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Are women better at learning languages? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| I'm With Stupid Senior Member Vietnam Joined 3978 days ago 165 posts - 349 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 9 of 76 07 October 2013 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
If only acquiring a second language was as simple as acquiring knowledge. Saying they should be good at learning a language because they're smart is like saying they should be good at learning to play the guitar because they're smart. Even people who seemingly have all the expertise necessary in the relevant field still struggle with their language learning, such as Scott Thornbury here. 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4427 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 10 of 76 07 October 2013 at 11:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
Why should having a scientific profession make you better at learning a language? Come to think of it, I've met a lot of highly-educated science guys who insist on telling me that they "can't do languages" Willingness to engage with the language is what dictates progress the most. Prior levels of education are just a contributory factor at best. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5571 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 11 of 76 08 October 2013 at 3:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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It may be that some women do better than some men in certain circumstances, and it may even be that the majority of women do better than the majority of men in certain circumstances. Or the opposite. That says very little about a particular setting, because you're dealing with individuals with their individual differences, not with some idealized average person.
That means that unless you are researching language acquisition, knowing whether women do better - on average - than men do doesn't help you at all. I know many people who use such statistics as a reassurance when they are frustrated. I understand that. But, imagine, what if it isn't true? What if those who learn faster just put in more hours than the rest? What if *you* could progress just as quickly if you put in those hours? In that case you would actually hurt yourself by falling back on that kind of explanation. Much better than looking at somebody else's progress, look at your own progress. That's something you may be able to change, and even if it's slow progress, seeing your own slow, but steady progress is much more encouraging than seeing how you make less progress than somebody else seems to with the same effort. (And what if they do, you can't become them if it's truly an innate talent.) Now, in my languages classes I've usually been one of the top students. I've been admired, and shortly afterwards the other person added something in the lines of 'but it's easier for you, because you are so smart!' Actually, I just put in two or three times the hours at the very beginning, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to follow the class, and that allows me to use most of the 'newly introduced material' for review rather than first exposure. As for the research saying that most girls seem to be able to learn from either visual or oral presentation - gender bias in education? A lot of what I as a layperson read so far about these topics refers to Sexism in single-sex and coeducational independent secondary school classrooms (Lee, Marks, & Byrd); especially on the finding that boys, on average, get more interaction with the teacher than girls do. I remember calls for single sex classes for sciences in the late 90s, when the argument was that girls underperformed in those subjects because they have less of their questions answered. (The latest claims I read were that girls these days actually outperform boys in high school, and still the majority of them does not choose to get a degree in a STEM field.) Nowadays there are calls for single sex classes especially in social science related classes because, it is said, boys underperform because they don't learn how to deal without being spoonfed. It's all quite amusing. But, drawing from personal experience myself, I've come to know more girls and women who, in the German tradition of schooling, would remain silent in class, and later work through the material by themselves when they had to - or give up on the subject; and more boys and men who when they thought they may have understood how something worked or had a question, vocalized those thoughts to get feedback. That's only about 200 classmates I had the honour to learn with. I'm also pretty sure I've seen more females with the self-concept that they are good at languages and social sciences, but bad at natural sciences, and the opposite for males. But, regardless of gender, the most brilliant ones seemed to be good at either field, and willing to make an effort when things got a bit difficult. Edited by Bao on 08 October 2013 at 2:29pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 5930 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 12 of 76 08 October 2013 at 3:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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For me, it's not women or men, but it's the Chinese and Korean speakers. They come in class, and they just blow all the English natives away at Japanese -- progressing from nothing to massively fluent and literate (though often heavily accented) within a few years. So, what can you do? Some people are going to be better at this. Life isn't fair -- deal with it.
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| vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4059 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian | Message 13 of 76 08 October 2013 at 3:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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More self reported hyperpolyglots are male. So, I would say no. Of course, this research
isn't flawless, but based on that I would at least say men and women are at least equal language learners. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4814 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 14 of 76 08 October 2013 at 9:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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There is very little info in the OP.
A lot of things are hidden in there. What are the jobs of the people and what are the methods used? No method is well suited to everyone and the job (or rather related ways of thinking of people in various fields) is much more relevant information than just the gender. Or the age is relevant. Younger people tend to learn faster (at least when you compare an old and a young person with similar education and IQ). And personalities of the people. Some characteristics of men and women were mentioned in this thread but I have seen all these things in both genders. By some of the definitions, I am probably the only man in my class (at university, not a language course). :-D In reality, there are 10 men and I am not one of them. It is just such a combination of personalities in the class, nothing more. And those who appear to be the best during the semester aren't necessarily those who will pass the exams the most easily. And those who will pass the whole school with the best grades are not necessarily those who will perform the best at the job. And that leads to an important issue. How do you tell which are the top 3 students of the class? Based on tests? The tests are not important anymore in this kind of education. In such environments, there are tests to offer you more feedback not to compare you and give a prize to the top few students. Or do they speak the best? Are you sure people who do not show off now won't perform just as well in the real situation? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| akkadboy Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5213 days ago 264 posts - 497 votes Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh | Message 15 of 76 08 October 2013 at 9:27am | IP Logged | |||||
I must admit I really don't understand this...Why would you be annoyed that some people are better at something ? And maybe you can see it like that : if women are better at languages because of some kind of "natural law", then there's nothing to do about it. Just relax and relish the opportunity to speak with more advanced learners. But again, you seem to approach language learning as a kind of competition/race and I don't really see the point to that. I've found that the only person I have to compete with and care about in the long and hard process of learning a language is myself. Energy and is far better spent studying and fighting demotivation than jealousing other learners. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4427 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 16 of 76 08 October 2013 at 9:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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If I may be permitted to paint a stereotype, scientists and computer programmers are not always the best
communicators, at least in oral form. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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