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Quality of College/University Courses | ||
Tags: Language Teaching | College/University | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5422 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 12 13 April 2010 at 6:44am | IP Logged | ||
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To Mods: I didn't think this would fit better anywhere else, but feel free to move it as you see fit.
I was wondering what experiences and thoughts you guys had on the quality of college language courses? I know that they will depend on the teacher, but in general, are they much better than American public school courses? Or would I be better off studying on my own? I was wondering because I don't plan on majoring in anything having to do with language/linguistics in college, but I might take some foreign language classes. It'd be nice if you guys could share some stories/experiences with college language courses, specifically American ones. I'm just wondering about how they're taught. Also, if anyone knows anything about the quality of Clemson University's (where I hope to go) language courses, please do tell. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5567 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 2 of 12 13 April 2010 at 7:58am | IP Logged | ||
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For what it's worth, I found my college language courses significantly better than my high school classes. Of course, I had some experience behind me at that point so I progressed faster in college, and that was a contributing factor in my improved learning.
But another big factor was the quality of my classmates. In high school, your classmates are only there because all your peers are required to take a foreign language course. In college, your classmates are filtered by their ability to get into a college in the first place, so you're dealing with a generally smarter pool of people. Also, even though a foreign language course is likely to be mandatory, if there is a variety of languages to choose from, your classmates are more likely to be people who are actually interested in the target language. Why does that matter? Well, it matters because in a language course the whole class has to operate on the level of the worst students. The teacher will try to speak in a way that everybody can understand, and will be explaining a lot of things to the struggling students that you may have already mastered. The less time the teacher spends explaining the basics to uninterested, non-serious students, and the less the teacher feels the need to "dumb down" the speech and the material to the lowest common denominator, the better (for a serious and motivated student). You're also likely to have a higher quality teacher at a university than in a high school. Quite frankly, I've been appalled at the kinds of people high schools in my region hire as foreign language teachers; it's very rare that they'll even have a native speaker. In college, all but one of my language teachers were native speakers (the exception was a course on French literature), and all seemed to have a real passion for their languages, though that was just my experience at my university. My advice is definitely go for the language courses. If you're at a university, you should take the opportunity to be taught by a native speaker. But don't make it your whole study plan. You have to supplement it with self-study. I think college language classes can be an excellent introduction to a language, and the regular interaction with a native speaker is a great way to develop good pronunciation habits, especially if you're a beginner. Just keep in mind that a language course can't teach you a language. The only person who can teach you a language is you; a teacher is just a guide. P.S. I got my bachelor's degree in linguistics from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Edited by Levi on 13 April 2010 at 8:14am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5585 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 3 of 12 13 April 2010 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I completely agree with Levi.
In many college courses, a lot of kids (well, young adults ;)) are there because they WANT to be. Which makes the atmosphere so much better. I honestly can't wait to attend a German or Russian class (MAYBE EVEN BOTH :D) I'll be attending Penn State in the fall, so I'll definitely let you know about the quality of university language teaching. Also at college you have a TON of natives around. I went to Pitt University on a field trip, and I heard probably 4 different languages just walking down the street. At PSU, I think there are 44,000 people there. There is even a "Foreign Language House" for all foreign students. I applied to get in there for my dorm, hopefully I make the cut. If anything else, natives > classes. I would much rather be around natives than have to take a course. I'm really hoping there will be a ton of native Spanish speakers at PSU, so I don't have to take more Spanish to improve my skill. I know the Russian teacher is a native, and the Spanish teacher. They offer : German Russian Italian Spanish Portuguese French Arabic Chinese Japanese Korean (I think) Latin Greek Edited by datsunking1 on 13 April 2010 at 5:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ManicGenius Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 288 posts - 420 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese | Message 4 of 12 13 April 2010 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I disagree.
A lot of colleges have lowered entry requirements to increase enrollment. Colleges are business, and they're not in the business of educating you, despite what you believe. They are in the business of making money, even state schools. I've attended classes at both private and public colleges and often find the same level of ineptitude that existed in high school. To make matters worse, language classes are often again filled with the same sort of people who have to take the class, not because they want to. If you want to find people who are actually interested in the language, you need to stray from the norm of Spanish. Even then, my Mandarin class and my Japanese class were filled with natives just looking for an A and had no desire to be there or to talk with you. They spent the majority of the time either talking amongst themselves or playing with their phones. However, the saving grace happens once you progress beyond the basic classes. By then the idiots are usually weeded out and you find about 80% truly interested in the subject most of the time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lasciel Groupie United States Joined 5373 days ago 55 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 5 of 12 13 April 2010 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have to agree with ManicGenius on this one.
I've taken Russian, German, and Spanish (for a little while) at a high school level, and then took Spanish I again in college. The college class was the worst. The professor was not only NOT a native speaker, she couldn't even roll her "R's :/ I suppose class size will effect it-it was a class of 30+ people and the teacher made us go through all the drills one at a time, presentations, etc. Didn't learn a thing. Also, I don't agree that everyone in there wants to learn the language. Several of the students were in it because it fulfills the same credits as taking an English elective-and the Spanish class was far easier than having to write a paper on War and Peace or whatever. With rarer languages and a smaller class, you might get a good experience. Any time put into a language is good time, I suppose. If you have little patience for spending 4 hours listening to bored teens gossip and don't like hearing "intelligente" be mangled in 30+ different creative ways, pass on it. It will most likely be an extremely easy A, however, if you are taking a (Language) I, or (Language) II class. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ManicGenius Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 288 posts - 420 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese | Message 6 of 12 13 April 2010 at 8:11pm | IP Logged | ||
We had to take both English and a foreign language, so no one got out on that. But if you've ever seen the TV show "Community" and how it makes fun of Spanish class, that's pretty much the 101 language experience at a college (regardless of community college or higher). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5352 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 7 of 12 13 April 2010 at 11:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am currently attending an undisclosed state school in Pennsylvania, and their foreign language program/classes are a joke. I really developed the interest to study foreign languages when I came to the university, but the learning experiences there were so horrible, that I would much rather be self-taught, or find a native speaker and take lessons from him or her. Below are some of the reasons which I feel the way I do.
I started attending university in 2004, and in 2006 I took my first language class (German I). The class was jammed with about 40 people, and the class was like a zoo. I learned a lot, but it was due to studying outside of class. For instance, the professor did not encourage us to learn plural forms, it was just something I eventually went back and memorized. The same university did not offer German II the next semester (in the fall), so I studied the content for German II in the summer, and then went to German III in the fall. There was a totally different German professor, as the old one went on leave, and as I type this, my university has only had one German professor at a time. This class was smaller, maybe 20 students, and I learned a lot more, though there were still those students who did not want to be there. Thank goodness I took the rest of my German classes while studying abroad, otherwise I would have learned so much less German. My university went through two more German professors, so now we are on number four, since my time at the University. Totally not how one should learn a language. With my Spanish classes, the story has been the same, yet different. My university has a decent-sized Spanish department (six professors) but the classes are always fairly crowded (18-35 people). I am taking Spanish III currently, and as other members have stated earlier, there is so much repetition due to the slower members of the class. Some people truly struggle with learning foreign languages, especially if it is their first foreign language, but then there are others who just do not bother memorizing the conjugations, for example. To wait for these people and keep repeating the same grammar points over and over again, it gets annoying to me. I would rather learn more tenses and complicated structures, so that I can speak more properly, and acquire more vocabulary in the process. To spend day after day repeating the same structures with the same vocabulary gets old very quickly, but not everyone is a language genius either, so it is just something one has to deal with. At my university, I believe that the above problem is so rampant, because I am attending a state school. I am 24, but many of the students are 18 or 19, and are just at the university to party and prolong getting a job. These same people sit in the language classes to meet the requirements, but they really do not care about the language, and it shows in their behavior. Although it would be expected that this kind of behavior would decrease as one takes more-advanced language courses, I remember a friend of mine who double majored in Spanish and French telling me that there were one or two people who did not know simple conjugations, even in the upper-level courses. I guess there will always be one person like that, though. Also, maybe if one attends a more prestigious school, there will be better experiences within the classroom and department, but from personal experience, I hate the university language classes. As I had mentioned somewhere else, I am not even that interested in learning Spanish, and therefore dedicate my time towards other classes and languages, but still end up doing better than most of my class, despite my lack of effort. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5696 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 8 of 12 13 April 2010 at 11:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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A part of the problem is many of these classes simply aren't catered to language enthusiasts. Despite that, I've generally had really good experiences at my university. And if your school is sizable enough they may even offer less commonly taught languages. I feel these are the best because the classes tend to be smaller and usually have students who actually want to be there. I mean who learns Sanskrit or Hungarian just to pass out of a requirement? In addition, it is with those less common languages, which often have less resources, that it's most helpful to have someone hold your hand through the beginning.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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