Rosetta Stone or Power Glide?
I am often asked about which foreign language curriculum to use. There are many to choose from out there! Choosing probably boils down to learning style, and the ways your child learns the best.
The three I often recommend are Tell Me More, Power Glide, and Rosetta Stone. They can be found from most homeschool resources, including Sonlight, and RockSolid Discount Homeschool Books, as well as Amazon.com. Power-Glide can still be found at Christianbook.com and through used book sales. Most often I'm asked "Rosetta Stone or Power Glide?"
There are two versions of Rosetta Stone: regular and homeschool. The homeschool version includes worksheets to print out and outlines to make each level a full year curriculum. It's an immersion program. It shows you photos of nouns, verbs, and phrases and helps you build your vocabulary like someone native to the language would. Rosetta Stone also has an oral component and tests your pronunciation. To learn more about Rosetta Stone to see if it will fit your child, you can read more here.
We used Power-Glide foreign languages with great success. It is a tried and true method for learning foreign languages. Remarkably similar to the way I learned foreign languages in school, it uses a workbook format with audio CDs for listening. The workbook includes translation exercises, hands-on projects, and ideas for researching countries that speak the language. It doesn't outline each concept for you; it's discovery based. Written quizzes and tests are also provided, which we used.
We used the Power-Glide French program as written, just me and my children. My son placed into third quarter French in his first year and did extremely well moving into college French. Power-Glide representatives are the ones who told me most language programs will work if you are conscientious about working on the language for a minimum of 15 minutes per day. Whichever curriculum you choose, make sure it's one subject you work on daily in your homeschool.
Which foreign language are you studying and what's your favorite curriculum? Share in the comments!
Please note: This post was originally published in April 2008 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
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