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Article: Students fall short on Vocabulary

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Serpent
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 Message 217 of 319
23 April 2014 at 3:02pm | IP Logged 
Cavesa wrote:
s_allard wrote:
And, frankly, put a bunch of 20-year old kids in an environment far from home and parents and watch the hormones at work. I don't buy this idea that after a year abroad most kids learn nothing.


Now this is just plain wrong and offensive. I know dozens of people who went for a year abroad at the age between 15-25. And all of them used the opportunity well. Most studied, some partied more, that is true but it's not as common as older people think, some worked the whole time. All of them learnt the language really well. Those who didn't learn the local language were those who went for a study program in English which is still a foreign language for them.

The trouble is not the age and I hate when someone talks about young people the way you do, it's just the same as saying the same derogatory thing about women, blacks, jews or whoever else.

The trouble is that English natives in general have a harder time with immersion, unless they are stubborn enough, because many more people in the target country become language bandits when it comes to English than when it comes to Czech or Swedish. That is simple logic. It has nothing to do with age.
Exactly. And many people living in L1 bubbles abroad are older people who don't want to change anything. But somehow it's generally more socially acceptable for them not to learn the language and claim they're "too old" for that.

(Of course language classes and coursebooks also contribute to the bs idea that language learning is for young healthy people...)
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emk
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 Message 218 of 319
23 April 2014 at 3:27pm | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
At any rate: 3300 passive words for a university graduate seems very low compared to the number of words I have found for myself even in my weakest languages. Until somebody comes up with a better explanation I'm inclined to see it as an artefact of the research methods used.

Yeah, this number is based on a 5,000 word dictionary. But even so, it seems low—out of the top 6,000 French words, there's something like 2,500 or 3,500 transparent cognates, according to a list in Essential French Grammar (this is from memory; I don't have the book at hand).

So let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that the university graduates in question are actually rather weak in French. If this were the case, we could surely find evidence other than the vocabulary test.

And sure enough, the paper provides some anecdotal evidence (emphasis added):

Quote:
French graduates, with about 3300 words on average, appear well short of complete mastery and again this calculation appears to match the observation of students in my own university. We no longer routinely lecture through the medium of French, we cut down the number of books students read, to enable them to cope, and much of the work in done in translation. Graduates cannot perform in all aspects of language in an educated native-like fashion.

I know I've already quoted this at least once in this long thread, but I keep coming back to it. Let's compare these anecdotes to the CEFRL standard:

"We no longer routinely lecture through the medium of French…"

According to the old CEFRL self-assessment checklist, the ability to follow a classroom lecture is generally a B2 or a C1 skill:

Quote:
B2 Listening

- I can follow a lecture or talk within my own field, provided the subject matter is familiar and the presentation straightforward and clearly structured.
- I can understand most radio documentaries delivered in standard language and can identify the speaker’s mood, tone etc.
- I can understand TV documentaries, live interviews, talk shows, plays and the majority of films in standard dialect.

C1 Listening

- I can understand lectures, talks and reports in my field of professional or academic interest even when they are propositionally and linguistically complex.

…we cut down the number of books students read, to enable them to cope, and much of the work in done in translation.

Again, there is little reason why a B2 or C1 student should be doing "much of the work" in translation:

Quote:
B2 Reading

- I can understand in detail texts within my field of interest or the area of my academic or professional speciality.
- I can understand specialised articles outside my own field if I can occasionally check with a dictionary.
- I can read reviews dealing with the content and criticism of cultural topics (films, theatre, books, concerts) and summarise the main points.

C1 Reading

- I can understand fairly long demanding texts and summarise them orally.

- I can read contemporary literary texts with ease.

So the French graduates, with their supposed "3300 words on average", do not appear to be terribly comfortable with B2-level tasks, and their professors actively avoid challenging them with C1-level tasks. This makes the 3,300 number much more believable: It may seem shocking that French graduates have such a small vocabulary, but it's no more shocking than the fact that they apparently read French works in translation or that their lectures are mostly given in English.

Now, I'm usually a big proponent of the idea that "B1 language skills are awesome, and should be appreciated!" But that's because B1 language skills allow you to almost completely immerse yourself in your L2, as either a tourist or a house guest, and to function independently in most situations.

But if you spend years in a university, focusing the major part of your efforts on French literature, French culture, and the French language, you should certainly get more out of it than B1 tourist French. You should at least be able to follow a discussion on Bibliothèque Médicis, or comfortably read Voltaire in the original. This is not too much to ask—and this level of competence is pretty much the bare minimum if you want to engage with French culture first-hand.
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dampingwire
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 Message 219 of 319
23 April 2014 at 4:36pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
dampingwire wrote:
jpmtl wrote:
Don't English native speakers
already know more than 3000 words in
French even before they start studying it, as so many words are the same or very
similar?


Many words are similar but that means it'll be easier to remember them once you
encounter them, not that you know them automatically.

It's the same with Italian and Spanish: I can watch the news in Spanish and generally
get the gist even though I've never studied Spanish. However, if I needed to ask for a
newspaper or order a meal in Spanish I'd either resort to hand waving and pointing or
hope they spoke (or understood) Italian. I'm sure it'll give me a great head start when
I do study it, but it's still not quite as free as you might be suggesting.
The cool thing is that you don't need formal learning in order to claim your
free lunch. Just have a lot of input, deliberately trying to understand as much as
possible.


Yes to the input. There wasn't much of that at school, from what I remember, so the
implication would be that University life doesn't provide massive input either.
Presumably the students who end up being more able go out of their way to acquire
additional input in some form?


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dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
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 Message 220 of 319
23 April 2014 at 4:41pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
Cavesa wrote:
s_allard wrote:
And, frankly, put a bunch of 20-year old
kids in an environment far from home and parents and watch the hormones at work. I don't buy
this idea that after a year abroad most kids learn nothing.


Now this is just plain wrong and offensive. I know dozens of people who went for a year
abroad at the age between 15-25. And all of them used the opportunity well.
Exactly. And many people living in L1 bubbles abroad are older people who don't
want to change anything. But somehow it's generally more socially acceptable for them not to
learn the language and claim they're "too old" for that.

(Of course language classes and coursebooks also contribute to the bs idea that language
learning is for young healthy people...)


Did I misunderstand @s_allard here?

s_allard wrote:
And, frankly, put a bunch of 20-year old kids in an environment far from
home and parents and watch the hormones at work.


I took that to mean that they (the students) would be quite likely to interact (as opposed
to not interact). I didn't take it to mean that they'd only be attracted to (and therefore
interact with) fellow English speakers. Perhaps you (both) though @s_allard was suggesting
that the interactions would be mostly of a non-verbal nature? Surely there has to be some
verbal interaction first :-)

s_allard wrote:
I don't buy this idea that after a year abroad most kids learn nothing.


This too would appear to be a positive comment.




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Cavesa
Triglot
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 Message 221 of 319
23 April 2014 at 5:21pm | IP Logged 
Ah, my bad, sorry. Thanks, dampingwire.
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Serpent
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 Message 222 of 319
23 April 2014 at 5:25pm | IP Logged 
I still think that Cavesa was right that being a native speaker of English is a much more important factor than age.

edit: and the "positiveness" of the comment is somewhat akin to benevolent sexism. Women or teenagers are not a different species.

Edited by Serpent on 23 April 2014 at 5:39pm

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Cavesa
Triglot
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 Message 223 of 319
23 April 2014 at 6:37pm | IP Logged 
Yes, that is true. Thanks Serpent. No matter how I look at the comment, it is not quite alright.

I think there is one root coming out of the article and the discussion. The teachers at the universities are to blame for not pushing their students to work hard enough. I think you won't see the same approach in any technical, medical or other "serious" field. When a student enters faculty of medicine, he or she is expected to work hard and to cover their individual gaps from previous schooling on their own in order to catch up with the rest The curriculum is not being dumbed down to make it easier to pass. The universities know they cannot just let out engeneers without proper knowledge of physics or medical doctors without anatomy. They just cannot see the same need to teach properly students whose future failures will be unlikely to kill people.

So, the author of the paper should not complain students don't know enough when entering university and that they don't learn enough during the year abroad. Instead, she should look critically on the work she and her collegues have been doing while the students are in their hands and become more demanding again. Stop giving a degree for free and students will work hard and suceed again.
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Gemuse
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 Message 224 of 319
23 April 2014 at 6:48pm | IP Logged 
Cavesa wrote:
I think you won't see the same approach in any technical, medical or
other "serious" field.
The curriculum is not being dumbed down to make it easier to pass.


It is starting.
http://qz.com/192071/how-one-college-went-from-10-fe male-computer-science-
majors-to-40/


Edited by Gemuse on 23 April 2014 at 6:49pm



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