|
 |
Lack of languages stifles Brits and USers | ||
Tags: Monolingual | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 41 of 95 10 July 2014 at 9:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Well, I think foreign languages are a bit like travel: In theory, they show you that the world is much bigger than your small town, and this is incredibly valuable for many people. But this only works if people learn enough to carry on a conversation or read a book. (Which really isn't that hard, at least for French.) If we're going to teach languages in school, we should work hard to get students to a solid B1, and teach them how to have fun while keeping a language alive. If we're just going to make everyone take two years of classes and give up long before they can converse or read, I agree that it's pretty much a waste of everyone's time. And I totally agree the Montreal and Canada have a whole "bilingual elite" thing going on: Canada because almost half of government jobs require it, and Montreal because the city really is just bilingual and being a long-term monolingual resident appears to be vaguely embarrassing.
I am enormously glad to have learned French. I think it's just awesome. But it's far more useful to me personally than professionally.
Good point. Some languages do pay more. I looked up the actual research paper, and I'm pleased to see that they attempted to control for quite a few variables. One major takeaway: US residents with English-speaking parents who learn Spanish have a hard time competing with fully bilingual speakers, and this drags down the average wage bonus. Another useful detail:
This is interesting because it suggests that the language bonus is much bigger for heritage learners who can function proficiently in both languages. So why do English speakers who learn another language only earn a 2–4% bonus? Well, one possibility is that this study has very weak data on how well English speakers can use their second language:
In other words, it's not like anybody gave CEFRL exams to survey respondents. They merely asked about "conversational knowledge." Now, "conversational" could mean anything between an optimistic A2 speaker and a very solid C2 speaker who's basically near-native with a slight accent. But what does this mean in an employment context? A2: Can muddle through basic retail and customer service transactions. B1: Can handle most retail and customer service transactions well, provided things don't go off the rails and everybody speaks slowly. B2: Can write business letters, defend opinions, and even work full time in their L2 if the job is simple. You could try high-stakes presentations at this level, but you might crash and burn painfully. C1: Can handle routine professional correspondence and conversations without major problems, and give decent presentations. C2: Can write and speak persuasively even in very demanding situations. Obviously C2 language skills are worth a lot more than A2 language skills. Given that lots of A2 students claim to be "conversational" (which they sometimes are, sort of), it appears that this study is lumping together all these different ability levels. And obviously, the A2 and B1 students will vastly outnumber the C1 and C2 students, which will drag down the average wage bonus. Digging around some more on Google Scholar, I've come to the conclusion that nobody has any idea how much extra money C1 speakers earn in the United States. But if we look at Lopez's numbers, bilinguals who retain proficiency in their heritage language seem to do a lot better than 4%. So there's a least a chance that native English speakers who become very proficient in their L2 might do a lot better, too. Now, some things still mystify me. For example, I know quite a few French immigrants living in the US, and none of them use their French professionally as far as I know. (Well, my wife speaks maybe an hour of French per year at work.) Maybe this is different in New York City? I'm not seeing much demand for language skills on the ground, and not just in my industry. Even in Burlington, Vermont, a lovely tourist city less than two hours south of Montreal, I'm seeing only a tiny handful of advertisements for customer-facing jobs that require French. The local Alliance Française offers a subsidized 10.5-hour class in "hospitality" French, so there's at least some demand. If for some reason I was looking for a retail job in Burlington, I could probably turn my French into an asset. But other than stuff like that, I'm not seeing much evidence that businesses really need a bunch of French speakers. Edited by emk on 10 July 2014 at 10:42pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Lykeio Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4243 days ago 120 posts - 357 votes | Message 42 of 95 10 July 2014 at 9:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
How can Britain be bad at languages which stellar education programmes such as these?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5RsaOOsZFk (Just thought I'd lighten the mood :P ) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4081 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 43 of 95 10 July 2014 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
There is a viewpoint that schools are just daycare centers for kids till they become adults and go to college to learn useful things. Language classes (even if useless) serve to occupy the kids' time.
I am not at all convinced that this bonus is due to the language. My gut feeling is that this is a "culture bonus", of immigrant families telling their kids to work hard towards higher paying careers. Correlation does not mean causation. Edited by Gemuse on 10 July 2014 at 11:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 44 of 95 10 July 2014 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
There's nothing to be mystified about with regards to French immigrants not using French professionally in the US, This is a reflection, in my opinion, of the kinds of economic relations between France and the US. If these French immigrants were working for French companies such as l'Oréal, Alstom or the train company SNCF, they would probably use some French at work. And there are some people such as teachers at an international school who use French all the time. In passing, here is the website of Lycée international de Boston or Boston International School. As I mentioned earlier, parents pay a pretty penny to send their children to such schools because of a perception of supposedly high value of French combined with good education. The parents may be a bit deluded but these types of schools are still in business. This leads me to an important point that emk raised. If you want to use your foreign language skills in a work environment, you have to be very proficient. Heritage speakers will nearly always beat out second-language learners because of the perception that they are better speakers. And, of course, they often have an authentic sounding name that adds credibility. Edited by s_allard on 10 July 2014 at 11:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4081 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 45 of 95 10 July 2014 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Also points to the fact that perhaps there arent that many jobs which require L2 skills. For the ones there are, highly proficient speakers naturally get preference. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 46 of 95 11 July 2014 at 7:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Well at least in the case of academia that's not true. London is full of foreign academics who speak English sufficiently well to have postdocs, professorships etc, and who have displaced the local native English speaking population. For instance, my wife was in the LSE philosophy department, and (I think) of the twelve permanent staff only two are native English speakers. It's not that any of them speak bad English, my wife certainly got her job partly on the merits of her C2 English (they take teaching along with academic performance very seriously), but good language skills are just a threshold you have to pass, you get hired for the other things you bring to the table. Certainly aircraft pilots need English to fly (all communications internationally are done in English), but I very much doubt Lufthansa or Air China are only hiring heritage speakers. I don't know international banking, but I suspect it's very similar. So long as you have a sufficient grasp of the language to do your job, you'll get hired for the other valuable skills you bring to the company. So I don't think heritage speakers are necessarily prized over strong-C1/C2 speakers, at least not when there are other very valuable skills that the candidate requires for the job. Of course, this is an inversion of the current discussion, which is framing the language skills as THE main skill the company wants to hire for, but I suspect this is often not the case - having a second language is often just an enabler to sell your real skills to the company. Edited by patrickwilken on 11 July 2014 at 8:02am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 47 of 95 11 July 2014 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
patrickwilken's points are well taken. It is certainly true that most jobs require a particular skill, and foreign
language skills may have secondary importance. In academia and highly technical areas, experience and past performance are certainly more important than language, but at some point the question of the language of teaching may raise its head if the position requires any teaching. As emk has pointed out, in certain technical areas such as programming and some areas of computer science, English is so dominant that there is probably no need for other language skills in the international job market. However, the discussion up till know in the thread focused on those areas where foreign language skills were particularly important because, among other things, of interaction with customers in the foreign language. Since I was the one who brought up this issue of the advantage of heritage speakers, I would just like to add that my idea was that non-heritage speakers have to be very good, "strong C1/C2 speakers", to compete linguistically with heritage speakers who often have the advantage of good accent and some cultural affinity, including often a name, with the customers. The essential message to second-language learners is that getting by in the language is not enough. And since the public language education systems is not geared to producing highly proficient students, the foreign language skills of graduates of high school students, and even at the university level, are not high enough. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 48 of 95 11 July 2014 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Yeah, French has a special status. A certain well-off, well-educated section of the American population certainly wishes they spoke fluent French. I'm pretty sure this has everything to do with cultural prestige, and almost nothing to do with money. If you don't mind brutally unkind satire, I think this actually captures the attitude pretty well. These schools are also seriously tempting for bilingual families. But money and geography are usually major barriers.
It's true that certain front-line jobs demand very high proficiency: sales, marketing and even customer service, if the company is serious about doing a good job. But I've noticed another interesting wrinkle: even if you have native speakers for customer-facing roles, it also helps to have decision makers who understand the language at a high B2 or a C1 level. This allows you to double-check the work of professional translators, to hire intelligently, to keep track of what's going on, and to intervene if something goes wrong. If I ever had the opportunity to business in France, I'd be vastly more comfortable with the whole process than I would be in Germany or China. For example, if I pay somebody to write something in French, I have a pretty good idea of what I'm getting in return. But if I were to pay somebody to write something in German, I'd have to take everything on faith. This probably doesn't matter in the US, in most cases. But it seems like if you're doing business internationally, then strong B2 or C1 speakers could be pretty useful, even if you also hire lots of native speakers (or perhaps even more so, in that case). 5 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
