Languages other than English (LOTE)

Generally within Distance Education LOTE is recognised as a legal requirement for some grades but is not enforced as mandatory, we merely make the resources available to the families that are interested. Thus, if your students are interested in learning other languages we want to encourage this.

In the recent years there has been a lot of changes in regards to the second language packages available and the biggest change has been the movement from static books and texts to the internet and multimedia programs.

These programs allow students to listen to the language and in many cases record themselves speaking the language and even comparing the two samples. More companies are now able to offer these functional packages and in recent years some of the electronic programs available through the internet are receiving higher ratings than the traditional Rosetta Stone.

Here are several links for Spanish and Italian

Spanish:

http://www.studyspanish.com/ -This is the best site for Free…
http://www.learnspanishtoday.com/lst_split/index.html this is a very popular site as they have a demo for a pay course… There are also great lessons here.

Here also is a Spanish Dictionary link http://www.my-spanish-dictionary.com/ 
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/freeware/learn/spanish-free good reviews
http://www.ielanguages.com/spanish.html this site has a wealth of free instructional sites.

In the past everyone was interested in Rosetta Stone. It is certainly one of the most expensive… and these days there seems to be a lot more competition. http://www.livevideo.com/video/FD7CD8336DDA45AEAF0D16B45343AA1B/reveiw-of-rosetta-stone-spanis.aspx

Italian:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/italian/ This is the BBC site link with many different venues for practicing Italian.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/learning-italian-like-crazy-super/id288875326 iTunes link to download Italian files beginning level.