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Which foreign languages in your country? | ||
Tags: School Education | Foreign Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Kisfroccs Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5414 days ago 388 posts - 549 votes  Speaks: French*, German*, EnglishC1, Swiss-German, Hungarian Studies: Italian, Serbo-Croatian | Message 49 of 55 08 January 2011 at 11:03am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm living in Switzerland in the canton of Fribourg, french part. And the school system is different than in other cantons, it's just applying for my region.
When I was in primary school, we had German in 4P, I was 9 at the time. That was the only foreign language taught at primary school. Then, in secondary school, with 13 we were taught Latin (compulsory for one year in the grade I were), then English (actually, I think we had more Latin than English). And from 14 to 15 we had the choice continuing Latin. With 15, Ancient Grec was also offered, though only to those wo had continued with Latin. In College (High School ?), those who had Latin and Grec could continue, but one hour of German was taken instead. Facultary Italian courses were offered. With 16, I had German, English, Latin, Ancient Grec and Italian. Then, you have to make a choice between "options". There are scientific ones (I choose biologie and chemistry) and literary ones (Latin, Grec (seperately), Italian, Spanish, English) If you didn't choose a language option, you couldn't later on, as all the second options were scientific. However, there are English Basic courses (a joke !), and Italian facultory courses you could choose. In my second year, as I had no advantages to write "mothertongue French and German", I only wrote French as Mothertongue in my paper. Ended up that my German teacher advised me to take a bilingual class. That means, that I have classes in French (History, Biologie, Chemistry) and some in German (Philosophy, Mathematics etc). I had the choice to take German as L1 too, that means I have no more German language courses, but Literature. In third year I also organized a Russian course, but we were 5 pupils :) This year I'm in the same configuration, but I took Italian - but I'm going nowhere with this language :(. Summary: 0-17 : L1 French 9 : French L1, German L2 --- configuaration didn't change 13 : French L1, German L2, Latin L2, English L2 14 : French L1, German L2, Latin L2, English L2 15 : French L1, German L2, Latin L2, Ancient Grec L2, English L2 16 : French L1, German L2, Latin L2, Ancient Grec L2, English L2, Italian L2 17 : French L1, German L2, English L2 18 : German L1, French L1, English L2, Russian L2 (some months), (swiss-german) 19 : German L1, French L1, English L2, Italian L2, (swiss-german) Next year I hope it will be so :) : (at the university) 20 : German L1, Hungarian L2 So, that the system in my region, the french speaking part of the canton Fribourg, but maybe the German speaking part is different. And my brother had already a reform : a started German a year before me, with 8 years. Swiss-german is not taught, it's just spoken everywhere. But the courses are hold in German, and not Swiss-german. Edited by Kisfroccs on 08 January 2011 at 11:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6039 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 50 of 55 08 January 2011 at 12:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Language teaching at school was miserable. It doesn't matter what subjects are compulsory if teaching isn't any good. I did 1 year of German, 2 years Russian, and just about 10 years of English. My English was more or less decent when I finished school but it should have been perfect, given the amount of time.
[edit] On second thought, perhaps I was too inexperienced and lazy to pay any attention to languages ^_^'. Edited by Sennin on 08 January 2011 at 12:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| CheeseInsider Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5127 days ago 193 posts - 238 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin* Studies: French, German | Message 51 of 55 08 January 2011 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Vancouver Bc, there are two types of schools. Regular schools and French immersion schools. In regular school, you take French from grade 4 to grade 8. The amount of French you learn in those 4 years depends on the teachers and the number of students plus your motivation. Usually the teachers can not speak French though and just read from a textbook. I learned nothing those 4 years, a waste of time. While some friends of mine who went to schools in Richmond learned enough to have conversations about the weather...
I don't know much about French immersion. But I think at grade 6 you can choose to transfer into a regular school or continue with French immersion until grade 8. Everyone I've met who has been in immersion till grade 8 can speak French well :) Edited by CheeseInsider on 08 January 2011 at 3:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maxval Pentaglot Senior Member Bulgaria maxval.co.nr Joined 5078 days ago 852 posts - 1577 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, Bulgarian, English, Spanish, Russian Studies: Latin, Modern Hebrew | Message 52 of 55 08 January 2011 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I was a child (I am now 43 years old), in Hungary there was compulsory Russian language in the schools from age 10 to 18, and a compulsory second foreign language on choice between ages 14-18, this second foreign language was usually one of the following: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin.
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| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5105 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 53 of 55 08 January 2011 at 11:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my high school there were no options. The only language that could be studied for the mandatory amount of time was Spanish. We were only supposed to take two years of it, but due to an unfortunate series of events I was compelled to study it for five years.
It was a complete waste of my time since the teachers (I had three different ones) could not speak, read, nor write in Spanish and the class consisted of verb conjugation and long vocabulary lists. Because the tests were written, there was no need to speak, and I refused unless I was commanded to do so. Every senior class was supposed to go on a missions trip to Kenya so for a few months each class took a hiatus from Spanish to learn Swahili (why we couldn't have learned that in first place is beyond me). During my senior year I studied Swahili for about a month (maybe just a few weeks) before we realized that we would not be able to travel to Kenya due to civil unrest. Edited by Darklight1216 on 08 January 2011 at 11:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5860 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 54 of 55 19 January 2011 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | ||
Yeah, its those ubiquitous Korean and Japanese dramas and pop culture which I detested till now. Oh, learning Slavic languages is such a lonely route which is often ridiculed by those learning the popular languages here... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sanghee Groupie United States Joined 5073 days ago 60 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 55 of 55 19 January 2011 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my area in the USA, Central Florida, there was virtually nothing concerning foreign languages until high school. I recall learning a few words of Spanish from my preschool (~3-4 years old). In my middle school, there was some special program to allow people to study French or Spanish when they were in 8th grade (~13 years old) but I had no idea how to qualify for that program.
In high school (~15-18 years old), 2 years of a consecutive foreign language was required to graduate. My first high school offered only French and Spanish. Then, my new school was built and offered French, Spanish, and Latin. They didn't offer French 3 until I was a senior, so I stopped studying French and studied Latin for 1 year but didn't enjoy it, and didn't pick up French again afterward. One nearby school offered French, Spanish, and Chinese (Mandarin? I didn't go to that school and everyone just called it Chinese). Another offered French, Spanish, and Japanese. My university has a general requirement of 1 semester of foreign language, unless we took 2 years of foreign language in high school. It offers a larger variety of languages, but no school nearby offers my target language, Korean, so I'm not taking any language classes. I am studying on my own, however. So, my area basically requires 2 years of foreign language and nothing more. It's really quite sad to think about.. I had wanted to start learning another language from as early as I can remember, but my mom didn't have the financial means to allow it, and the public schools didn't make it possible early enough. Edited by Sanghee on 19 January 2011 at 9:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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