's.
• 4:57
  So we're going to learn new things.
• 4:59
  We're going to learn new things together as a family,
• 5:00
  because that is the way that they are most
• 5:02
  effective in my house is when we can do it together.
• 5:03
  And then that would be fine if we can practice our speech
• 5:05
  on each other in the places that we are, where we've been.
• 5:08
  So it will be as a family, including my fifth grader.
• 5:11
  What will she choose when it's her turn?
• 5:12
  I don't know, maybe French, maybe not.
• 5:14
  So we're going to start with the basis of Rosetta Stone.
• 5:16
  I'm going to show you those teacher materials here in just a minute.
• 5:19
  Recently did a video on Evan Moore, and
• 5:24
  through that
• 5:25
  video, if you watched it, I purchased a bunch of French resources.
• 5:28
  So we have the Rosetta Stone French dictionary.
• 5:31
  We have some workbooks, both like elementary Level
• 5:35
  and a little more advanced.
• 5:36
  So we will be working through those as well as the teacher materials
• 5:39
  that we found via Rosetta Stone and moving forward.
• 5:43
  So we will be speaking, reading and writing.
• 5:45
  So we will be checking all of those boxes.
• 5:47
  Now in my brain we do this for errors, a plan
• 5:51
  where it tells you what is equivalent, the the units and Rosetta Stone.
• 5:55
  You'll see that here in just a minute in a clip.
• 5:57
  But we will work through those.
• 5:58
  And then if she chooses to pursue like a French four or something like that,
• 6:03
  there is actually a really cool place here in Houston called the French Alliance.
• 6:08
  And they have
• 6:11
  like club
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  exams, French exams, total immersion classes, live
• 6:16
  classes, asynchronous classes, and they do group trips.
• 6:20
  So if at any point we are continuing French and I can't make
• 6:26
  this happen, we're not finding progress and we're not making this work.
• 6:29
  And maybe just as a supplement, I am literally going to
• 6:33
  look into their classes and their testing and the things that will help us.
• 6:37
  Not to mention my children's music teacher
• 6:42
  who is amazing and wonderful and all of the best things in the whole wide world.
• 6:46
  She lived in France for a bulk of her career as an opera singer,
• 6:53
  and is fully proficient speaker in many things,
• 6:57
  and so we will also be tapping in and assist if we need to there.
• 7:01
  So this is our plan. Let's pop over.
• 7:04
  I'm going to show you how we're doing it and what it really looks like
• 7:07
  on the inside.
• 7:08
  And pay close attention, because if you do, you will know
• 7:11
  how to find those secret anteater resources from Rosetta Stone.
• 7:15
  Let's go.
• 7:16
  Welcome back to my computer screen.
• 7:19
  I would like you to know
• 7:20
  that we've already started talking about how we are going to use French.
• 7:24
  Yes, she chose French.
• 7:26
  She wants to do French for her high school foreign language.
• 7:29
  And that is fine.
• 7:30
  Now, the way that I am planning to do this, I want to utilize things
• 7:34
  that we already have and something that we already have
• 7:38
  is a lifetime subscription to Rosetta Stone for all languages.
• 7:43
  We've used it in the past for Spanish.
• 7:44
  She wants to do French.
• 7:46
  So I started thinking, okay, Rosetta Stone, how can I build this
• 7:51
  into a full, complete and well thought curriculum that will satisfy
• 7:56
  the equivalent, has to be spoken, has to be read, has to be written.
• 8:01
  How can I make this a foreign language equivalent for a high school credit?
• 8:07
  And here is how I plan to do it.
• 8:10
  If you google Rosetta Stone teacher resources,
• 8:14
  you can find teacher resources for everything image cards,
• 8:22
  all kinds of things.
• 8:24
  A completion of certificate activities, activity
• 8:28
  guides, how to structure a lesson, how to do lots of things.
• 8:32
  Okay, so just Rosetta Stone
• 8:33
  teacher resources, general resources, resources by language.
• 8:37
  You can come down and get whatever you need to.
• 8:40
  You can click down here for example for French.
• 8:44
  And there are units one through four, units five through eight and units
• 8:47
  nine through 12.
• 8:48
  And this is essentially level one, level two and level three.
• 8:52
  So French one, French two and French three.
• 8:54
  There is a French alliance near us that I will probably also incorporate
• 8:59
  when we are able for various classes or opportunities.
• 9:04
  They do advanced testing,
• 9:05
  they do things like that and immersive readings, things like that.
• 9:08
  Now if you look you can get units for, you can get resources, tests,
• 9:12
  workbooks, introduction, instructions for English speakers and answer keys.
• 9:15
  You can download all of them here.
• 9:17
  I cannot actually show you inside my
• 9:22
  file Explorer because it just doesn't work that way.
• 9:24
  There are unit readings and audio recordings,
• 9:25
  so this is the unit readings that you can download.
• 9:30
  And it's got things you can read. Okay.
• 9:32
  There are also and I'm going to see if I can show you this
• 9:35
  because I'm not 100% sure.
• 9:37
  But I'm going to try. Okay.
• 9:39
  The answer keys are the tests are password protected.
• 9:41
  And I'm not telling you what you should or shouldn't do, but if you Google
• 9:45
  specifically what you need, then things show up.
• 9:49
  So let me see if I can open up my Adobe and share this
• 9:53
  with you on the screen recording. Let me see.
• 9:55
  Okay, so I'm hoping that this is working, but this is my French level one.
• 9:58
  These are my answer keys for the test okay.
• 10:02
  This is French level one instructions for English speakers
• 10:07
  okay.
• 10:08
  Workbook instructions.
• 10:10
  This is French level one student workbook.
• 10:15
  And yes it is the full on workbook.
• 10:17
  I can print it and it will go along with the lessons
• 10:20
  and French level one tests for the students.
• 10:24
  Again, my plan is literally just to print these and use them.
• 10:29
  I also have other physically printed
• 10:32
  book resources that I am going to.
• 10:35
  I think I'll go ahead and show them to you again
• 10:37
  just because I think it's important.
• 10:38
  But I'm going to look and see how many lessons for level one,
• 10:42
  and then plug this in to be utilized by my kids to,
• 10:49
  to utilize throughout the
• 10:53
  the year, to be ready to go
• 10:57
  and to again satisfy the foreign language test.
• 11:01
  This is my plan for foreign language credit level one.
• 11:06
  So this is my plan.
• 11:07
  And I will again plug in unit two, lesson two, exercise one for example
• 11:11
  into their homeschool gradebook planners and get them set up with what we need.
• 11:16
  So I just need to figure out how many lessons there are in level one.
• 11:21
  That's my plan.
• 11:23
  And then we're going to
• 11:25
  spread them out and I will show you the books I have as well.
• 11:28
  Okay.
• 11:28
  This is not your first look at these books.
• 11:31
  If you've been watching me recently, I've got one French picture dictionary.
• 11:35
  And then these are the same.
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  It's just one for each kiddo.
• 11:38
  So what we've got going here is just a French picture dictionary
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  that should help.
• 11:43
  You can scan to hear the words here with the QR code.
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  Fun facts, pronunciation, pictures, just making it really easy
• 11:51
  and really simple to get through
• 11:52
  those kind of basic starter words that we will be operating with.
• 11:56
  And again, it's made by Rosetta Stone.
• 11:58
  Okay, QR codes help you hear the native speaking pronunciation.
• 12:03
  We do
• 12:03
  then have these two workbooks that are going to go hand in hand
• 12:07
  with our other resources, because I want to make sure that we're reinforcing
• 12:10
  that kind of written and reading aspect of foreign language.
• 12:15
  So we have one
• 12:16
  that is K through five and then one that is in middle and high school.
• 12:20
  So we are just going to move right up. So French one
• 12:25
  it lets you kind of understand what you're doing.
• 12:28
  Alphabet.
• 12:30
  Very simple very basic.
• 12:32
  This is a great place to start. Page a day.
• 12:35
  Easy peasy.
• 12:36
  Nothing too complicated. Games and activities.
• 12:38
  And then we will move into middle and high school.
• 12:41
  And again don't forget I'm using those resources
• 12:46
  that teacher resources from Rosetta Stone online.
• 12:49
  Okay.
• 12:50
  So all of this should pair together really nicely to give me a complete
• 12:55
  French level one curriculum answers in the back so I don't have to
• 12:59
  actually be a native of French speaker, and that's how I'm going to tackle that.
• 13:03
  Well, guys,
• 13:04
  I hope that you found any of this helpful, entertaining, or informative.
• 13:07
  I can tell you that it helps me to share it. Cathartic.
• 13:10
  It helps me feel like my planning is really underway.
• 13:12
  It just gives me a little bit of a sense of peace when I can, like,
• 13:16
  identify the plan, execute the plan, share the plan.
• 13:20
  It makes me feel like it might it might really come together as a good plan.
• 13:24
  So thank you so much for letting me do that to you. At you.
• 13:26
  Whatever.
• 13:26
  I don't know what stage of your planning journey you're in for 2026, 2027.
• 13:30
  I don't know if you're headed into middle school or headed into high school.
• 13:34
  Maybe you're ahead of me, I don't know, but I hope that you found this helpful.
• 13:37
  And if you have something helpful that you can offer to me,
• 13:40
  please, please, please let me know down in the comments.
• 13:41
  I love it when we share, when we build, when we kind of like
• 13:45
  hive mind, the things that are happening because it's really important.
• 13:48
  Guys, I thank you so much for being here and for sharing with me.
• 13:52
  It gives me the greatest guidance in the greatest ways.
• 13:54
  You have no idea.
• 13:56
  I hope that you found any of this helpful entertainer informative.
• 13:59
  If you did, please scroll down.
• 14:00
  Hit that big red subscribe button,
• 14:01
  turn on the bell for notifications and give this video a thumbs up
• 14:05
  while you're down there.
• 14:05
  You can find me down in the comments or over on Instagram
• 14:08
  app making everyday magic.
• 14:09
  Guys, thank you so much for coming back, for just holding my hand as I'm
• 14:13
  stressing and
• 14:15
  making changes and taking what I would argue
• 14:18
  are some some of the biggest swings in our educational development.
• 14:22
  I feel like this is kind of the biggest jump since adding a second kid.
• 14:26
  Is this this moving into high school and moving into this kind of other
• 14:30
  tracking system and all of the things that I just really appreciate you guys
• 14:34
  sitting with me in the scary darkness and helping me to make everyday magic.