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Average Joe/Jose takes a level test | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 65 of 80 25 June 2013 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | ||
I think starting the language in advance is a reasonable requirement. Interestingly, if you move to Finland, you need to prove your knowledge of Finnish if you're older than 15. I started learning the language a few days after turning fifteen, long before I decided I want to move to Finland. I also had the exam requirement out of the way before I even made up my mind (B2 would be enough btw). Edited by Serpent on 26 June 2013 at 12:41am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 66 of 80 25 June 2013 at 11:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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That's interesting. Finnish is at least just as difficult (or probably much more difficult) than Czech for foreigners and here you need only an A1 exam for the permanent stay permission. Which is laughable as quite a lot of troubles with individuals from certain immigrant minorities come from suddenly "not understanding" the language. There is a separate exam for those who want to become citizens but there is no level in the official info.
B2 sounds much more reasonable as the person either knows the language to get the citizeship/permanent stay and therefore cannot not understand the police or the person doesn't get the citizenship. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sterogyl Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4365 days ago 152 posts - 263 votes Studies: German*, French, EnglishC2 Studies: Japanese, Norwegian | Message 67 of 80 26 June 2013 at 7:54am | IP Logged | ||
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In Germany you need B1 for citizenship.
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 68 of 80 26 June 2013 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Now that we have put that average Joe/Jose/Juan stuff out to pasture, we can discuss some fundamental issues
like necessary linguistic requirements for citizenship. In passing, I read today that in Great Britain people who are unemployed and do not speak English to a certain level will be required to take remedial English classes. The idea behind all these sorts of language requirements is to ensure that these immigrants will be able to participate fully in the host society. And thus avoid these ghettos and ehnic enclaves that are the source of various social problems. The idea is not a bad one in my opinion. The problem is the solution, i.e. the language tests. What should we measure? What should be the minimum standard, B1, B2, C1? Are these test fair and accurate? Are they really designed to ensure the integration of foreigners or are they meant to make it difficult for people to obtain a better status, i.e. citizenship? I don't have time to discuss these issues right now, but those are some of the fundamental questions that should be addressed. Probably in a different thread Edited by s_allard on 26 June 2013 at 8:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 69 of 80 26 June 2013 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Please refrain from calling the original idea useless. We already know what you think.
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 70 of 80 27 June 2013 at 7:25am | IP Logged | ||
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The people who already know what I think should refrain from reading the following lines.
I've just finished listening to a Youtube video in French of a well-know polyglot who is about to publish a book on how to learn any language. I prefer not to name this person. As I listened to all the major mistakes this person was making, I tried to imagine what would be the appropriate CEFR level. if I were a French examiner. I found it very painful and annoying to watch a so-called expert polyglot making these annoyiing mistakes that native speaker would never make. At the same time I kept reminding myself that one should not expect perfection. That is why we have a scale. But the fundamental problem was that this type of typical talking head polyglot demonstration does not tell us what the person can do in the language. And this is the thrust of the CEFR model. We must stop looking at the language itself and think in terms of how the person can communicate in specific situtions. And then maybe those mistakes are not really important after all. But this kind of video does not allows to see how the speaker can really use the language. In fact, these videos tend to be markeing tools more than anything. IMPORTANT EDIT: I changed "should expect perfection" to "should not expect perfection" Edited by s_allard on 27 June 2013 at 4:05pm 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 5224 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 71 of 80 27 June 2013 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | ||
As you all could imagine, I decided to take a break from this thread. However, maybe it's still (or anew) worth a shot (of course, regarding also the original idea)
This is where not the CEFR, with a more or less clear 'can do' check list, but examination systems around it have severe problems, because they tend to contradict themselves. As I see it, the CEFR incarnates an idea that's central to the 'communicative approach' to language learning, i.e. that languages serves a purpose, communication, and being so, effective communication must be the top priority when learning and using a language. Can communication be effective at all CEFR levels, ranging from A1 to C2, in spite of mistakes? The simple answer with very deep implications is, it depends on those mistakes, and this has consequences on tests. (Also on what can and cannot work in classes, but I'll leave that for another thread.) In the last week I've met a whole bunch of foreigners who could obviously interact with me at the C2 (cognitively involved) level, and they all made mistakes, ranging from slightly off vocabulary choice in one case (E), to the really grating continuous use of the 3rd person verb forms instead of the 1st person ones (after twenty years!) in another (W). I also met another foreign woman (L) whose Spanish is way better than theirs, pronunciation and all, but who does not meet the requirements for such an intellectually demanding interaction, for the most ocmplex stuff escapes her. Then there's this guy (I), the one I'm closest to, with whom I can only interact at around A2 level without help, because we both understand just a little of each other's language and we both speak them terribly. These are not made up characters, I had lunch with three of them yesterday. If you do 'the maths' from the above description, were they all to sit a C2 test, "I" would flunk, "L" would fail because she just can't cope with a certain number of C2 tasks in spite of her nearly perfect command of the language, "E" would do fine just like me, and frankly I don't know if "W" would pass -- he would do fine with the high level stuff but examiners would spot all kinds of 'basic' mistakes in his discourse. It would be basically up to them. Let's go down to the B2 level and have them sit it. "I" flunks again as expected, and "L" passes with flying colours, probably surpassing "E" and "W" (by far) because she can't function at an equally high level as them but she makes nearly no mistakes. Is it fair? Not completely. But —and this is a very big "but"— mistakes MUST be taken into account in any test and grading system, for two otherwise equally performing candidates should be awarded different scores if one makes more mistakes than the other. As others have dwelt on, there are many native speakers that can perform worse than those foreigners, even if most are expected to do better. This makes the system shortcomings even more evident -- but if we choose to leave them out because 'these tests are generally not targeted at natives', the above are perfect examples of some, the most prominent one is proposing a linear scale, or rather, letting people believe that there's one, for something that's clearly not linear. The worst problem is not that the CEFR, or examination systems, are not perfect, or how exactly they're not, though -- apparently, they're the most advanced stuff we've come up with so far. That problem is, if we assume they can't be improved, we'll never come up with something better (something I deem important). And even more important for the general population (those who limit themselves to live with the system), being aware of any defects in a system is as important (if not more) as knowing what its virtues are. The reason, simple enough, must be spelled out so often that I think doing so yet again can only be beneficial: Reality is the ultimate check for any knowledge we develop and the systems we employ tu build it. But while reality just sits there, our 'systems' can only gradually try to get us there in steps/cycles. If you know what your systems can do (stage 1), it's cool and certainly better than knowing nothing or 'what we knew all along' (stage 0) -- but knowing what your systems cannot do and thus what can be improved, even if not how yet, is obviously a step further, a 'stage 2' of sorts. ('My' 'real' stage 2 would involve this 'how' :) Now one may not be ready to invest time, effort and energy to get through stage 2, and finally come up with something better to start the cycle all over, even for good reasons, but I don't think there's any benefit in settling for stage 1 and ignoring this first part of stage 2 is there, in any cycle. Edited by mrwarper on 27 June 2013 at 6:04pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 72 of 80 27 June 2013 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have to commend @mrwarper for an interesting and insightful post. I know how long it takes to write those
things. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to address all the points raised. My point here is that we must question the idea of the language test in itself. This may seem like a minor point because, after all, we are talking about testing for language proficiency. The issue is that the CEFR is more interested in how the language is used to accomplish certain tasks rather than how well the candidates know certain structures. This is a big point because the shift is away from testing knowledge of the linguistic code and counting mistakes and toward observing how the language is used in specific situations. The problem is that we are forced to use artificial testing situations that we hope can simulate in some controlled manner various realistic situations. And of course we want to be fair, accurate and foolproof. All this is very tricky to accomplish, and I'm sure the CEFR researchers put a lot of effort into this. The question of the evaluation of mistakes is fundamental of course. Here the basic assumption would be that the number and nature of mistakes change as we move up the proficiency scale. The problem for examiners is that they tend to notice errors of commission and not errors of omission. We deduct points when we hear something that is wrong. But we can't deduct points if the person does not use a form that could have been used. The typical example of this is usage of the subjunctive in French and even more so in Spanish. This is an area that is very difficult for foreigners. You make mistakes by using the wrong form in a certain contest. But what if you avoid the subjunctive completely by cleverly getting around it? This person does not make any mistakes with the subjunctive. These problems are acute at the high levels because we are dealing with subtleties, fins shades of meaning and complex topics. Just exactly how can one test for this without having to resort to testing for specific linguistic structures? For example, do you test for vocabulary size because a larger vocabulary is a sign of proficiency? To be continued. Edited by s_allard on 27 June 2013 at 5:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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