It would be easy to say something along the lines of "Who cares?" and move along without worrying about foreign language at allComing from: First Form Latin
Going to: Third Form Latin
It's a toss up whether science, mathematics, or foreign language gets the award for "hardest to teach" in middle and high school. While I felt confident taking on the science and math that was going to come up through high school graduation, I knew that I didn't have enough language proficiency to be able to teach any foreign language well. It would be easy to say something along the lines of "Who cares?" and move along without worrying about foreign language at all - the path that many families take. However, I am schooling a student who will likely attend college and foreign language is important for college admissions and are straight up required to participate in NCAA sports at certain levels.
Why Latin?
1) I studied Latin in middle and high school, so I won't be completely in the dark.
2) Latin is the father language of the modern Romance Languages: Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Romanian. Learning Latin makes an excellent springboard into the study of any of these languages should my student develop a preference in the future.
3) There are plenty of instructional courses designed for homeschool use!
I chose to use the Latin course embedded in Memoria Press (MP). MP begins instruction in Latin in 2nd grade with Prima Latina, continuing into Latina Christiana in 3rd and 4th grades before beginning the Forms series in 5th grade. While you can begin the progression with any of the three programs, you *can't* begin in the middle of the Forms series. We began with First Form Latin in 6th grade and will continue to be a year behind in the Latin progression through high school.
The Complete Set from Memoria Press runs $125 new and includes:
The Student Text
The Student Workbook
The Teacher Guide
The Teacher Key
The Test and Quiz Book
Flashcards
Pronunciation CD
Instructional DVDs
I had access to all of these materials for First Form and we simply never got in a rhythm of using the Flashcards. Likewise, the CD and DVDs didn't get much use because I don't find it vital to work on pronunciation and conversation in a dead language. Additionally, I did not find the Teacher Guide to be a value add. Any instructional question that came up could either be solved by me reading through the student textbook and re-explaining something OR the answer was nowhere to be found in either student or teacher book. (NB: The versions I have used are the First Edition. MP has revised the Forms series into a Second Edition and I do not know if there are substantive differences in the usefulness of the teacher manual in the Second Edition.) Buying only the materials I actually use drops the cost new down to $49 and the materials frequently show up used in the Memoria Press B/S/T Facebook page for less.