Cage Diglot aka a.ardaschira, Athena, Michael Thomas Senior Member United States Joined 6436 days ago 382 posts - 393 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Portuguese
| Message 9 of 15 15 August 2008 at 6:07pm | IP Logged |
You do not have to do much to avoid failing most university classes at least not at the undergraduate level. The graduate level is a whole nother ball game however. Language classes are good for those of typical ability and lack motivation to work on their own. They seem to be dumbed down to the lower achieving students. Motivated goal oriented students are best served by doing it on their own. However, I would rather learn computer languages in classrooms than trying them on my own!
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Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6251 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 10 of 15 16 August 2008 at 12:43am | IP Logged |
Cage wrote:
You do not have to do much to avoid failing most university classes at least not at the undergraduate level. The graduate level is a whole nother ball game however. Language classes are good for those of typical ability and lack motivation to work on their own. They seem to be dumbed down to the lower achieving students. Motivated goal oriented students are best served by doing it on their own. However, I would rather learn computer languages in classrooms than trying them on my own! |
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I find it incomparably more effective to learn computer languages on my own. The teaching of them in classrooms is extremely ineffective, at best.
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Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5846 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds
| Message 11 of 15 16 August 2008 at 2:17am | IP Logged |
Volte wrote:
Cage wrote:
You do not have to do much to avoid failing most university classes at least not at the undergraduate level. The graduate level is a whole nother ball game however. Language classes are good for those of typical ability and lack motivation to work on their own. They seem to be dumbed down to the lower achieving students. Motivated goal oriented students are best served by doing it on their own. However, I would rather learn computer languages in classrooms than trying them on my own! |
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I find it incomparably more effective to learn computer languages on my own. The teaching of them in classrooms is extremely ineffective, at best.
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In my own experience programming classes are effective only if they introduce some new paradigm i.e. object oriented programming for example. If you are already familiar with the paradigm courses become quite redundant. All you need is a good book and some free time.
Edited by Sennin on 16 August 2008 at 2:21am
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William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6084 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French
| Message 12 of 15 16 August 2008 at 6:30am | IP Logged |
I did German and Russian for four years at university and certainly became fluent in German (helped by spending nine months in Germany, including German language classes). My Russian was less fluent (2 months in the USSR) but I could certainly read a newspaper at the end of the course.
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obara Newbie India subramanian-obula.blRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5778 days ago 21 posts - 22 votes Studies: Gujarati
| Message 13 of 15 16 August 2008 at 10:09am | IP Logged |
You should have an aim in learning any language.If you are to visit that Country you can learn. Otherwise, whatever you learn, you will forget at no time, if you do not practice.
Pen pal chatting is worth. If you want to spend your leisure time and if you are interested to know the culture of a particular Country or Language, then you can go in for that language. Self study will be fruitful, after you have finished your studies in a University/College. I am a retired person from India learning Japanese!
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Cage Diglot aka a.ardaschira, Athena, Michael Thomas Senior Member United States Joined 6436 days ago 382 posts - 393 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Portuguese
| Message 14 of 15 16 August 2008 at 12:47pm | IP Logged |
I agree that you can learn to read and write fairly well in a formal classroom setting but speaking and comprehension skills, I have not seen it demonstrated. Guess it depends on how you define fluency. Perhaps there exists exceptional situations where students do achieve a high level in all four skills but I would not say these situations are common. Mr. Camden I have no doubt that your time spent in Germany made a huge impact upon your fluency.
Edited by Cage on 16 August 2008 at 12:49pm
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William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6084 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French
| Message 15 of 15 17 August 2008 at 5:22am | IP Logged |
Cage wrote:
I agree that you can learn to read and write fairly well in a formal classroom setting but speaking and comprehension skills, I have not seen it demonstrated. Guess it depends on how you define fluency. Perhaps there exists exceptional situations where students do achieve a high level in all four skills but I would not say these situations are common. Mr. Camden I have no doubt that your time spent in Germany made a huge impact upon your fluency. |
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My university classes included conversation practice, but probably not enough of it. Yes, nine months in Rheinland-Pfalz did make a big difference to my German fluency. The stay abroad in a country where the language was spoken was compulsory for language students, at least at that time.
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