Do you speak the TL you learned at school (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Do you speak the TL you learned at school
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Marikki
Tetraglot
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Finland
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Speaks: Finnish*, English, Spanish, Swedish
Studies: German

Message 49 of 53

19 August 2012 at 10:49pm | IP Logged

cathrynm wrote:

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

Perhaps that is the key to success. We always spoke English
when we did not want the kids to understand, and they are now both at the top of their class in English. I
guess we should talk more often in German in front of them, but either because my husband and I are more
insecure in German, or because we less often see the need to say things that they are not supposed to
understand, we do not seem to do that very often.

I'm not sure myself about this. For my mother and grandmother Finnish was their 'secret language' -- they
spoke it to each other to say things, well, I don't know what they were trying to say to each other, I didn't
know any Finnish as a child. To me it's still kind of a secret, though I'm working on it..

My parents spoke Swedish when they didn't want us children to understand until my brother once commented
something they had discussed. We also often heard them speaking German with their German friends. I'm
sure hearing our parents speaking different languages was one of the reasons why both my brother and I
were very motivated language learners at school.
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Swift
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 4608 days ago
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Speaks: English*
Studies: French, Russian

Message 50 of 53

20 August 2012 at 1:31am | IP Logged

I really enjoyed reading about your experience as a teacher, Solfrid. In my opinion,
the reason none of your students ever really got past A2 or B1 is down to the level of
a foreign language taught at school. Just like everything else, they need to have a
fair level for everyone, from those who are enthusiastic, to those who just want a good
grade, to those who don't care.

I don't really think that is so bad anymore. I mean, when you think about it, with
anything you really want to do in life, you will go search it out. You'll try to find
out how to get better at something you love doing. So anybody who finds the standard of
languages at school insufficient will go try to find other ways to learn them, whether
it is self-learning, classes, lessons: whatever! These great forums are evidence of
that.

That isn't really answering your question, but I wanted to add it. :)

I have only ever learned French at school. I did it for about 2 years and was always at
the top of the class, but I wasn't even past the stage of being able to put together
simple phrases myself. I just had a decent memory of vocabulary and verb structures,
which was all I needed at the time.

Then there was hardly any French in school for the next year. The year after that I
started doing lessons outside of school (for scheduling reasons inside school) just to
pass exams. I really enjoyed them, but my other subjects took precedence and I hardly
improved. I stopped doing lessons and any French for 8 months.

Randomly, this February I started my school course again with the goal of passing the
exam. With mostly self-study I realised that I really liked learning a language once I
tried, especially without all the trappings of a school classroom. Eventually my goal
become passing the higher level exam, then getting an A in it, and now becoming fluent
in French and going to University in France.

So I've gone from an A2 to a B2 in around 6 months, almost completely from self-study.
I can quite simply say that I love self-study! School was OK, but what I've been doing
has been working really well. One thing that is so important is that I can use and try
out whatever crazy methods I read about, and I can "study" whatever I want. I actually
speak a language now!

p.s. Maybe school is essential for going from A1 to A2; I wouldn't think so, but I
can't say as I've never done that with self-study. Anyone have any comment on this?
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beano
Diglot
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United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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Message 51 of 53

21 August 2012 at 2:30pm | IP Logged

You often hear people say they learned language X at school for Y years but were never really able to speak it. English is in many cases an exception due to its widely-perceived usefulness and overwhelming presence in business, tourism and media.

But as we all know, language learning in a classroom bears little resemblance to real life, no matter how many bells and whistles the teacher includes in the lesson plan. We wouldn't expect a 16-year-old who has taken chemistry classes for 4 years to be able to walk confidently into a position in the chemical industry. Should we be expecting youngsters to go abroad and breeze through conversations in a another language?

I think one problem is that schools focus too much on grammar and not enough on actual speaking. Yet I have met many people at adult evening classes who thought they had forgotten the TL but found that a lot of their school knowledge had come flooding back. So a bedrock of grammer does serve a purpose. Perhaps speaking (with mistakes) should come first to make the language more accessible in the early stages.

When most kids leave school, they rarely have a chance to use their language skills and if they find themselves in a position where the language could potential come into play, English is often a more convenient default.

Edited by beano on 21 August 2012 at 2:33pm
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jeff_lindqvist
Diglot
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SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French
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Message 52 of 53

21 August 2012 at 8:09pm | IP Logged

beano wrote:

I think one problem is that schools focus too much on grammar and not enough on actual speaking. Yet I have met many people at adult evening classes who thought they had forgotten the TL but found that a lot of their school knowledge had come flooding back. So a bedrock of grammer does serve a purpose. Perhaps speaking (with mistakes) should come first to make the language more accessible in the early stages.

I know people around here whose German or French they learned some 50 years ago is more accurate (even "fluent") than the average youth's English - how about that!

Related topic:
Language studies in the past
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Serpent
Octoglot
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Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6597 days ago
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Speaks: Russian*, English, Finnish^C1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
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Message 53 of 53

22 August 2012 at 2:31pm | IP Logged

sans-serif wrote:

To sum up, I believe that for someone like me the recipe to success is to: 1) build a foundation of comprehension 2) get exposed to lots of native-speaker content-- especially audio, and 3) practice output intensively once a critical mass of input has been achieved, allowing for enjoyable and productive interaction. My gut feel is that steps 2 and 3 are difficult to achieve with traditional classroom instruction.

Yeah, when listening or reading are included it's always the intensive kind where you should understand every stupid detail and retell the stupid story or whatever.

My uni has kind of overcome this. There's a requirement to read 300 pages per semester, find 300 expressions, translate 3 passages of your choice and talk to the prof about the story. You choose it yourself and so far I've done The Hobbit and Narnia (books 2-3 chronologically) :) I've been either LR-ing or reading the books in a more interesting language, though, and I suspect some people might read the Russian translations instead... though the translated passages are checked by giving the prof the book (opened on the appropriate page) and reading your translation aloud as he reads the original.

Edited by Serpent on 22 August 2012 at 3:26pm

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