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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| I'm With Stupid Senior Member Vietnam Joined 4176 days ago 165 posts - 349 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 89 of 106 31 August 2013 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't have a problem with testing younger children, providing it's for the benefit of the teacher. But it's usually for the benefit of the politicians. We're kinda getting way off the topic here, but from my POV, two of the main problems in the UK are excessive external testing, and school league tables. When teachers think that their jobs or next year's budget is going to be determined by test results, they teach to the test.
This explicitly happened to me during my A-level media studies course, after the teachers came back from the Christmas break with a "strong hint" from the exam board that the exam would be on print media and decided to focus on that for the rest of the course. No doubt it was good for the college's results, but it wasn't particularly useful for me when I'd just applied to study film at university. So a rounded education in the subject was sacrificed for good test scores. And I don't blame them either. Under that system, I'd do the same thing. For me, Finland have be the undisputed heavyweight champions of education for the last 10 years or so, and the main reason for that, from what I've read, is that they trust the teachers to do their job, and they trust the headteachers to recognise if they're not doing their job. Most of the measures put in place by politicians aren't for the benefits of children, they're to satisfy the pushy middle-class parents who demand that their child gets the "best" education (at the expense of someone else). Again, I don't blame them, but I don't think the education system should be facilitating it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5012 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 90 of 106 31 August 2013 at 6:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, at least the tests give some kind of external info for the parents to choose a good quality school, which is totally normal to choose. I think tests at 11 years of age with option for the better kids to go tt grammar school are necessary. I am one of such kids. And when others joined the school four years later (having finished the normal schools), there was a huge difference how much were we used to learn and how little had they been required to do during the four years of difference. They had been getting awesome grades for free, had nearly no obligatory books to read, nothing. It was really tough for them.
I think everyone should be given the best education they are able to follow and tests and elite schools are the only way to ensure it. Unfortunately there are still many people naively believing in superhuman teachers who can fully teach a class of 30 where 1 is mentally handicapped, 2 are from the trouble neighborhoods and part of a minority that sends them to school once a month, than the usual mix and the 1 or 2 clever ones on top of all that. Selection and division is the only way here. Finnland pays the teachers well, that is the main difference. In such conditions the universities can choose good quality students for the teaching fields and the good teachers stay in the system. And such teachers deserve the trust. Here mostly the worst of students beginning university go to pedagogical faculties and many good teachers leave the schools because it is impossible for a family to live from such a salary, unless you settle for the lowest standard. The good quality education is not at the expense of someone else! There is always someone shouting "they are taking away to best kids who have good influence on the worse ones." which is nonsense. The clever kid will only learn to be lazy in the worse schools. The mediocre and stupid kids will not get inspired to work harder, sometimes they will even bully the clever kid. The education system should be facilitating all this by offering a diversity of schools. I am one of the kids who got away at 11 and I am grateful for it. It wasn't all good but had I stayed in a normal school, I would never have needed to learn what is it to actually study, to work for something. And university would have been even harder shock for me. Edited by Cavesa on 31 August 2013 at 6:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| I'm With Stupid Senior Member Vietnam Joined 4176 days ago 165 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 91 of 106 31 August 2013 at 7:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's totally normal to want to choose. But for every student who goes to a good school, there has to be one that goes to a bad one. And the problem is that in the current system, this comes down to finances. Can you afford to live in the catchment area of the good school? And this creates yet more division, because all of the children from comfortable middle class backgrounds go to the same area and all of the children from broken homes and poorer backgrounds go to school together, meaning that the gap gets greater and greater every year. I agree that grammar school is better than that system, but I think Finland's system is better than both (supported by their literacy and numeracy results).
You can do selection and division within a school, and indeed they do. In secondary school, it comes in the form of separate classes based on ability (even studying for totally separate exams in some cases). In primary school, it comes in the form of teaching assistants.
That's not actually true. English teachers get paid more than Finnish teachers. 
The difference is smaller class sizes, so overall, they probably spend more on education as a whole. But the salary incentive is no greater than England. In fact, it's less, especially if you factor in their higher taxes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5012 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 92 of 106 31 August 2013 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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A mediocre student who wants to become a good automechanic doesn't need to go to grammar school. And many other don't.
And the good schools are actually pulling up the bad ones. When parents don't want to put their children in your bad school, than you are not going to get money. And you have to do something about your horrible school. On the other hand, if you fight the good schools, than the bad ones have no motivation to become better because they'll get the students and money anyways. Here, the separation goes in the form of schools. You have grammar schools, you have secondary schools with more maths, more languages or more science classes and than you have the normal secondary schools where the mediocre kids do ok, the stupid ones hold at the bottom and the clever ones suffer because their brains are left to rot. Yes, my school was doing the division by skills in language classes and tried it in math. But not even all the elite schools do that. Smaller classes are in general better but not for everyone. I always liked a lot of individual work inside a larger class. A larger class means more potential friends. If you are unlucky and all the 15 kids in the small class are assholes (or rather 3 are chief assholes and the rest just follows), you have bad luck. I tried both. Big classes full of the clever kids are the best, in my opinion. Small classes for those who have trouble with learning, so that the teacher can help everyone. And separate schools for the mentally handicaped where they can get individual approach and experience success. Those schools were recently closed here (integration at all costs) and many parents of the kids are now unhappy because their kids are unhappy about the change. You know, bridging the gap between children from the middle class and the trouble neighborhoods sounds good until the middle class children begin losing money and things, get home beaten and lose interest in learning because the trouble children shout in the classes and the teacher can't do anything because the parents don't care. Good tables, thanks. The Czech teachers are among the worst paid ones. But the living costs are not much lower than for example in the UK. No wonder there are so few good teachers here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5229 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 93 of 106 31 August 2013 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
These are just ways of looking at the fact that different people do differently given the same opportunities. While it is obvious except for those with the blackest souls and/or the dimmest brains that enforcing uniform results can only be done by holding back those who would normally do better and should therefore constitute a crime, an excellence-based system can also be thwarted to produce undesirable results. I consider this is what happens when you have your 'academic fate' sealed early on. I've seen enough 'late bloomers' to vote for a system that heavily filters people across levels, while letting them freely exit and re-enter the cycles. It would not only keep the good parts of an 'excellence' system, it would also allow for self-correction -- and it would prevent a lot of means and effort to be wasted on those who do not want to learn, and a lot of damage being done by them, as Cavesa just pointed out while I was writing this. About political and economical arguments supporting the worst versions of the above... all I have heard was based on premises that are all false except one -- people are gullible enough to believe them. So 'nuff said about that. @Cristina having grades from year 1 is completely useless if you can't be kept down, as the rule has been here for the last 20 years or so ;( When I attended primary school you were kept down if you failed more than two subjects, otherwise you passed *and* you had to attend 'recovery' classes for the subjects you were 'carrying over'. Guess what happened? Some kids learned to try harder and did well, others didn't and were eventually kept down. Under the 'new' system, every child learns to be lazy since they'll pass. I even had my cousin tell my very mother exactly this when she was helping him with maths -- 'Why do I need to do get this right? Everyone will pass anyway!' Attempting to go back to languages... 'my theory' is what I told a long time friend and his wife when I was recently tutoring them with their English -- we were discussing how to get their kid to learn English from the very start... People learn stuff out of love for knowledge or out of usefulness, and that's it. with the exception of the pronunciation I never practice, I learned English to what I consider a merely acceptable standard (yes, that C2) basically because I am a freak, and even if I didn't love everything I learned from primary school, I trusted the system was trying to get stuff into my skull because it would come in handy someday. With very little exceptions I was right, so I'm really glad my parents turned me into such a freak. Now, would you want to repeat the experience with a kid, so you can build a system that produces people who *do* learn in the system, be it languages or whatever, you have basically two options: a) Raise them as knowledge-loving freak and rest assured they'll absorb everything they are taught. b) Give them reasons to use what they were just taught at school. Guess what's easier... And I think this is exactly what we are seeing happen in the Netherlands, Norway, etc. where two or more languages are taught and only one of them 'sticks': most people learn English because they have uses for it early on; they learn comparatively way less German or whatever because it's simply not connected to anything outside their school lives. Not so hard to figure out, was it? ;) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5012 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 94 of 106 31 August 2013 at 8:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't trust the system much and therefore I learnt English (and physics) in spite of it :-D
At grammar schools, people who don't pass of one subject do a reparatory exam and theoretically, if you fail that, you go to normal secondary school. At normal secondary school, you get hold back. But not all kids have to do that if they fail. Some of them know pretty well they don't have to because daddy paid for the new computers or the daddy works in a public office that gave the school money for a new gym. Learning what is corruption when you are fourteen or so is quite early in my opinion. Yes, it should always be possible to go to a better school when a kid becomes better (some just need time to get to the point, others need a change of motivation etc). But for that, you need several points at which most will do the exams. While it is possible for individuals to change schools at any point (ans sometimes necessary, for example when you are moving to another city), no class can become twice the size in the half of the second year. So, some exams are necessary. However, I believe it should always be exams by the schools, not government ordered one test for all. Some of my siblings are at the beginning of the education or just after few years of it. I try to teach them (mostly by being the example) that it is normal not to be stupid and that if you want to know something, you need to work on your own. School is mostly one size fits all (sometimes even a size that fits noone) and you cannot count on having teachers, curriculum and classmates that will absolutely fit your needs. There are too many ifs. So I hope they will both survive and thrive no matter what some crazy minister comes with and no matter who will they get as teachers. But it is hard sometimes. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| I'm With Stupid Senior Member Vietnam Joined 4176 days ago 165 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 95 of 106 31 August 2013 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The findings of the last PISA study also concluded that keeping students down a year doesn't actually improve their achievement. And that makes sense to me. If someone isn't getting something you're teaching, then making them do it again in exactly the same way isn't going to achieve anything.
This is particularly an issue in language learning imo, because some people seem to approach it in the same way as other subjects and assume that because the teacher has taught something, the students should remember it. And language learning doesn't work like that. So there's little value in getting them to repeat the same material again, when the relevant structures and language will be repeated throughout their education and the parts that are useful/relevant to them will stick. The obvious exception is if someone's clearly been put into the wrong level to begin with. And it's always going to be an option in extreme cases. If someone has a lengthy illness and misses nearly a year of school, then obviously they'll have to stay down a year. This is an interesting article. Particularly this bit:
And
Edited by I'm With Stupid on 31 August 2013 at 8:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5012 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 96 of 106 31 August 2013 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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If someone isn't getting something you are teaching because they don't pay attention and at home they spend 95% of their time playing WoW (the 5% being divided among sleeping, eating and personal hygiene), then holding them back a year is a good wake up call, in my opinion. The curriculum up to the end of highschool isn't that hard that normal people (that means around IQ 100 or better) should have any trouble passing. Perhaps with the worst passing grades but passing. The point is to force them not to go the same way again.
No competition and grades? That would be horror for me. I am one of those who need to complete. The best is competition with myself and the grades were actually a good tool. Again, your and PISA's point comes from the point of view that the teacher is fully responsible for the result. That is not true. The student is. Sure, a crappy teacher makes it much harder. But the student's results can be good despite a bad teacher or bad despite a good one. Edited by Cavesa on 31 August 2013 at 9:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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