Homeschool Crew Review: Middlebury Interactive Languages

Middlebury Interactive Languages offers online Spanish, French, Chinese, and German languages at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels.  We recently had an opportunity to use and review Middle School German I. Middle School German I, for grades 6-8, is split up into two semesters each with 90 days of lessons.  You can choose to purchase 1 semester at a time for $119 each or both semesters for $238.  You also have the option to purchase the courses with teacher support for $294 for one semester $588 for both.  The courses are online courses and nothing needs to be downloaded to your computer.  Once you purchase the course, your login is emailed to to you and you can access your course from any computer.  The courses are self paced and expire one year after your purchase date.  
Middle School German I teaches the language by focusing on 4 key areas: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.  Each unit teaches a new vocabulary theme and grammar concept, reading and listening activities, speaking and writing activities, cultural presentations and activities to reinforce vocabulary and grammar.  Students will learn to speak and respond in conversations, become familiar with vocabulary and grammar, and learn about German culture.  The activities and instruction in this course is equivalent to the first semester of High School German I.
Each semester of the course is split into 8 units with each unit containing 10 lessons. Quizzes and tests are also given throughout the course.  The first semester contains the following units:
Unit 1: Greetings Unit 2: School, Alphabet Unit 3: Descriptions and Colors Unit 4: Countries and Numbers Unit 5: Telling Time Unit 6: Regular Verbs Unit 7: Irregular Verbs Unit 8: Days, Months, Seasons Unit 9: Year 1 Midterm
The second semester contains the following units:
Unit 10: Hobbies and Pastimes Unit 11: Food Unit 12: Food Continued Unit 13: Family Unit 14: Places Unit 15: Animals Unit 16: Shopping Unit 17: Weather Unit 18: Year 1 Final
Each day when you log in the course picks up where you left off.  Each lesson goes through a variety of activities, listening, speaking, matching, reading, and more.  As the activities are completed a check mark appears by that activity.  

Parents can see the grade book that shows the grades for the quizzes and tests or you can see all of the coursework your child has completed.

My 12 year old, 7th grade son has been using Middle School German I 4 days per week for the last several weeks, completing one lesson per day.  This was not my first review of Middlebury Interactive Languages.  In 2015 I reviewed Elementary Spanish I, Grades 3-5 with another one of my children.  He really enjoyed the Spanish program and I looked forward to this opportunity for Alex to use the German program.  My husband was born in Germany and Alex has an interest in different languages and cultures.  
I like that the program is so easy to use and requires no teaching at all from me, since I have no experience at all in the German language.  I love all of the built in review and the inclusion of learning about different parts of the German culture.  We liked the variety of activities and the ability to be able to hear the language being spoken.  
The course is challenging.  I actually almost chose the elementary course for him because he has no German background but I was afraid he would think it too babyish. Alex is not strong in English grammar or writing so attempting to do these things in German has given him a bit of a struggle at times.  He has had to redo several activities and has been frustrated when he has not done as well on graded assignments as he wished he had.  But, he has made a lot of progress since he started and will continue on through the course. 

To see what my Crew Mates had to say, click here.

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