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US high school foreign language program? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| brian91 Senior Member Ireland Joined 5448 days ago 335 posts - 437 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 9 of 15 05 April 2010 at 8:20pm | IP Logged |
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In Ireland we begin learning Irish as soon as formal education begins, and foreign languages such as French,
German and even Japanese once we are about twelve. When we leave school at eighteen, the vast majority are far from fluent. I'm eighteen now and my German is still very weak. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ManicGenius Senior Member United States Joined 5485 days ago 288 posts - 420 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese | Message 10 of 15 06 April 2010 at 11:16pm | IP Logged |
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So basically it boils down to...
the youth of every nation is screwed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5426 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 15 07 April 2010 at 8:14am | IP Logged |
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It sucks here in America. We take mandatory classes in elementary school, it's optional in middle school, but where I live we have to take 2 years of one foreign language to graduate (I think they shouldn't have that requirement).
It sucks because they teach us out of a book, and the teachers aren't natives most of the time. And they don't know ANYTHING. Edit: Reworded it. It sounded like I said that nonnative speakers of a language don't know anything about it, which is of course not true. Edited by Johntm on 08 April 2010 at 6:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dmaddock1 Senior Member United States Joined 5437 days ago 174 posts - 426 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Esperanto, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 12 of 15 07 April 2010 at 4:12pm | IP Logged |
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In high school (US), I took 1 year of Latin, 3 years of Spanish, and 1 year of Russian (I moved a lot). I learned virtually no reading or speaking skills at all though I got good grades. Of course, now I wish I had self-studied all of the above then.
But, I don't really think that's the fault necessarily of the classes. Ask yourself how much high school chemistry, trigonometry, geography, economics, etc., you really remember now. I suspect for the average person the retention is far lower than they realize. Sure, I remembered general trig. ideas, but I essentially had to give myself a refresher course on the side for my current job which requires actually using trig. *cough* 10+ years *cough* after graduation. I haven't touched any of the above languages since school, but I recall the concept of cases from Latin and various, sundry vocab., etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| haliros Newbie United States Joined 5787 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 13 of 15 10 April 2010 at 7:06am | IP Logged |
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At my school, our German teacher is an AMAZING language teacher. I don't take it, but all of her students seem to be able to communicate quite well, and by German 2 or 3, she actually starts teaching her class in German.
Unfortunately, our stupid school is firing her, and replacing our German program with Mandarin, which no one wants to take. I wish she were staying.. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Smart Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5343 days ago 352 posts - 398 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French Studies: German | Message 15 of 15 17 April 2010 at 11:52pm | IP Logged |
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I would say it depends. If we're looking purely at Public school education at high-school level, then yes it is mediocre in the States and Canada as well.
However, in Private Schools, I would say it is decent, certainly will not make one fluent but it will spark enough interest to leave high school with a moderate vocabulary and a desire to become fluent. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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