I have never had an ear (or tongue) for foreign languages. I coasted through my required two years of French in high school on what I can only imagine was my good looks and charm. Because of my lack of language, I’ve been determined to make sure my boys are exposed to other languages. We’ve tried various things at various times, but it usually doesn’t last too long. Because of my lack of understanding, I have a hard time teaching them anything or helping them. So it was with great trepidation that I accepted the opportunity to review Elementary German 1, Grades 3-5 from Middlebury Interactive Languages.

Middlebury Interactive Languages is an online foreign language site. They offer Spanish, French, Chinese, and German at all levels from Kindergarten through AP high school. I allowed fourth grader Big Boy, age 10, to choose which language he would like to learn. He chose German, because his father took German through high school and — unlike his mother — actually retained some of that information. Big Boy thought it would be cool to actually be able to communicate with his dad in another language. Because the course is all online, it can be done on any device with internet access. This is good because the boys’ school computer got a terrible virus right around the time we received our course. Instead of being in big trouble, he’s been able to work on it from my computer or the iPad.

For the purpose of this review, we received the first semester of Elementary German 1. The semester is broken down into sixteen units, each unit has six lessons. Big Boy worked on this as part of his regular school schedule, so he did one lesson per day, four days a week. The lessons are really cool. They begin with a video storytelling, in German, of a classic story. You watch the story, which also has subtitles, in German, so you can read along. After the story, you are introduced to the vocabulary for that lesson. For instance, in the Family lesson you are introduced to the German words for father, mother, sister, brother, and house. After you become familiar with the vocabulary words, you watch the story again. After this you do a little lesson to practice the vocabulary words, then you do a speaking lab in which you listen to the words, then record yourself saying the words. Lessons are fairly short, maybe fifteen minutes, but after just the first lesson Big Boy was already reciting back to me the vocabulary words plus some of the other words he heard in the story that he figured out. His favorite part of each lesson was the story. His least favorite part was the speaking lab. He said it made him feel self-conscious to record himself. After the first lesson, I agreed to let him work in a different room so we wouldn’t all be staring at him while he was trying to learn to pronounce new words.

Overall we are really enjoying this program. Big Boy is already speaking more of a foreign language than I ever have, and he’s having fun. He loves finding words that are similar to English and making connections. I like that this is specifically geared towards his age and abilities, making it so much easier for me as the teacher (read: I don’t have to do much, which is good since I have zero knowledge in this subject). He’s really excited about learning German and we are planning on continuing with our lessons by purchasing the next semester when he is finished with this one.

Be sure to check out what some of my fellow Review Crew members are saying about the other classes available on the site by clicking the link below!