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Old February 9th 04, 08:52 PM
H Schinske
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Default Dual Language Program

Sharon ) wrote:

I can't see how working so much in another language can possibly boost the
English reading test scores. To the extent getting into a good college
requires good standardized test scores, I probably wouldn't consider it for
my girls.


I'd have said standardized test scores in English correlate far, far more with
leisure reading habits than they do with any instructional method whatsoever.
If anything, being literate in two languages would be extraordinarily helpful.
Latin was immensely helpful on the verbal SAT, and French would have been
nearly as much so.

I'd gladly drop fifty points off my SAT verbal score (which I could easily
spare) if it meant I could be fluent in a foreign language, anyway. But I doubt
it would mean doing that.

The main thing, however, is whether the teaching is any good. The folks I've
heard complaining about particular French-language schools in Canada have been
complaining about the quality of the schools, full stop, not about the language
part. But that's not relevant to the OP.

--Helen