Which languages to study.

The Herald of Scotland reports that Spanish is replacing German as the second foreign language in Scottish schools, after French. The reasons given are that parents want Spanish and that there is a shortage of German teachers.

I wonder if young Scots do any better at learning their French, German or Spanish than English Canadian school kids do at French,(i.e. very few can speak).

Why not let the kids decide? They will learn better if they are motivated or at least interested.

So what if you do not have a German teacher? Let the kids learn on the Internet. I am reminded of the famous  case in New Brunswick, where one school had no language teacher and simply had kids read stories and listen to tapes. The neighbouring school had regular teachers. The kids in the first school learned better. This was before the age of the internet and all the resources we have now.

Comments

[Street-Smart Language Learning]

Have you heard of any schools that have done what you suggest? I know many are recommending web-based tools as supplementary materials, but I don't know of any that have let students go completely internet. I'd imagine many teachers would unfortunately be skeptical of the ability of the internet to teach languages, not to mention their (not wholly unplaced) of being outsourced.

[Street-Smart Language Learning]

*fear

of being outsourced, that is.

[shihlisha]

I find that using the internet in schools has several limits. First, in the schools where I work there aren't computers in every classroom. The kids get, if lucky, access to a computer lab a couple of times a week. When they get extra time, they are always given assignments to do, varying from writing to research. As a substitute teacher, the time I spend with kids in a computer lab is often whittled away just helping them get through their writing projects, troubleshooting techie problems, and chasing kids off of Facebook. It would be great to get them into LingQ, but kids' ability to follow through is limited by their access to computers both at school and at home. There are a lot interesting developments happening in schools with technology. In fact, I've heard that a distance/online course will may be a requirement for graduation before long. To use LingQ in a classroom would be great, I agree. However, there is no denying that there would be a lot groundwork and logistics to get through. Foreign language teachers are frustrated too, as are their students. It's nearly impossible to teach any amount of language in 40 minutes twice a week. Try it. Try with 30 13 year olds. The potential and beauty of LingQ, I think, lies in that it is so individual and personal. Start where education is individual and personal, in home schooling, Montessori, tutoring, youth groups. But ally with teachers, don't alienate. There aren't many jobs where the criticism is as constant and as personal. We work hard, we've invested time, energy and talent. Everyone has had a bad teacher, but everyone has had a good one too.

[Valina Eckley]

That is a cool story about the school in New Brunswick. I would LOVE to learn more about it. do you know where I can find more information?

[Steve Kaufmann]

I was not thinking of language schools but of public schools, the subject of this story. I have found many enthusiastic teachers, but I have come across more who are like the ones on this listserv. I think they place too much value on the theoretical principles of pedagogy that they learn at college, rather on the importance of inspiring their students.

Easy for me to say who has never had to teach a classroom full of apathetic students. In any case, the teaching of French in English Canada is so unsuccessful that any other solution cannot be worse.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Val,

Here are two references.

http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/l1762247tx152844/

and even more interesting is this

http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/response_to_haver/08.html

[Meathead Jones]

The reason there are fewer German teachers here in the UK? Because fewer and fewer young people are choosing to study German at A Level (and thus at university.)

The reason fewer and fewer young people are choosing to study it at A Level? Because they think it is more difficult to learn than French or Spanish (or non-language subjects.)

An elderly retired academic whom I know often pines for the 1950s when school-kids were beaten on the butt by their teachers until they had learnt their Latin and German case-tables by heart!!

Aber Steve hat natürlich Recht: letztendlich kann man eine Sprache wie Deutsch nur dann beherrschen, wenn man dies selber erreichen will.
Das Problem besteht darin, dass viele Schüler heutzutage sehr faul sind. (Ist doch so!) Und deswegen neigen sie dazu, etwas Einfaches zu lernen eher als etwas Schwieriges!

Forse sarebbe meglio imparare invece l'Italiano? Di sicuro non è tanto difficile come il Tedesco, e l'Italia è un paeso molto interesante. Gli Italiani sono anche per la maggior parte una Gente simpatica. (Non sono cattivi bastardi come quei Spagnoli!)

[Igor]

Ho sognato questa notte que l'Italiano e la nuova lingua franca del mondo e tutti parlavano molto facile e senza problemi...
pero, era solo un sogno,
que peccato.

[Valina Eckley]

Thanks Steve! those articles are interesting!

[BM]

"I wonder if young Scots do any better at learning their French, German or Spanish than English Canadian school kids do at French,(i.e. very few can speak)."

They don't. As one of them, I can safely say that the vast majority come out with "school boy French", being able to say some set phrases which linger in the back of their mind like a bad smell.

[Kevin Geoghegan]

"Why not let the kids decide?"

Well, I think if you let the kids decide you'd most likely find they don't want to learn languages at all. But who cares what they think anyway? It's high time this farce of trying to 'teach' languages in schools was ended.

[~H]

Just hire a language teacher from Germany. Give all the kids a mic, and have him/her give lessons via webcam. With all of the net meeting and teleconferencing tools we have for business these days, I don't see any reason why we couldn't use them for education and language learning too. Some colleges already offer online, or 1/2 online courses. But as you said in another entry... I guess it all comes down to a question of funding. They really *could* do it, the technology is there, but they aren't for other reasons.