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Article on the English used in academia. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4526 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes  Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 9 of 24 23 April 2013 at 10:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Are we talking about a Master's program in English Studies or some other Master's program taught in English? I think it's the latter, but my Finnish is not good enough to be sure.
If it's indeed the latter, then why should we burden the students with hard to understand lectures when we want them to learn the subject, not the language? You don't automatically get high proficiency in English just by attending school, you have to make a choice, and for a lot of people English is just not important enough to make the choice to learn it to high proficiency. And in fact, for most people it is not necessary. And for a lot of people, it is actually pretty expensive to do that legally (where do you get all the media from?). If "Basic English" is enough when talking to other second language speakers, so be it, most people won't try to get better than "good enough". If that means native speakers have to dumb down their language a bit to help others out, then that is what they have to do. As a reward, they don't have to learn a foreign language ;). It's a common principle in communication that you try to talk at a level your conversation partners understand, at least after a few sentences a common level should be reached. If the native speaker fails to do so, then that's his fault. I can speak to other native German speakers in German in a way they don't get what I'm saying (like domain-specific language). But if I want them to understand me, I don't do that. It might be hard sometimes, but it's no use communicating if the others don't understand you. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| caam_imt Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4867 days ago 232 posts - 357 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, Finnish Studies: German, Swedish | Message 10 of 24 23 April 2013 at 11:25am | IP Logged | ||
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@ daegga, I think it refers to other master's program taught in English (like
Engineering). This also reminds me of a teacher who spoke kind of broken English to my international class and made me think he was not properly prepared for the task. This made me doubt his skills (in Engineering), as he didn't talk about the topic in-depth. The other international students shared similar views, and at least the consensus was that the lecture was boring. It was indeed odd when my Finnish classmates told me that he was actually one of the best teachers in that field, at that university. So I decided to enter the Finnish version of the same lecture and surprise! while at the time I was not good enough to understand everything, it was clear that the teaching was richer: more practical examples, more anecdotes and personal experiences in industry, little jokes here and there. It made the lecture much better, as now instead of somebody reading power-point slides, we had somebody who actually provided something of value, like advice and such. But I digress, this could be another topic already. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6708 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 24 23 April 2013 at 11:26am | IP Logged | ||
If that's tongue in cheek then the author should glue her tongue to that spot. The article won't make me stop writing long sentences and things like that, but even for recalcitrant readers like me it is a valuable collection of good advice. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 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 12 of 24 23 April 2013 at 11:23pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm happy for everyone who graduated from school knowing less than you have to know in Russia. They had a better childhood and especially better teenage years. Growing up and self-development require free time, and while I view other languages and cultures as essential for it, I'm not even sure I'm in the majority on this forum. And yeah, it was not referring to English studies. Of course it's sad if students of English philology (etc) can't understand proper English. Also, "people ought to speak simple English, or Globish" referred specifically to the academic environment. As for jokes in lectures... no thanks. Apart from the Awesome Profs who can come up with good jokes, whether they are speaking their native language or English. If a non-native lecturer speaking English is more likely to stick to the point, that's another point in their favour. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4538 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 13 of 24 24 April 2013 at 1:26am | IP Logged | ||
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If you haven't already seen it, check out this cool Tumblr site, where scientists try to describe their work using only the 1000 most frequent words in English. Makes things interesting when there is no word for planet, cancer etc.
http://tenhundredwordsofscience.tumblr.com/ Edited by patrickwilken on 24 April 2013 at 1:28am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5231 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 14 of 24 24 April 2013 at 1:43am | IP Logged | ||
I hate that education centers in the West are slowly being turned into little prisons where every child and teen is kept until they 'come of age' because that's the 'democratic' thing to do, even if it means those who don't want to study will probably ruin it for others who do. I also hate how university is going down that very same alley because 'if you don't have a degree you are nothing'. That I hate it doesn't keep it from happening either. I was lucky enough not to have too many bad 'teachers' (idiots who managed to drive me away from interesting stuff for years) and I was lucky to bump into all of them at university, so they just kept me away from the place, not from loving knowledge. --- Except for *language* classes, where language problems are to be expected, these should not be in the equation, regardless of level or central subject: teachers should be able to explain the subject at hand without linguistic constrains at the appropriate level, students should be able to follow their classes without comprehension problems from the get go, period. If a problem in that area is somehow created, 'solving' it the wrong way won't help one bit. People who propose using sub-par English as a solution in that context are more likely to be part of new problems. Edited by mrwarper on 24 April 2013 at 1:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6708 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 24 24 April 2013 at 6:55am | IP Logged | ||
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The level I'm aiming for is the one found in popular science magazines, tourist guides, newspapers etc, and I only deal with easier 'dumbed-down' texts until I reach a point where the number of new words in the genuine texts has stopped choking me. Which normally happens fairly soon. Of course there will still be texts which are too difficult (like certain poems, juridical or philosophical texts or - in the aural situation - eavesdropping on people in the bus, which to me is the ultimate test of your comprehension skills). But I typically don't care about those genres and registers so quite generally I can say that I don't want to use 'easy' editions. Period.
On the other hand I like clear print, quiet surroundings, easily accessed materials and things like that. We once had a discussion where some advocated that you should listen to badly recorded sound in order to train your comprehension. In my view you should learn the language first with as good sources as possible ... and then you are prepared to deal with the junk sources, not before. And it is the same with language teachers: they should only use substandard 'easy' speech at the lowest levels, but as soon as possible they should stick to a clear and well thought through way of expression, using the words which are necessary to deal with a subject, but without unnecessary complications. And as I have written earlier the genuine language of a native speaker will have intonations, expressions and cultural content which sets their language apart from the average bland school 'jargon', but when I think back to my own school and study years I don't remember the foreign teachers as being particularly difficult to understand, in spite of those elements. Just as eating moderately spicy food isn't more difficult than eating white bread. It is just more fun. Edited by Iversen on 24 April 2013 at 6:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 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 16 of 24 24 April 2013 at 8:46am | IP Logged | ||
making themselves understood is entirely the teachers' responsibility. (ok, i do agree that if you can't follow a class in English while doing things on your smartphone - like Anki reps ;) - you should either keep your phone in your pocket or take classes in your native language) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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