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Language learning in UK/US | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| 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 9 of 17 16 July 2012 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm sure I contributed to this topic the last twenty times it came up, but I'll bite
again... From my experience at school, it's a combination of both problems - courses that don't teach conversation at all, and pupils who aren't at all interested in learning the language. Our French teacher was keen to get us actually talking to people, and was convinced that doing so would make us more interested in the language, but the curriculum just didn't allow it and any attempts she did make were fruitless and resulted in blank stares just like you say. However, this was ten years ago; people have told me that things have changed in recent years, although I'll be surprised if they've changed enough to compensate for most school pupils' lack of enthusiasm for learning, well, anything. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5391 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 10 of 17 16 July 2012 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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The issue is a classroom can only do so much to teach a language. You have two main
components to language learning - learning "about" the language as you do in class and exposure/practice which is quite a bit more difficult to fit into class time. Students are typically encouraged to immerse themselves outside the classroom but I think few are motivated enough or even know how to go about doing so. Language learners in other countries who are learning English, for example, see the utility in practicing outside of class time and they may even be "forced" to by having non-dubbed content on television. Students in anglophone countries typically don't have the pressing need to learn and aren't forced to encounter other languages so a rare few will make the effort. You could have the class be structured to only work on exposure/practice but yet another problem with classes is the focus on grades and test scores and so yet again the focus on learning "about" the language and not learning to converse. It's much easier to objectively grade how well 20-30 students can fill out a conjugation table than it is to assess all of their speaking and comprehension abilities. I will say though, that the constant drilling in class resulted in me having decent grammar and spelling and if I had immersed myself outside of class (which I didn't really have the time to do seeing I that I was the typical college-bound student taking a bunch of AP classes) I would have had a decent foundation to work off of to benefit from exposure and practice. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 11 of 17 19 July 2012 at 9:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have posted about this before and I try not to repeat myself, but I will say some of this information again, though I will add some things I have not mentioned previously.
Several of my school subjects were modern languages, and I was struck by the way most fellow pupils seemed to regard forming a sentence in an L2 as some incredible feat. A school trip to France in 1979 was one striking example. I asked a shopkeeper in bad French what time the souvenir shop I was in would close, and other pupils I was with were actually amazed. One said, "How did you do that?" He seemed to regard asking a shopkeeper a question as being on a par with translating at the UN (I don`t know if he studied languages but I believe at least one was obligatory at that time. If he did, it must have made no impression.) I found this attitude particularly among male pupils, perhaps one or two of the girls could say something but I never heard them. The history teacher in charge of the trip did speak quite good French and was involved in twinning projects with a French town. There is nothing innate about the British, or here Scottish, bafflement with foreign languages. It is all in the mind. But it is a powerful barrier nonetheless. Edited by William Camden on 19 July 2012 at 9:14pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cmmah Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 4531 days ago 52 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Irish | Message 12 of 17 19 July 2012 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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The problem lies in the way foreign languages are taught. In my first year of Spanish and French, we were taught
for 3 hours in total a week (for each language). The only problem was that we weren't taught how to create our own sentences, and only were taught set phrases, e.g how to conjugate verbs, etc. That summer I went on a cruise, and there were people from all over Europe, chattering away in near-flawless English. I struggled to ask people where in Spain or France they were from, and when they started talking amongst themselves in Spanish, I couldn't understand a word (probably because they weren't talking about how often they went to the swimming pool, their daily routine, or some other pointless set phrases I'd been taught in school). This was what actually got me into self-study, I thought it was disgraceful that I'd been doing 6 hours of language learning a week for eight months, and could barely string an independent sentence together. After over 200 hours of study. I think it's fair to say that language curricula have been dumbed down, and students are being taught to pass exams rather than actually speak the language. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5782 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 13 of 17 20 July 2012 at 6:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd say its an issue of people thinking there's no point.
When I was in school I hated French, it was my worst subject, I just didn't see the point. I had absolutely no interest in France whatsoever (had I been allowed to study say, japanese, I wonder how I'd have done) and it was just some stupid theoretical thing I was forced to study. It wasn't until a few years after I left school and encountered French movies and met some French people that I began to realise that it actually would be a useful skill to aquire. Here in Japan a lot of my friends are English teachers and they report the same issue. So many kids who doubt they'll ever leave their home town let alone their country. Japan is a world unto itself. They just don't see a point in English....even despite the proliferation of foreign movies, often subtitled. Another problem here is also one that afflicts the English education system as a whole, not just in regard to languages; everything is all about exams and getting a little mark on a bit of paper rather than actually learning stuff. Japanese co-workers and friends who speak...less than great English, are always coming to me with questions about obscure grammar points and other unimportant nonsence rather than useful things....as even now they're done with school they still see their language learning as getting up to a higher level on the TOEFL or whathaveyou. Also a factor is that English speakers don't have so pressing a need to learn a language as do non-native English speakers. To become anyone who is anything in many most fields you have to learn English...natives already have this from the start, they don't have to try. Conversely any halfway intelligent person in Scandinavia or the Netherlands of course learns English and speaks it well, its just not a question that they wouldn't. There just isn't enough of a world out there in their native language, to get anywhere with computers and the internet for example they need English. This quite annoys me TBH, I somewhat envy those who were born into small rich countries as they were effectively given an extra language for free- since they have their native tongue then had no choice but to learn English. Edited by Tyr on 20 July 2012 at 6:52am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ZombieKing Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4527 days ago 247 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin* | Message 14 of 17 20 July 2012 at 7:06am | IP Logged | ||
There are Chinese people everywhere where I live, and whenever they walk into a Chinese restaurant they always speak Chinese, never English. Also, when Chinese people interact with me in typically Chinese parts of vancouver, they speak to me in Chinese a lot of the time... The above case can also be observed with Koreans in vancouver, who tend to stick with other Koreans and spend time at Korean establishments. Edited by ZombieKing on 20 July 2012 at 7:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Presidio Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4581 days ago 39 posts - 150 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, German Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Gulf) | Message 15 of 17 20 July 2012 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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"Language learning in UK/US"
A couple of questions: 1. Why is there yet another thread on this topic? 2. What exactly is the goal of discussing this yet again? What specific piece of information is someone looking for that has not been discussed previously? As I the last time we had a thread on this topic: -- A person living in Nebraska is a minimum of 1000 miles from a country whose language is other than English (Spanish in Mexico and French in Quebec). There is no big incentive to become fluent a language they will likely never use. (With the continued influx of Spanish speaking immigrants - legal and illegal - that will likely change things in the future, but for now...) -- Being seperated by two oceans from the majority of other languages in this world - oceans that the majority of Americans will never cross - offers little incentive to study foreign languages, as well. -- If America were like Europe where the majority of its citizens were just a day's drive from different countries that speak different languages, I am sure the interest (and necessity) would be higher. -- Many Americans save their money for a once-in-a-lifetime visit to Europe where they will visit something like nine countries in seven days. Since they aren't going to spend more than one day in any given country, the need (or desire) to become fluent in that country's language is simply not there. Especially when English is one of the official languages in the EU, and the majority of famous tourist sites have a plethora of English speakers available. -- Any famous tourist site in the world - Pyramids in Egypt, Great Wall in China, The Eiffel Tower in Paris, The Canals of Venice, Neuschwantstein Castle in Bavaria, The Colusium in Rome, etc. - are all staffed with English speakers. Again, if you are going to visit these sites ONCE in your life and never go back again, there is little incentive to learn the local languages. NO, most Americans are not big on studying a foriegn language, let alone several YES, some Americans can be arrogant as to the usage and influence of English around the world. NO, I do not think America needs to apologize for the desire that the youth in many countries have to learn the language based on English-speaking music, movies, celebrities, TV shows, etc. YES, eventually English will lose its status as Lingua Franca in the world, and YES people should feel free to celebrate that fact if they wish. So when do we discuss language learning in India, China, Egypt, Sweden, Russia, Korea, etc? . Edited by Presidio on 20 July 2012 at 5:29pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 16 of 17 20 July 2012 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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The main reason is not size and geographic isolation of the USA, but the fact that you
can find any information in English. I completely agree with everything else, Presidio. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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