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Article: Students fall short on Vocabulary | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4226 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes  Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 17 of 319 06 April 2014 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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In a place like Hong Kong, before the 1990s we had an education system in Cantonese with English
classes in between. Most people don't get to even the basic conversation level until they reached the senior years in high school. After the 1997 handover to China, the schools added Mandarin into the curriculum as the language of the Motherland. A majority of the people there would talk among themselves in Cantonese. Their fluency in either English or Mandarin would be barely understandable. I know a mother from Hong Kong who sent his son to a summer camp in Canada for 2 years. He seemed to have no trouble getting along with the other kids. Without the constant exposure to a language, learning in class for 2h/day is not sufficient. Edited by shk00design on 06 April 2014 at 5:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6987 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 18 of 319 06 April 2014 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's that way all over as was clearly and eloquently evinced in the Petit Nicholas story "Le vélo". Edited by luke on 06 April 2014 at 8:53pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4691 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 19 of 319 06 April 2014 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, that was great. He got in the top ten one week when all students but nine were off... and he got 10th place! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4691 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 20 of 319 06 April 2014 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
We can talk about how bad language learning is in other countries, but the study actually compares them. For students at B2 level, EFL learners in Greece and Hungary have about twice the vocabulary of French learners in England. Okay, you can argue that these EFL students probably watch a lot of TV and listen to a lot of music in English. But as Tastyonions pointed out, English learners of French have a pretty good headstart. Ari's example sounds pretty familiar. On the other hand, he's writing about a third language! (Ari, what's the normal second language in Sweden?) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| cpnlsn88 Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4819 days ago 63 posts - 112 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, Latin | Message 21 of 319 06 April 2014 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Interesting article. Chimes with the fact that vocabulary acquisition is very hard in a foreign language in any case.
I can imagine that enough vocabulary is learned to execute some fairly predictable dialogues and that's that. It poses a genuine problem for someone wanting either to go on to University study (and therefore at a minimum read literature and daily discourse in the target language) as well as any one who wants to go on to any level of linguistic proficiency. One can react at two levels. In one level the rate of language acquisition should be roughly doubled, but at a continuous rate. This in turn can lead to faster progression in reading and to a virtuous circle. This would mean a redesign of the courses of learning in GCSE and A level (ages 15, 16 and 17, 18 respectively) as well as an emphasis on vocab acquisition in the first year of University. Secondly points up that in order for language to become usable a self motivated learner has to find ways of continually learning larger amounts of vocabulary than one may generally think necessary (it may be other countries are doing this to some extent). I blame some ideological influences such as the emphasis on 'natural learning' and communicative approaches. I am not against communicative approaches but the incline on vocab is simply a lot steeper than most people imagine, hence why progress is somewhat limited in may cases. Looking back on my childhood learning I definitely think that I would have benefited from learning more vocab and in a more systematic way, so I agree with this article. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4365 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 22 of 319 06 April 2014 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I did a French GCSE with Edexcel about 13 years ago, got an A* and would struggle to order a cup of coffee in France. At the end of five years' study, I probably had a vocabulary of a few hundred words, consisting mainly of food, clothing, school subjects and items in my pencil case. When I started teaching myself German aged 18, the first thing I had to learn was what a verb was. They may be better now, but the GCSE exams I took were a joke. We did coursework instead of a written exam; this consisted of a few paragraphs describing a holiday we had been on which we wrote in advance at home, had marked and corrected by a teacher, then memorised and reproduced under exam conditions. The oral exam was similar in that we knew the questions in advance, had written out the answers, memorised the corrected versions and practised repeating them like parrots. I can still remember some of them now, though I don't know what all the words mean. For the reading and listening exams we were allowed to use a dictionary, the answers involved ticking boxes or writing single words in French (ie. not whole sentences), and some of the questions specified that they should be answered in English. I'm sure A Level was more rigorous, but the results of the study don't surprise me at all and I guess this is a contributing factor to so many language departments at UK universities being forced to contemplate closure. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5614 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 23 of 319 06 April 2014 at 11:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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When I did my university degree in French and Hispanic studies (20 years ago now), we
had lectures in the target language from the first year and were reading literature in the TL. (In fact we were reading lit in TL at A level, Moliere was one)During the year abroad we had to write a dissertation in the TL and produce a lengthy translation of a technical article (around 2000 words, can't remember exactly) On returning from the year abroad we did liaison interpreting, dealing with political and social topics. It was also possible to do a course in simultaneous interpreting. During the year abroad many of us did work placements, and everybody returned fluent (although not necessarily native like) I broadly agree with the report's findings on GCSE and A level, but am sceptical about their findings at degree level. Things may have been dumbed down a little since my time at uni, but I don't believe it has gotten as bad as is portrayed in the report. I think the UK compares favourably to other countries at university level, especially given the (usually) compulsory year abroad. I have a Spanish colleague who did a degree in English in Spain. She told me she only ever had one oral exam during her course, spent no time in England and could barely put a sentence together by the end of her studies. It was only after having lived here awhile after graduating that she became fluent. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6987 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 24 of 319 07 April 2014 at 12:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
And his father was all, "oh my god, oh my god", astonished at his good standing on the test. Except for Clotaire, but he already has a bike. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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