I got this email from a mother in Denver in 2010 – this is a repost. It broke my heart then and now again seven years it has the same effect. We need to get ourselves together and fight to end this kind of situation:
Hi Ben,
I was wondering if you are offering any workshops or classes this summer or you can point to somewhere. I have a 13 year old daughter who is failing French but she likes the language a lot.
I sat in my daughter’s class once. From what I can see, the teacher’s main focus is on vocabulary, and grammar. My daughter spent most of her time memorizing vocabulary for tests. From what I can see, the reason she is failing is because she can’t retain the vocabulary that she had learned and doesn’t know how to use it in context. Quite often in the bursts of her frustration, she would comment that her French teacher doesn’t teach it [in a way that works for her]. I am very frustrated as a parent that I can’t help her much. I don’t feel that it is my place to go into her school to tell the teacher that she should change his delivery method. Please advise how I can help my daughter.