Going out for Mexican food for dinner last night inspired me to add this entry. Whatever language your child is studying (except Latin) - try to find an opportunity to use it in the community at least once a month. Spanish is pretty easy - Mexican, Cuban, etc. restaurants or grocery stores. Chinese is the same - find instances where your children can actually practice some of what they have learned. This practical use is one of the reasons I look for curriculum to sell that teaches the language that you can actually use in the real world. Being able to put that studying to practical use helps give you an incentive to learn more. I remember studying Spanish for 3 years before we went on vacation to Mexico. Being a teenager, I thought I knew it all and was totally fluent. I told my parents that I would translate for them since they could not speak Spanish. I still vividly remember my first attempt to use my Spanish. I could speak well, but had NO IDEA of what the person had said back to me. They spoke extremely fast and used "conversational" Spanish, while I had learned "proper" Spanish. That is when I realized I still had a lot to learn and wanted to work on being able to understand Spanish. This is why I now recommend watching movies in the language, so you become accustomed to different accents and slang expressions.

So you don't have to go on an expensive vacation - look for native speakers within your own community!