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Why don’t you study languages at uni? | ||
Tags: Foreign Languages | College/University | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| mike245 Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6970 days ago 303 posts - 408 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Cantonese Studies: French, German, Mandarin, Khmer | Message 41 of 48 28 September 2013 at 11:57am | IP Logged | ||
Sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with your language classes. Were these specifically grammar classes? Some of the most interesting language classes I took in college were upper-division classes that focused on literature, film or advanced conversation topics. I think the quality of language classes in the US really vary by school and teacher, and there are a lot of programs that don't focus on just learning grammar and memorizing speeches. For instance, in my high school, we spent a lot of time reading novels in Spanish, discussing and analyzing them in class, writing essays in Spanish, and doing all sorts of intensive reading, writing and speaking activities. In college, my German classes includes lots and lots of speaking and listening. We did hours of role-playing, telling stories in class, watching and discussing video clips from the news, etc. For my Portuguese classes, our teacher made us to FSI-style audiolingual drills outside of class, and we spent almost all of our class time doing fun activities like talking about our favorite music, getting into debates on current events, reading short stories and discussing them, listening to music and trying to transcribe the lyrics, etc. They were all fun, I learned a lot, and there was a level of interactivity that you can't get from self-study. Not all classes are "garbage." Edited by mike245 on 28 September 2013 at 1:01pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Typo Newbie United States Joined 4773 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* | Message 42 of 48 28 September 2013 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I studied Italian at the UW Sheboygan and the courses never taught me how to speak the language only the grammar of the language. No one in my classes after having completed them knew how to speak Italian. Needless to say we were all very disappointed.
I then decided to learn it on my own with the help of this website and for a fraction of the cost and learned how to speak it quite well. Then I found the instructor of the Italian class at the UW Sheboygan and spoke to him in Italian to see where my skill level was and he was impressed, but couldn't imagine that someone could learn another language outside of the university system. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4251 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 43 of 48 28 September 2013 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Language course quality depends greatly on the teacher, at least here in Finland.
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| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 44 of 48 28 September 2013 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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What level of knowledge is assumed at the start of a degree course? If you haven't done the language at
school, are you expected to have reached a certain point on your own? I reckon if you sent 4 years living in, say, Italy, fully immersed in the language just doing an ordinary job and living among Italian people, you would end up with a better knowledge of the language than a typical student doing it at uni. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mike245 Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6970 days ago 303 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Cantonese Studies: French, German, Mandarin, Khmer | Message 45 of 48 30 September 2013 at 9:43am | IP Logged | ||
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At my university, the prerequisites varied by language and popularity. For instance, a
popular language like French or Spanish required the equivalent of two years of college-level classes (roughly equivalent to six years of middle/high school classes) before you could start taking classes that counted towards the major. For less popular languages like German or Portuguese, you could count everything for the major. This resulted in a pretty big disparity between the skills of students majoring in different languages. Moreover, there were no exit exams or other standardized measure for ensuring that students who graduated in a major were actually proficient in their chosen language of study. My understanding is that most foreign language majors focus on literature/cultural study, rather than language proficiency. Although you are usually expected to have a high enough level to be able to read literature and other texts in the original, there is, in my experience, usually not a big emphasis on speaking or practical skills (unless the student decides to take advanced conversation classes, study abroad, etc.). It is entirely possible, for instance, that a language major could comfortably read books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Kant in the original and write 25-page essays on those works, but then struggle to carry out B1 oral tasks. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 46 of 48 30 September 2013 at 11:09am | IP Logged | ||
So clearly we are talking about different types of knowledge here, and how different people have different approaches and expectations. I know of an older English couple, both of whom self-studied Italian for years (he to degree level via a correspondence course...this was pre-internet and he wouldn't have used the internet in any case): he could read Dante in the original but would have struggled to order a cup of coffee in Italy. She was much less academic but was a good communicator, and used to manage fine on their few trips to Italy. On the other hand, those hypothetical people whom another poster would have placed in ordinary jobs in Italy instead of going to university, would ace oral tasks at C2+ and would probably be fine with newspapers, magazines, TV and films, but could they read an academic book, a classic work of literature, or write an academic essay or paper? And if not, does it matter? Well, if it matters to them, then it matters, but it doesn't matter to everyone. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5539 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 47 of 48 03 October 2013 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree with you - the best language classes that I've taken have been about topics not relating directly to the language. Things like music history and culture. Essentially teaching a subject that isn't the target language in the target language. Putting more advanced classes aside, I'm currently taking Swedish at Portland State University. It's the first week of school so I can't speak to how good or bad the class is on the whole, but it does look like it'll be a good class. We're using Rivstart A1+A2 and spending about week and a half on each chapter. We will finish the book by the end of the school year meaning that we've gone from 0 Swedish to A2 in 30 weeks of class (three 10 week terms). The second year course uses the B1-B2 book. I will say that this class moves quicker than your average language course but, seeing as the professor (who is Swedish) has taught Swedish at my uni using these books since 2009 I have a faith that it'll work out well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4649 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 48 of 48 04 October 2013 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
My feelings exactly. Language *lessons* (pol. lektoraty) in university, on the other hand, can be quite useful (they got me to B2 level in Spanish). I wish I could take more of them - in sign language or Arabic... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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