Review ~ Middlebury Interactive Languages

I love how easy to use the Middlebury language programs are! Kids can learn at their own pace how to speak French and many other languages.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this product for review, all opinions are 100% my own.

Earlier this summer I found out that we would have the opportunity to review one of the foreign language courses from Middlebury Interactive Languages.

I talked to our daughter about what language she would like to learn and she chose French. I received Elementary French 1 intended for grades 3 to 5.

What Is Middlebury Interactive Languages?

Middlebury College Language Schools have been teaching languages for nearly 100 years to educators and business leaders. They designed Middlebury Interactive Languages to be an online interactive language curriculum for grades K to 12.

Middlebury Interactive Languages offer courses in:

• Chinese

• French

• German

• Spanish

I decided to go with Elementary French 1 because although we have studied some French over the years, it's been a while and I thought dd12  had forgotten some of what we had learned.

I can say that dd is LOVING learning French with Middlebury! Middlebury Interactive uses an immersive approach to learning languages. At first, my daughter found this very frustrating, but by the end of the first lesson she was loving it.

Her first lesson started off right away with watching a children's story all recorded in French. It was the story of Little Red Riding Hood. At first, her perfectionist personality took over. She couldn't understand what the story was saying and was frustrated.

Then I explained to her that it was ok, she is not expected to know what the story is saying right now.

After watching the video the program moves into a lesson that teaches a few words from the video. Then the video is watched again, now the child can understand some of what they are watching

Then there is another activity to practice more words from the video story. There are activities to repeat back what you hear, to sort and match words and pictures. Quizzes are spaced throughout the units and the results are recorded in the grade book.

The Gradebook is easily accessed at the top of the page in the menu tab.

In the past when we have learned languages I've used book-based resources or tape recordings. I have to say that we are enjoying this type of interactive language program much better.

I find that our daughter really enjoys using the program and wants to complete more than one unit a day.  I love that the Middlebury Interactive lessons are completely self-paced.

If your child needs to move at a slower pace they can, although each course is 6 months/1 semester long.

There are two versions of Middlebury Interactive lessons available. The version we received to use was without a teacher and the price for that is $119 for 6 months.  There is also a version that comes with a teacher and that is $294 for 6 months.

Middlebury Interactive Lessons are intended to be used with one student. However, we are using this with more than one student. When our younger children ages 8 and 10 are interested they sit with our older daughter and watch the lessons together. Then they take turns entering answers in the activities.

They also have fun "teaching" each other the words they have learned. Since Middlebury Interactive is intended for use with only one student, it only records the grades for one student in the grade book.

At this level of work, we really are not using numbered grades for this type of work. So having the kids share the course works well for our family. If you need individual grading then you would need to have a separate subscription for each child.

I've been very impressed by Middlebury Interactive Languages and I plan to use this program again when we need high school-level language programs. I would recommend Middlebury Interactive Languages to any child wanting to learn a foreign language.