|
 |
Boris Johnson on Mandarin | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| languagenerd09 Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom youtube.com/user/Lan Joined 5100 days ago 174 posts - 267 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai | Message 9 of 57 16 October 2013 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
A lot of students when in high school these days aren't interested in learning a language
at all, there's a lot of negative response to having to learn French, Spanish, German or Italian at school and many students these days opt out of having to study them. There's even a shortage of teachers in the field of Modern Foreign Languages in the UK. Edited by languagenerd09 on 16 October 2013 at 4:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 57 16 October 2013 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
From Next Lingua Franca?:
I have to admit that it would be supercool if kids learned Mandarin, but I don't think they will reach a decent level unless a miracle happens. Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 16 October 2013 at 5:21pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 11 of 57 16 October 2013 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hardly surprising, though, is it. The situation in the UK, at least of official language teaching, is dire, and it's never been that great, to be honest. There was a brief surge of interest in German after the "Mauerfall", but that would seem to have sadly subsided. Spanish became more popular, perhaps because so many Britons travel to Spain and many have properties there. One might have thought that the situation should have improved when the idea of specialist (secondary) schools came in, and some schools specialised in Languages, but it doesn't seem to have led to any dramatic improvement. And from time to time, governments try to introduce languages in primary schools, but aside from the practical problems, the commitment isn't really there, or is not held by the succeeding government, and it's an easy casualty when people are looking to save money. In short, the official teaching of languages in the UK is nothing short of a disaster, and has been for as long as I can remember. However, there is light amid the gloom. There is still plenty of interest in languages, at least among adults. I can remember 30-40 years ago, you often had to queue up to enroll in evening classes in languages at local colleges of further education, and they have remained popular over the years, although ever increasing fees may eventually succeed in stifling the life out of them. But there remains, of course, self-learning, which HTLAL knows all about. The best hope is that people who might once have gone to evening class will discover the resources available on the internet and simply do their own thing. As for Boris Johnson, well, he has a reputation in the UK as a "maverick", and a populist. I suppose people will take notice of what he says because he has a way of getting noticed. I'm not sure we should give undue emphasis to Mandarin because of what BJ says, but the best thing to come out of it would be that people would again be reminded of how important languages in general are. Edited by montmorency on 16 October 2013 at 5:33pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4308 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 12 of 57 16 October 2013 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yep, so what we're talking about is a potential change of policy. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 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 13 of 57 16 October 2013 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
Then there needs to be an incentive. Which one? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4688 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 14 of 57 16 October 2013 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
Are you seriously suggesting that UK students would be better economically positioned by giving up on learning German in favor of Mandarin (but should keep Spanish)? Did I miss something? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4444 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 15 of 57 16 October 2013 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Some would argue that kids should focus on basic skills like reading & writing in English, Science and Mathematics
first before getting into another language. On the other hand, many Chinese are learning English in school at a young age. Learning any second language is a good idea for children. As you get older it becomes harder for you to pick up another like Chinese and Japanese which is not based on an alphabet. In the 19th century the Western Europeans dominated the world so learning English, French or Spanish wouldn't be a bad idea. Should schools promote Mandarin as a second language (although it is not the official language)? Or should choice be offered such as Latin, English, French, German & Mandarin? When I was attending high school a few years back, we were offered a choice between Latin, French, Italian & German. In order to promote positive exchanges between 2 countries, we need to do more than just offer the other country's language in our schools. Besides business ties, we can have summer exchanges where students from both countries would visit and study each other's schools to learn the language and culture. Very few heads of states have reached the fluency of the former Australia PM Kevin Rudd with a daughter married to a Chinese husband in Hong Kong. Edited by shk00design on 16 October 2013 at 8:05pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5982 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 16 of 57 16 October 2013 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
One important feature of the UK education system (or at least the system in England and Wales, I confess to being pretty ignorant of things in Scotland and Northern Ireland) is the way in which it forces 16-18 year olds to specialise in a way that I don't think is common in other education systems. Most students in this age group are limited to studying just 3-4 subjects at A level, and most students get a reasonably free choice over which subjects to study. The benefit of this is that it means we can deliver degree courses to a high standard in just 3 years, the downside is that languages are often going to be overlooked in favour of sciences or humanities subjects, especially when you consider that French cannot be crammed in the same way as history or biology.
I took French at A level, and was a very average (borderline lazy) student, but from my own recent experiences of revitalising my school French I'm pretty sure that if you expanded the curriculum to force all students here to study a more closely related language like French, German or Spanish from age 11-18 you would produce a lot more young people who could keep up with our European neighbours' ability in English. But if you're making the case to do this with languages, there's just as strong a case to be argued for science, maths, sport, or whatever else your pet subject might be. If you're broadening the curriculum at 16-18, inevitably this means that universities will be upset that they will have to teach their new students more of the basics in their chosen specialism at degree level. You could expand typical degrees to 4 years of course, but I don't think many people have the appetite to pay for that here. Personally I think much more should be done to celebrate the role of lifelong learning. So what if you didn't do very well in French at school? So what if you didn't have the opportunity to learn Mandarin at school? If you think it would enrich your life to know it as an adult, there's no excuse not to start learning it right now. 1 person has 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. |
