Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Language classes do NOT work

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
116 messages over 15 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 13 ... 14 15 Next >>


emk
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5292 days ago

2615 posts - 8806 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 97 of 116
18 November 2013 at 2:19pm | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:
Is this surprising? Language classes may or may not work. It depends on the quality of the class and on the quality of the students.

I absolutely agree that excellent language classes exist, and that's important to have a good match between the class and the student. But if we're talking about serious students of a foreign language, people who don't want to spend 5 years reaching a weak B1, the available group classes may often be a very bad choice in practice.

For example, I live in rural New England. The nearest Alliance Française chapter requires driving an hour and 40 minutes each way, and most of the students are beginners. In the other direction, there's a rather nice advanced French Meetup with mostly B2 and C1 students, plus a handful of French professors and the occasional native speaker. But that's over an hour distant as well.

The only advanced French classes remotely near me are Middlebury's 7-week, $8,310 immersion classes, which would require me to commit to 24x7 immersion and no contact with the outside world. As a parent and a consultant, that's basically impossible for me. Plus, just to add insult to injury, they'd require me to give up my smartphone for the duration, which is where (a) I keep my library of French ebooks, and (b) where I review my Anki cards. The idea of paying $8,000 for the privilege of a 7-week Anki backlog seems rather dubious at best.

What are my other choices? I'm sure I can find some local night classes for beginners, but what would I gain from reviewing material aimed at casual A1 and A2 students? I'm not a member of the State Department or the military, nor am I married to somebody who is, so I'm not eligible for FSI or DLI's immersion programs. I suppose I could move to Montreal or France for 3 or 4 months, but again, I have responsibilities.

So from where I'm sitting, classes are just an awful option, and all that bad things that people say about them are true—from my perspective, given my current level and the classes realistically available within an hour's drive of where I live.

Meanwhile, I occasionally work with an amazing French tutor, who's a polyglot with a master's degree in SLA, and who has a real gift for the work. She uses Skype, and I never have to leave my house. I have a big stack of DVDs, ebooks and BDs in French, and I've averaged 500+ pages/month for a year and half. I've spoken French at home for 99+% of the last 20+ months. I visit Montreal whenever I can, and I always default to using French in public when I'm there.

So for me, self-study with some private tutoring is a vastly better option than French classes. And if we exclude serious programs like FSI, DLI, Middlebury and Alliance Française immersion in France—which are not realistic choices for many people—it's hard to find good classes for intermediate and advanced students who live outside major cities.
6 persons have voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4467 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 98 of 116
18 November 2013 at 2:27pm | IP Logged 
beano wrote:
Why does learning always have to be enjoyable? Sometimes sheer grind is
the best way forward and that
isn't always fun.

I always associate "language classes" with adults voluntarily signing up for a course.
That means they are
motivated and have a reason to learn. If they can meet like-minded people and get
expert advice from a tutor,
that can only be a good thing. School classes often involve herding kids into a room
and trying to teach them
a language they aren't remotely interested in and one they know they will never use. I
would imagine that
being a school language teacher can often be a totally draining and demoralising
experience. Okay, you'll get
a few who are interested and the academic top-end who would willingly study the phone
book if you placed it
in front of them, but the reality is that most of your charges won't give a damn.


Tell that to the hordes of 14/15-year olds who are forced to study English, French and
German at Dutch schools. English usually works out but by god do people hate the other
two. Sheer grind doesn't help these people - you annoy them, they give up.

Adults who take an interest are the best students.


5 persons have voted this message useful



s_allard
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5190 days ago

2704 posts - 5425 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 99 of 116
18 November 2013 at 2:33pm | IP Logged 
As per usual, @emk has eloquently summarised the debate. The question isn't whether language classes work or
not. It's a question of availability of good classes. For the more advanced student, this is a real problem because
most classes are aimed at beginning students. In my observation, really advanced students gravitate towards one-
on-one tutoring and independent study because they are capable of working on their own.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6357 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 100 of 116
18 November 2013 at 8:21pm | IP Logged 
And most beginner classes are way too slow, as emk said. Basically, I'd say there are the two extremes, super slow classes that take years to reach B1 and FSI or the like that are intensive and effective at the price of nervous breakdowns. In between we have immersion classes with their own downsides and not much else. Good classes are possible but they don't really exist.
2 persons have voted this message useful



sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5151 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 101 of 116
18 November 2013 at 8:57pm | IP Logged 
Another option at the advanced level is to take upper-division and even masters-level
language classes at a local university (you can even look into auditing them which
would be free). These are classes that would require an intermediate level of the
language (around B1 to B2 though everyone may vary for different skill sets) and many
of the other students may be just getting back from a semester or year abroad. At this
level, the class is taught through the language rather than just being a straight
language class, though there will typically be assignments and support for language
learners, regular writing that gets corrected, class discussions, presentations, etc.

I'd tell anyone to try learning all they can on their own so they can test directly
into upper-level courses where the course is more about coalescing and practicing
language knowledge rather than teach verb conjugations to a bunch of uninterested
students taking the class to satisfy requirements.
1 person has voted this message useful



Kugel
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6298 days ago

497 posts - 555 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 102 of 116
19 November 2013 at 1:26am | IP Logged 
Doesn't your local alliance francaise have B1 or C1 meetups? It's because of this place
that I always come back to french.    

Classes at a local university will run you 1600 to 2100 dollars because of them being 4
or 5 credits. Higher education at the university level has gone insane. Only the
desperate would attend these lower division level classes. It really is a scam in
regards to introduction foreign language learning...or anything in the humanites, but I
won't go there.    
1 person has voted this message useful



Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 3842 days ago

818 posts - 1189 votes 
Speaks: English
Studies: German

 
 Message 103 of 116
19 November 2013 at 2:30am | IP Logged 
Kugel wrote:

Classes at a local university will run you 1600 to 2100 dollars because of them being 4
or 5 credits. Higher education at the university level has gone insane. Only the
desperate would attend these lower division level classes. It really is a scam in
regards to introduction foreign language learning...or anything in the humanites, but I
won't go there.    


Classes need not necessarily be that expensive. In Germany, I am taking an A2 German
class in a university (taught by an outside agency, not a professor, but can be used
for university credits nonetheless) for €250.

And it has its minuses, *and* pluses as compared to the 1000€+ class at Goethe
institute.

The problem with classes generally is clutter. They introduce lots of vocabulary which
I do not really care about - seasons, vacation talk, festivals, fashion etc without
spending, and *repeating* time on some core core vocabulary and speaking constructs.
Since time is limited, students end up learning not much in the end.

There are two things for which classes can be quite useful:
--Taking you out of your comfort zone (in recalling, reading, speaking) in terms of
speed, and vocabulary.
--Speaking to an actual person.

Classes are a useful supplement, but are usually not a base of learning a language
simply because teachers are not skilled at training minds. They are good at presenting
language, but they are not skilled at making brains absorb the material. Something like
the difference between given a list of 2000 vokabulary words, and using Anki to smartly
repeat words to actually learn them.
1 person has voted this message useful



I'm With Stupid
Senior Member
Vietnam
Joined 3933 days ago

165 posts - 349 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Vietnamese

 
 Message 104 of 116
19 November 2013 at 6:21pm | IP Logged 
I'm currently considering an intensive course at the Goethe Institut here in Saigon. 4.5 hours a day, 5 days a week
for 16 weeks: $805. That's just $2.24 an hour. I think you can also sign up for the same thing in 4 week instalments
too, so you don't have to drop such a huge amount of money on something without seeing what it's like for a month
first. Obviously to do the same thing in a Western country would cost much more though. But I think one of the
good things about this would be that I'm studying with people who don't share my language, so we're forced to use
German to communicate. Mixed-language classrooms are always much better, because you have no option but to
use the language.

Edited by I'm With Stupid on 19 November 2013 at 6:24pm



2 persons have voted this message useful



This discussion contains 116 messages over 15 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.6104 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.