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Foreign languages in (Anglophone) schools | ||
Tags: School Education | Foreign Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| cmmah Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 4532 days ago 52 posts - 110 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Irish | Message 1 of 35 02 February 2013 at 11:29pm | IP Logged |
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I know this argument has been done a million times before, and this is more of a rant than anything, but just something that came to mind
today as I was doing Spanish homework, and began to actually get angry. I'm in my fourth school year of Spanish, and I've learnt more in July/August 2012 than in the time spent in class combined. It seems to be all about translation, and not actually teaching us the language. I think that within a month or so of studying a language, one should abandon translation and start thinking in the language. The textbook gives us 10 sentences in English and tell us to translate them to Spanish. It's like the writers forgot the basics of actually communicating in a foreign language - it's NOT a matter of translating everything word-for-word. The second thing - the textbook, and what we study, seems to be completely irrelevant to the average student. It's as if they want to actively discourage people from wanting to learn the language. Instead of teaching topics such as the benefits of recycling glass or what someone usually brings to class, they should be teaching topics that the average teenager might talk about with someone - sports, music, what they think of their classmates, their travels - stuff they'll actually use, or have an interest in. It also seems that the whole point is to get someone to pass an exam, not to actually speak the language. This reiterates my last point about half of the content being irrelevant to the average student. For example, even in the exercises, it seems to be exam-centric. Instead of a question saying Laura is discussing her school with a Spanish girl she met on holiday it says this: Laura is an exam candidate. She is doing an oral presentation about her school Sorry if this is an ill eligible rant, just wanted to vent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 2 of 35 03 February 2013 at 1:16am | IP Logged |
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In British schools there is far too little emphasis on speaking the language, or indeed listening to it. Mostly,
the work seems to centre around reading material and questions about the foreign text are asked and answered in English. As a result, even academic students aged 15-18, with several years worth of classes under their belts, are practically unable to formulate speech, not even with simple verbs. I am not joking. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4445 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 3 of 35 03 February 2013 at 6:09am | IP Logged |
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An interesting topic and you are definitely not alone. Talking as a person from Canada I know for many
years the Canadian government failed to promote official bilingualism. The country is basically divided into 10 provinces with Quebec being French-speaking (in the Quebecois dialect) and the rest of Canada being English-speaking. In the public school system learning the "other" official language is compulsory but limited to just 1 language class per school day. If you live in Quebec you would have 1 lesson in English and the rest in French. In the rest of Canada the reverse. Like you said we learn mostly grammar & vocabulary for the first 8 years in primary school. All the way from Gr. 1 - 8 there is no focus on learning at the conversation level. And the teachers were and still are happy to get paid teaching whether we can even do the basic of asking where a street is located or the WC for that matter. The public system also offer a bilingual option where you can do several subject per day in the "other" official language up to Gr. 12 level before you enter university. Those who are enrolled in the bilingual curriculum generally do better. And being in Canada anywhere you go there is at least 1 radio or TV station in English or French. Being focused on conversation, you are also more able to understand your target language on TV and so you pick up faster. The people who choose the non-bilingual option like myself many years ago I think it was a waste of time. Although the teacher did require us to read 1 short French novel barely 70 pages in high school but I don't think even half of my class feel enough confident enough standing in the middle of Paris and ask for directions. Don't forget we also have summer vacations from June - September. During the 3 months unless you take additional language courses or go on an exchange somewhere that force you to speak in your target language, by the start of the next school year you're almost back to square 1. Back then we were focused on keeping up with our grades. Since our parents worked and paid taxes to support public education, none of us ever thought we wasted our time but now being tax-payers ourselves we really didn't get our money's worth. At the same time the Canadian government wasted a lot of money trying to get unilingual public service employees to become bilingual. Edited by shk00design on 03 February 2013 at 6:13am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| PinkCordelia Diglot Newbie Wales Joined 4812 days ago 31 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Welsh | Message 4 of 35 03 February 2013 at 10:44am | IP Logged |
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Recently I had to cover a Spanish lesson for a colleague. The students were aged 12, in
their second year of learning Spanish and really not very bright at all. They were learning to write sentences like "I have a brown hamster." (Some would have struggled to write this in English I suspect.) Not only was it pointless vocabulary but came with a load of adjective agreement rules that were only evident in the written language. But with a class of 20+ students, I'm not sure how you could practically focus on spoken language. But with half the students, I'm sure they could make three times the progress, making it much better value for money. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| eimerhenkel Diglot Newbie New Zealand Joined 4397 days ago 10 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese | Message 5 of 35 03 February 2013 at 8:24pm | IP Logged |
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I go to university in the UK, my classmates who have studied either German or French as an A-Level would typically have nothing more than A2 active skills. And those are the ones who voluntarily took up a foreign language in the first place! Though, I don't think it's too discouraging. The majority of Mainland European high school students (excluding those who live in multilingual areas or are exposed to other local languages e.g. Belgium, Switzerland, Scandinavia) only learn English to an adequate level and nothing more. Foreign language learning isn't really a concern exclusive to the UK, consider the fact that less and less school students learn German as an L2/L3 in the EU (the second most spoken language), and that rate is falling sharply, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe where it was once preferred over English. As little as 1% take it up in Spain! Quite a worrying trend.
Can anyone comment on the teaching standards of French in non-Romance countries in the EU? I'm curious. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 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 6 of 35 03 February 2013 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
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Terrible in the Netherlands. I know literally no one who has active skills over A1 French
who has not explicitly been forced to learn it later in life. Out of all of my friends, I am the only one who could manage something in French when I graduated high school, and my level wasn't above A2ish at the time. German suffers a similar fate, but people have a better understanding because it's closer to Dutch. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4637 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 7 of 35 03 February 2013 at 9:48pm | IP Logged |
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Yeah that sucks about German. Spanish is starting to take over it's place in the UK/France I hear.
Does anyone know why that's happening? I thought more would learn German especially now because of the economy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6910 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 35 03 February 2013 at 11:05pm | IP Logged |
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I always thought that kids chose the easiest language, and perhaps because they one day would have a chance to use it. In Sweden, that language has been Spanish (for over 20 years now). (Only if they're somewhat serious about language studies and take two languages, one might be French or German.)
Like eimerhenkel says, nobody has a higher level than A2 (and sadly, more like A0.5-A1). I know people who had French or German in grade 7-9, and kept studying it for three years in high school, and they didn't get further than anyone who had Spanish for just three years. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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