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Should this count as a language? | ||
Tags: Programming | Foreign Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4619 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 9 of 38 24 February 2014 at 11:45am | IP Logged | |||||
But are languages really "badly taught" in schools? Certainly in the UK, all language teachers have degrees in their respective languages, have spent at least a year in the target country and as a rule are passionate about their subject and learning in general. The knowledge, enthusiasm and experience is already there. You rarely hear people say that physics or chemistry is poorly taught. The yardstick many people use for languages is that they studied X for Y amount of "years" and they "can't speak it" But speaking even in broken fashion requires a massive amount of personal effort, far beyond what a school can actually offer. Nobody seriously expects a 16-year-old who passed his chemistry exam to immediately commence working as a chemical engineer. We have to keep things in perspective. Or is teaching one of those professions where most people think they could do a better job than those who actually do it? Like football management. Edited by beano on 24 February 2014 at 11:47am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6594 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 10 of 38 24 February 2014 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, the equivalent of working as a chemical engineer would be working as a translator/interpreter. I think those having good grades at chemistry are closer to the goal we "declare" for them.
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 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5529 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 38 24 February 2014 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
In my experience, programmers who make serious effort typically do quite well at languages. Look how many programmers we have here at HTLAL, for example. And there's another ton of programmers among my French Skype partners—which makes sense, because any programmer who doesn't speak English typically has no choice but to learn, quickly. At least in Europe, programmers frequently have solid English. (Chinese and Japanese programmers often struggle a lot more.) All that said, I think the idea of treating programming languages and human languages as interchangeable is silly. Programming is an engineering class, or just maybe a math class (but not really; you can have a hugely successful career with nothing beyond high-school algebra). And more to the point, elite US universities still expect a minimum of two years study of an actual foreign language. I do think that the results of foreign-language instruction in US schools are a joke (4 years of regular French + 1 year of "Advanced Placement" French to reach B1). But this isn't really the fault of the teachers: very few of the students are willing to put in the kind of work required, and there's rarely an adequate budget for building a media library. Plus, it's pretty much taken as a given that almost no students will ever reach a level where they could use their French for anything beyond a one-week group trip to France. When failure is expected, failure should not be a surprise. This is all rather sad, because there's no reason why you couldn't design a system that graduated most honors students with a B1 in a Germanic or Romance language, allowing them to fend for themselves. And you could introduce them to the joys of reading and watching in a foreign language, allowing them to improve their passive skills quite pleasantly. But the students aren't interested, and the resources aren't there for the teachers. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6148 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 12 of 38 24 February 2014 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I know a number of developers who are really strong in languages, and others who seem to pick them up quickly, yet everybody comments their code in English or a local language. Shouldn’t we use Esperanto or Latin for comments? I think Latin would add a certain gravitas to code.
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| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5225 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 13 of 38 24 February 2014 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm only talking about American schools.
That's a good point. In my experience, people get more use out of studying chemistry or physics. People--this is admittedly anecdotal--tend to take language classes and then immediately forget what they've learned. To be sure, they do the same thing with physics and chemistry--but less so. This is not to say there's anything wrong with teachers of language. My guess is it's more a matter of motivation of the students--we already know English. And of course I'm not saying that we should get rid of language classes. I just don't care for it being mandatory. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nandemonai Diglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4170 days ago 101 posts - 116 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 14 of 38 25 February 2014 at 1:52am | IP Logged | |||||
At least for me in Belgium that was the case. Over the timespan of eight years I have had French classes, from the age of 10 until 18. The first two years were in elementary school, the other six in high school. Every year again we spent half the year doing the same grammar over and over again. The classes were always completely in Dutch. Whenever we got a new teacher, they would try to do it in French but soon after they would give up. Every year again this kept happening. We were never made to read books, or even short stories. At most there were these little dialogues every two-three weeks. Back then I knew nothing about learning languages, but the way the classes were taught have resulted in me disliking the language a lot. Right now I'm not even able to introduce myself or read easy texts, after about 900 hours of those classes. For English it was kind of the same, except there was a little bit more English spoken by the teachers. Probably because more people were able to understand it. We didn't read books either. The level of English I've acquired is thanks to huge amount of input, chatting and the grammar introduced in class while I was in high school. For French I've had about 900 hours in 8 years, for English I've had about 500 hours in 6 years. Both weren't taught by very passionate teachers, but for English I still got good results because of how I used it. This and the experiences from other people make me believe that language classes are just useless unless the teachers motivate the students to use the language in other (fun) ways. I'm not the only one here who can't use French after all those years of studying it, there certainly is something wrong with the approach. I can still remember a lot from other classes that were really fun (and not fun too), but were given really passionately. Even from the more boring and less passionate classes I remember stuff. I'm really happy I've discovered Japanese before I gave up on languages completely. Those classes made me think I was bad at languages, that it was hopeless for me to ever speak or read something else than Dutch or English. That's why I think we should offer other options than just compulsory language classes, it's no use teaching those that don't want to learn it, at least for that long. I picked up programming by myself during high school, if I could've used like 400-600 of those hours, I would have become an even better programmer and probably would've gone to school much happier. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| wv girl Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5236 days ago 174 posts - 330 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 38 25 February 2014 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I would like to clarify one thing. The state that is considering this doesn't have a 2 year mandatory foreign
language requirement to graduate high school. The requirement for 2 years of a foreign language, which they are considering allowing computer programming to fall under, is for college track students, as this is often a prerequisite for acceptance. I have mixed feelings. I'd agree that computer programming might be more useful for many students than Spanish or French, especially in a state where many kids haven't ventured beyond the state's border, much less have ideas of traveling somewhere where the basics in a another language would be useful. If the interest isn't there, no real progress will be made. We all know that. I've also faced the challenge of trying to get films approved to share with my classes. Movies are frowned upon as "lazy teaching," with no exceptions made for foreign language! I've copied whole little readers for my kids because there's no money to purchase "extra" resources. They already have a textbook, after all, where there are a few paragraphs at the end of each chapter & a simulated conversation with that chapter's vocabulary. But in spite of challenges, of limited access to better resources (even when you can find them free online, not approved), I have had some students who do well. What makes the difference? Their own interest in the language, their own willingness to look for ways to use it. Communicating on Xbox with someone, practicing in the local Mexican restaurant. I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but if you were a 14 year old in your first year of class, ordering & paying in Spanish, using the basic phrases, it's a boost to your confidence. Got the gist of a commercial in French? Superstar! I'm not trying to advocate for mandatory foreign language learning. I know how unsuccessful or short-lived my own best efforts have been for many of my students... but not for every one. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4619 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 16 of 38 25 February 2014 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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So does that mean there are people from Flanders who are very weak in French? I thought French was ingrained pretty deep in Belgian society. How does it work when Flemish speakers go to Brussels? Do some of them have difficulty communicating in their own capital city? I know that Brussels is technically bilingual but I'm sure this isn't exactly the case. Edited by beano on 25 February 2014 at 12:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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