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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4600 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 17 of 26 11 January 2013 at 5:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I was thinking it would be cool to offer a high school or college course, simply calling it language acquisition or
something like that, the point of the class being one could choose a language, and simply have guidance on how to study it... I would think, at least for highschool students, and probably for a college course as well it might be limited to some more popular languages, [mandarin, Spanish, arabic... japanese because I like it XD] just so a teacher would be able to monitor the students progress more easily... anyway, through an Idea like that, I think it might be possible to get easier, more effective methods of language learning into our education systems 1 person has 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 18 of 26 11 January 2013 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Within the UK system I would make French and German compulsory from 11-16 and make a GCSE pass grade equivalent to A2 and top grade equivalent to B1. I would then make it compulsory to continue study of one of these languages until 18, with a pass grade at B1 and top grade at B2/C1. I would have a period of study abroad, maybe 2-3 weeks, included at age 17. And I would emphasise opportunities for study abroad for higher education when giving careers advice, plus a much more positive outlook towards opportunities to work abroad. I would also have a system of peripatetic teachers offering tuition to students in other languages if they express an interest, much like musical instruments are taught now.
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| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5207 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 19 of 26 11 January 2013 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | ||
I like this idea. If the students knew that they were going to be spending a few weeks abroad, then a lot of other things might fall into place. Motivation, for one, which is one of the biggest issues. Ok, the ones who don't care about learning probably wouldn't suddenly start caring, but the ones who already have a bit of an interest might get the boost they need and the encouragement to think outside of the box of the classroom and see the language as something that can be used in real life. I know that some schools already have exchange schemes but I don't think they're particularly common or effective; my class had a trip to France, but we just stayed together and didn't have much need to speak French beyond saying "Bonjour" in a few shops. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alanjazz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4815 days ago 65 posts - 129 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese | Message 20 of 26 11 January 2013 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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If I were in control of the schools here, I would want there to be offerings in Somali, Arabic, French and Spanish,
with Lingala as a possible fifth. There is a big disconnect in my town between the African immigrant communities and the town as a whole, with Somalis and Sudanese Arabic speakers as the largest minority groups. Language could be that bridge. I have never met an American who is learning Somali (understandably, I suppose) and only met one person who has learned some Lingala. French, because it is the largest foreign language spoken in the state and makes an important part of its cultural heritage, and Spanish, because the number of Spanish speakers here is on the rise and Spanish has undeniable importance for the US. I would also encourage/incentivize taking more than one foreign language in high school, especially if the student took one European and one African language or two African languages. That said, I also think the idea for a language acquisition class is excellent - what better way to motivate students than to let them choose what language they want to learn? I have no idea what I would have chosen if I had had a completely open choice. That kind of freedom could be exciting for a high school student who isn't jazzed about taking French or Spanish but would be excited about Korean or Japanese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachgenie Decaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5709 days ago 128 posts - 165 votes Speaks: German*, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Flemish, Persian, Swiss-German Studies: English, Belarusian | Message 21 of 26 14 January 2013 at 6:20am | IP Logged | ||
Although Professor Arguelles' language academy is a great idea, it is highly geared toward academics and scholars. I would like to see a business school with similar language requirements, where students aim to achieve business fluency in practical languages. I like the Professor's track-based system, which allows students to select a certain group of languages on which they would like to focus. Ideally, students would master six languages in total - three from their primary group and three others from other groups. The Germanic/Scandinavian track could look like this: 1. German 2. Dutch 3. Swedish 4. Arabic 5. Russian 6. Japanese 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4622 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 22 of 26 14 January 2013 at 9:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Language lessons in UK schools involve very little speaking practise. I think this is wrong because it reinforces the attitude "yeah I did French for 4 years and can hardly say a word"
If you were learning guitar and all you did was draw chord diagrams in your jotter or watched a video of somebody playing and answered questions about his style, barely touching an actual guitar, people would think this was a bizarre approach. Yet we are putting kids through language classes and not asking them to, er, start speaking a language. Another problem is working through the medium of English in a French/German class. No. I'm not suggesting that the teacher teaches in a foreign language, but pupils should be given questions in the TL and told to answer in it as well. This doesn't happen, kids read a passage in French, then are given questions about the text in English, to be answered in English. Edited by beano on 14 January 2013 at 9:51am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kaptengröt Tetraglot Groupie Sweden Joined 4338 days ago 92 posts - 163 votes Speaks: English*, Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic Studies: Japanese | Message 23 of 26 15 January 2013 at 3:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I am from America, so:
I would do two things, first I would make it so Esperanto (or a similarly "easy" language - I haven't learnt Esperanto but from what I hear...) and make it mandatory as the first foreign language you learn, to basically get you used to the aspect of another language, boost your confidence and see that "you really CAN learn another language", etc. I would teach the languages in a much different way that we get as well, which means I would focus less on "homework and quizzes", and less on textbook language, and much more on the real language (and I would have immersion starting much earlier on in the classes - something we didn't get at all in high school). I would also put extreme emphasis on "you can self-study anything you want in life" and "you should be doing extra practise outside of class that doesn't come from your textbook", agree to help find students interesting material in the language that we could watch on class (that THEY want, not that I suggest and they choose from my suggestions) etc. I would change how teachers get their teaching degrees as well, since most of my language teachers somehow actually didn't know the language they were teaching, yet native speakers who were fluent in English also, weren't allowed to get teaching degrees unless they studied for years their own language in University... I had a Spanish teacher who had only ever spent something like two weeks in a Spanish speaking country in her life, and that was for her honeymoon, and she was at least sixty. As for the second language, I would give Spanish/Italian, Norwegian, Chinese, and Japanese as options. The reason for this that Italian is (I am told) another "easy" language, and Americans love the Romance-language countries, plus they might pick "one of the few countries they actually know anything about" just for that reason. Plus of course, Spanish being widely-spread - except I would be racist and ban Spanish-speakers from taking Spanish, I saw a LOT of that done in my Spanish courses and I think that is just cheating to get an easy good grade and get out of learning a language (and they would in general never pay attention/disrupt the class because they didn't need to do anything to get a good grade). Anyway, the Esperanto would help make the Spanish/Italian seem even easier for those students who really want an easy time. Getting rid of French and German, because I only heard them spoken once in my life in America (French at least may be on something like perfume packaging - German, never) so I feel they are pretty useless there, on the other hand adding in the more-useless Norwegian because it is still a Germanic language, yet a much easier one, and with it you can essentially understand Danish and Swedish also and more importantly, have a base for other, more different Germanic languages. This really isn't a "Nordic favour" way of thinking because I actually don't like Norwegian much, it's just along the same lines as Italian instead of French - an easier version from the same language family, that can give you confidence to go on and learn another in the same family. I think one of the hurdles you have to get through with teaching languages is "how can I get my students to even keep using the language after they aren't forced to learn it anymore"... French I think, many people want to learn because it is "so romantic", but at the same time people get so frustrated because it is difficult. German is similarly seen as very difficult. Spanish on the other hand, I really think is no longer seen as romantic except maybe by some older people (Americans not currently liking Mexicans, plus the dialect of Spanish used by Mexican-Americans does not sound so pretty to many people, and at least where I lived the Mexican-Americans acted really rude to all the other Americans and made themselves disliked). But parents want to make their kids learn it because it is so common (even if, like in my courses, the only kids who would actually use it would be the ones whose native language was actually Spanish - it was just parents' wishful thinking in that case, I think, I know my dad still thinks that if he continues to force Spanish on me I'll magically begin to like it). Chinese and Japanese are obvious, they would be very useful in business, and in addition to that, Japanese is getting more popular thanks to stuff like anime too. But the major problem there would be fixing how languages are taught. I learnt hardly anything in Spanish, think of how much of nothing you would learn for Chinese... And also, I think some of these languages should be swapped for others depending on where you live - if you live in a place with a relatively high amount of Russian immigrants and descendants, offer Russian. As for teaching, I personally teach what I only wish was done in my courses and textbooks: - Learn the most important (common) things first, even if they are more difficult. Secondarily to that, learn the easiest things first. - Learn actual, real vocabulary instead of travel phrases (since more than likely, Americans are not going to travel there anytime soon, and if they are they can just pick up any travel book. Europeans probably actually want these phrases.) - Focus on understanding the gist, and on getting your point across, not on understanding every single word and grammar piece and being perfect. - Interesting practice material, by native speakers for native speakers, with translations. And some translated material everyone is familiar with too. And lastly I would try to find a way to subsidize exchange years for students and if I were a faerie, make a year's exchange mandatory. Yes, you can go on exchange now already, but it's going to cost you seven thousand, or twelve thousand, dollars which most families don't exactly have. You have to look for info on it outside of the school too, no one in the school knows anything or talks about it. And you generally have to repeat that year of school, which would be pretty demotivating. I would also tell students that au pair exists. Lastly I would make it possible for students to self-study a language and take a test at different points in the semester/year to prove that they are learning, then they can get language credit without taking a course in school, ex. if they want to study Arabic but it is not taught. I know some online schools allow this sort of thing (and schools in Norway?) but I never heard of public, American schools allowing it. To be honest, sometimes I daydream about moving back to America, becoming president to have a lot of influence, and changing the education system entirely... Sigh! Edited by kaptengröt on 15 January 2013 at 3:12am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 24 of 26 15 January 2013 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Norwegian? outside the Nordic countries? Only for geeks, sorry. Well it's a good option for some regions in Russia as well - traditionally, Finnish is the most common Nordic language in St Petersburg etc, but perhaps they should indeed offer something Scandinavian at schools.
Agreed that people shouldn't be allowed to take their native language as a foreign one. But instead they should have an opportunity to have L1 classes in it, in order to become truly proficient. AFAIU, at least some people take their native lang because they can speak it but write very poorly - they should get a chance to work on their real weaknesses. In addition to allowing self-study, any classes you take anywhere should count. Like with physical education, in some cases you're allowed to practice a sport regularly... something like that. Entirely agree about linguistics!!! That's been far more useful for my language learning than any actual language classes (maybe apart from English). Edited by Serpent on 15 January 2013 at 12:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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