Homeschool World Forum

[NYT3ACH3R]

Hello,

I am new to the forum and a newly licensed teacher who has partnered up with a graduate student to research the rapidly increasing trend of homeschooling.

I have been reading through several of the forums and have been able to gather a lot of wonderful information; however, we are still trying to dig deeper.

We have created a survey (the link is below) if any homeschooling parents are interested in helping us out! There are only 10 questions and they can be answered in a short amount of time. If you have a few moments, we would greatly appreciate your feedback!

I hope to talk with you in the forums as it seems some of you are quite involved!

Thanks again for your time

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=soP_2bXltrVCIRDsVnOaIM3Q_3d_3d

[Miss_Kristy]

If I may -- As a newly licensed teacher, What exactly is your interest in homeschooling?

[Miss_Kristy]

Ok, no reply.

Just wondering, Has anyone taken this survey?

[4given]

Nope, haven't taken it.

[NYT3ACH3R]

Sorry! I haven't logged on since I posted the first time.

First off, we have had a decent amount of people respond since posting on this forum and the responses have been very worthwhile so thank you to all have taken a few minutes to help us! More respondents are definitely welcome!

Second, my interest in homeschool has taken off since I teach in a public school setting and see how the Education system works on a day-to-day basis. There are aspects of public school education that I do not favor and would not necessarily prefer my kids experience. I love teaching and educating others which is obviously why I went into the teaching profession and do my best to promote positive learning in all possible aspects despite others in the field. I was approached by a graduate student and realized this was a perfect opportunity to possibly help others while digging deeper myself!

There are many different aspects of homeschooling that interest me from a teacher's view as well as a parent's view. I am considering homeschooling my children in the future and I would like to be "ahead of the game" when the time comes to make that decision.

Further, I am certified in foreign language and recognize how important language is in a child's development. Among other topics, I was interested to find out how homeschool parents successfully educate their children in a foreign language and if they feel it is even important. While some parents are fluent in another language; therefore able to pass that knowledge on to their children, many are not. I have noticed many parents use Rosetta Stone or a similar product for foreign language instruction, but those programs do not have a physical instructor able to personally assist students and address their needs. Would parents be interested in expanding their child's foreign language experience, studying higher levels of popular languages such as French, Spanish, Mandarin and Arabic with certified, and even native speakers, of those languages through online classrooms?

I know every homeschool parent has a different reason why they homeschool and how homeschooling should be done, but with this research we really wanted to get a wide variety of parents who are intensely involved with their children to see what is really important to them, noting areas of homeschool education that could improve or would help parents be more successful with their child's educational experience. I have noticed many parents just want to be "left alone" when it comes to educating their children which is very legitimate; however, with this rapid growth of homeschooling, it seems in the near future more and more parents who are adept with computers and the internet will be turning to the world wide web for educational assistance in their homeschooling experience, which leaves much room for more resources to become available to those who are interested. The web has recently turned into such an incredible portal of knowledge, how can we pass up the opportunity to open up new worlds to our children and positively increase their educational experiences to achieve the most they are able?

[abjennings]

I filled out the survey. No big deal and I like giving my opinion and reasons for HSing.

[NYT3ACH3R]

Thanks abjennings, we really appreciate it!

[SophieCassidy]

I took the survey

On the subject of foreign languages, I am lucky because I took French, Latin and English (not a foreign language, but still) for A level (I live in the UK, and A levels are the exams taken by all people still in education at age 1 and I studied English and French at university. I am also fluent in Spanish.

This has really helped me to teach my children out of school hours, and now (we have just started homeschooling) I am putting a very big emphasis on languages, as they are very important in the modern world. We have a house in France, so I am trying to get my children fluent in French.

I generally teach my children through conversation and discussion in french, and I imagine that that could be quite difficult if the parent didn't speak the language, so for some I imagine that sort of thing would be helpful. I would find it very helpful if more resources for languages at higher levels could be found for free on the internet, rather than just the basic beginner exercises, but I am doing fine on my own.

Hope I helped

Sophie

[NYT3ACH3R]

Thanks Sophie! I am jealous of your foreign language knowledge! I would love to be able to speak more than just 2 languages! All the same, I agree with you on the importance of foreign language and appreciate your comments!

[Linda C]

I did the survey and it was very interesting. I liked seeing your reasons for posting the survey.

Though I excelled in the reading/writing area of Spanish in school, I cannot speak more than pitiful Spanish here in my Hispanic community. One of my daughters learned well, but won't speak it. So now that I am again homeschooling with my 9 year old, I enrolled her in our local library's Rosetta Stone because I had heard it is an immersion-type program and she and I were both learning well in the program. Our library lost the opportunity to continue the program, which is sad. I am beginning to believe that like half of the people in the world seem to be poor spellers, half of the people have no foreign language 'genes'. I know that may not be true, but I can't remember a lick of what I learned on Rosetta now. If we had a live-in Spanish housekeeper or I worked in an business with predominately Hispanic customers, I might pick up more Spanish.

Oh, well, I'm just grousing because I would truly love to absorb languages like a friend of mine does without even trying.
_________________
Blessya' bunches
Linda