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Do you speak the TL you learned at school | ||
Tags: School Education | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 9 of 53 15 August 2012 at 11:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Forgotten my Latin, there were plenty remains of my German and French left that were
usable, although my French has had to undergo a true renaissance later after I had immersion in it for other reasons. I still speak decent German. But I was the only who bothered to speak my language outside of school when required. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 10 of 53 15 August 2012 at 11:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Yet another UK story here, but from the 1960s, which I suppose isn't very relevant to
today's world of education: This was in a traditional grammar school of the period. In my "cohort" as I think they call it, the available (and compulsory) languages were French and Latin. (Later on they introduced German, but too late for me). I quite liked Latin for the 1st few years, and did tolerably well, but in the last 2 years the teachers we were landed with seemed particularly uninspiring, and put me off it, and I failed my GCE "O" level (the standard exam for 16-year-olds then). I don't regret having done it, but it could have been done better. In the first few years we had a brilliant French teacher, very strict but with a sense of humour, and I liked him. He seemed to have a great accent which I think helped me to learn at least a reasonable accent, and an enthusiasm for the language that he was able to convey. The problem was that you weren't really encouraged to speak, not in any real sense. No conversation. You might read out sentences that you had written; you probably chanted verb conjugations, and the numbers; and that was about it. Teachers in later years were much less inspiring, although I managed to scrape a pass. I didn't go abroad until the month after I had left school (aged nearly 19), when I went on a trip to France organised by one of the teachers, and for the first time, spoke some French "for real". It wasn't an entire disaster, and actually gave me an interest in keeping up French afterwards, which I did on and off for quite a few years, leaving it aside only for other languages. So, a mixed story, but to the extent that it was a partial success, I'd credit that one teacher in the 1st 2 or 3 years of my secondary education. By the way, the GCSEs which replaced the GCE O levels, while less "academic" (and much criticised by educational traditionalists to this day), placed much more emphasis on the spoken language, and in later life, I took a GCSE, and could see the difference. It's true that perhaps there was not enough emphasis on grammar though, but the old GCE system had the balance wrong the other way. As mentioned elsewhere, I now tend to think that school languages as they are taught in the UK are something of a waste of time, and a massive rethink is needed, although we must also be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Edit: Dip pens and old-fashioned immoveable desks. Oh yes, I remember those! No whips, but some lads did get thrashed with bunsen-burner tubing! Not me; I was a goody-goody - until the 6th form ... Edited by montmorency on 15 August 2012 at 12:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5058 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 11 of 53 15 August 2012 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I learned English at a descent level. I've improved my reading abilities and vocabulary
after school. I learned French (much less hours), it was not good but I have some passive knowledge. I took extra Spanish classes for two years, it was great but I've nearly forgotten it. I 've practically never spoken all these languages outside classes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5984 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 12 of 53 15 August 2012 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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montmorency, I think this is why I was so lucky with my French teachers up to GCSE, back in the distant nineties. I even remember at the time my teacher (who was quite young) complained that the prevailing fashion was to avoid teaching grammar because we were supposed to be able to figure it out ourselves. She made the point of teaching us the necessary grammar, but also encouraged us (as best as you can encourage 15 year olds) to speak in class too.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 13 of 53 15 August 2012 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | ||
Thank you, but I wish I had more results to show for it. My theory was that with all my extra input I would inspire my pupils, and make them want to study a lot, and be very good. And they did get marginally better than the others, but not so much better that it was worth all my effort. My only consolation is that both they and I had a good time while we were doing it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4561 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 14 of 53 15 August 2012 at 1:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my school years I had the pleasure of studying German, English, Swedish, French and
even a little bit of Japanese, in a classroom setting. I always enjoyed my classes and did well in them, and got at least reasonably proficient (or perhaps knowledgeable) in all of the above save for Japanese. That being said, I've never learned to speak a language in the classroom. Our teaching was focused on grammar, vocabulary and written output with some speaking exercises here and there, so in a way, it only makes sense that so few of us learned to speak the languages we were studying. However, I don't think the major problem was a lack of speaking practice: it was the one thing in class I absolutely hated. I felt awfully unprepared for it, and at least for me the silly play conversations were a waste of time. As something of an introvert I find it near impossible to start speaking a language unless I've had lots and lots of exposure to native-speaker materials, in particular audio (a patient native speaker friend or two would probably be even better). And that's what the classroom setting failed to deliver. The irony is that all those lessons did a very good job at preparing us for real-world content without ever throwing us in the water and forcing us to swim. Not even after ten years of study, which is totally ridiculous. Now that I've begun to learn languages independently, it has both delighted and sickened me to realize how easy it is to break into the real thing: rich, interesting content produced by native speakers for other native speakers. I've had the required foundation for who knows how many years, and I didn't even know it! To sum up, I believe that for someone like me the recipe to success is to: 1) build a foundation of comprehension 2) get exposed to lots of native-speaker content-- especially audio, and 3) practice output intensively once a critical mass of input has been achieved, allowing for enjoyable and productive interaction. My gut feel is that steps 2 and 3 are difficult to achieve with traditional classroom instruction. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4846 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 15 of 53 15 August 2012 at 1:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've learned English, French, and Latin at school, and I don't regret it! :) I reached true proficiency in English only after graduating from school, when I started watching American TV series and movies in the original language, but my school English was sufficient to survive a three-week stay in the US.
My French has somewhat deteriorated after I finished school. I can still understand a lot and read French texts, but my active skills are a bit rusty now and could use some brush-up. I haven't been working on my French for a long time now, so it could be better. Oh yes, and Latin. It seems I have forgotten most of the vocabulary and the stem forms of verbs, but here and there I remember a bit. I have recently needed my Latin for my dissertation, but translating texts is only possible with the help of a dictionary. My grammar seems to be somewhat better than my vocabulary. Surprisingly, I have retained noun declensions and verbal conjugations quite well. So, yes. I'm thankful that I had the opportunity to learn my first languages at school, although I started learning languages on my own early. I have always had a craving for learning, so if I had an interest for something I would go for it. I even remember translating Latin texts on my own after having passed the 'Latinum' exam at school. Well, I don't do that anymore, but now my new love is Russian. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5534 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 53 15 August 2012 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't speak any of the languages I learned in school.
Some background: I attended two different high schools. High school #1 was in the rural United States. High school #2 was an English-speaking school in continental Europe where I managed to snag a scholarship for a year. Latin, 3 years at high school #1, 1 year of independent study. We never even came close to reading native texts, not even simplified versions. German, 1 year each at high schools #1 & #2. The first year was OK, but nothing special. I had to work hard to catch up for year 2 in Europe. I think given 4 years or so, high school #2 would have gotten somewhere. Italian, 1 year at university. I suffered from a horrible work ethic and a strong antipathy towards the teaching style, which was focused on early-morning grammar drill. The most diligent students might have made it to A2 with some conversation skills, making themselves eligible for 3 months of overseas immersion. Latin, 6 months at university. The only success story in the bunch. By the end of 6 months, we were slowly translating simplified "native" texts. But I decided to let it all go upon graduation, because in the pre-Anki world, I didn't know how to maintain knowledge cheaply. Looking back, I need to give some real credit to my university, even though I personally can't stand the way they teach living languages. Their more diligent students could easily reach B1+ with activated oral skills after 9 months of class and 3 months of immersion. (They also had a brutally fast-paced Mandarin class with lots of heritage Mandarin speakers and heavy homework demands.) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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