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When the classes are too easy | ||
Tags: Language School | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4628 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 9 of 19 14 January 2015 at 11:58am | IP Logged | ||
Thank you for the link. When I wrote my post above this is what I had in mind, but I just couldn't remember what it was called. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6586 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 10 of 19 14 January 2015 at 7:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Credit goes to Gemuse who's posted this some time ago :)
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| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4433 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 11 of 19 14 January 2015 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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The whole idea of language learning is to find a level you are comfortable with. If you find the level too
unchallenging, then try discussing the issue to the teacher or someone else in the language department of the school to switch you to a higher level. During my first few years of high school, I find that the French curriculum was nothing more than subject-verb conjugations most of the time. There is not a lot of active communications. By the time I got to the senior level we had to read 1 novel. Without any kind of transition I felt the first few years was a waste of time and the final years was too difficult with nothing to bridge the gap. The bottom line is you don't have to get stuck in the same class for the sake of getting a high score in every exam without studying. Sometime ago, I was in Taiwan for a summer exchange program. The first day all the students at the language institute lined up for an evaluation to see whether they fit into the beginner, intermediate or advanced level. After a 5 minute chat, the lady assigned me to a low-advanced level class. There was Chinese characters dictation every day, reading stories and we had to write complete sentences. In the beginning there was a little bit of a struggle but I never regretted the decision. If I had requested an intermediate level class, I would not be where I am today reading newspapers, TV and radio broadcasts regularly. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4998 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 12 of 19 15 January 2015 at 3:03am | IP Logged | ||
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No matter which solution you choose, whether you convince them to move you to the next
class etc., don't make a mistake I did in past. Don't let the easy classes make you lazy. It is not hard to be the best among people who only put in the classroom time. It is nearly demotivating from outside work, even at a subconscious level. You should not let this get inside your head, keep studying. Keep challenging yourself. Even if you have to stay in the class, use the good parts, such as getting some feedback to your speaking. And keep working on your own. Noone is holding your hand to keep you from studying the grammar deeper, widening your vocabulary, devouring native input, writing a diary and so on. By the way, were you not tested before being put into the level? After all, you are spending lots of money on the classes so you should have every right to be tested and put where you more likely belong. And the division in 3 semesters per level is nothing rare, most large language schools here have 2 semesters per A level and 4 per each higher one. It is just a way to make more money, in my opinion. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5119 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 13 of 19 15 January 2015 at 5:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Sit down with your instructor and have an honest conversation about your abilities.
Any teacher worth their salt will properly evaluate you and give you an honest assessment of your abilities and weaknesses. If it turns out that you do indeed need to be moved to a higher level, the teacher should be able to accommodate you. If your teacher tells you that you need work on things being covered in the level you're finding too easy, ask why s/he believes that - you'll get ample feedback, hopefully. From there, both of you can come to an agreement as to where you should be placed. We as language learners tend to overestimate our abilities, so be sure you take your instructor's suggestions to heart (assuming s/he is in it to actually teach the language and not just to collect a paycheck.) R. == Edited by hrhenry on 15 January 2015 at 5:00am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liam.pike1 Groupie Australia Joined 3743 days ago 84 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, French | Message 14 of 19 15 January 2015 at 7:15am | IP Logged | ||
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If there are some good-looking ladies (or guys) in your language class then that'd be good enough reason for me to attend them... ;)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4998 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 15 of 19 15 January 2015 at 11:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I don't think it is mostly a trouble of overestimating one's ability. Sure, you
can even "belong" to a group considering your level at a given moment. Yet, if the group is going slow, which is often the case, you are still not getting much from it as you would prefer a steeper learning curve. So, a consultation with the teacher may be a good thing, and these possibilities may happen: 1.You prove you have been at a higher level from the beginning and were put into wrong group 2.you have progressed in a couple of weeks as much as others will have by the end of semester and therefore need to change a group as well 3.Clear out a possible way to improve the classes so that they would be of more value to you and possible some others who might agree but are reluctant to raise their voices (yes, they pay for the classes but deep inside, there is that childish fear of a teacher and naive belief in the teacher's perfect skills) 4.Find out it is one of the cases of overestimation and get some advice on further progress. 5.You can find out the classes do not fulfull their purpose and, given you are still at the beginning, you may be given back the money so that you can invest it elsewhere Each of these options would be an improvement, wouldn't it? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6050 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 16 of 19 15 January 2015 at 11:51am | IP Logged | ||
I'm afraid this is misplaced here. Let me explain: I studied Management. In those years there were a few concepts that kept coming up, and sunk cost was one of them. Then I got to use it extensively in both my professional and personal lives. I remember having made one popular post about that somewhere on the forum in the past. I won't bother you any more with credentials. The point of this post is that, albeit interesting, the concept of sunk cost doesn't really apply here. In fact, it would only be so if the only loss for tristano would be that of letting go of the already spent 400 Euros. In fact, if he decides stop attending his French classes (which he apparently won't, and that's good) he'll be forfeiting his right to attend further levels. On a lighter note, and using your example, it would be the same as if, by not attending the festival, you'd be waiving the right ever to see that Finnish band again. Sorry about the assertive tone but this is my field and I know what I'm talking about. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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