I am still angry at government language waste. A letter to a newspaper

Government language waste in Canada is colossal. It really rankles me. Here is a letter I wrote to a columnist at a leading Canadian newspaper. Probably a waste of time.

The Gun Registry gets a lot of media attention. What about the language waste that exceeds a billion dollars a year and produces fewer and fewer bilingual Canadians, and more and more immigrants whose English is so poor they cannot function effectively in our society? Should this not be of interest to Canadians?

There is much discussion today about the wasteful gun registry, which is finally being disbanded. There is another field where bureaucracy is wasting billions of dollars with little benefit to Canadians. This is the publicly funded official language teaching industry. I am not against language learning, far from it. I speak 11 languages. I am against the deliberate waste of billions, where teachers and translators are able to hide their ineffectiveness and wastefulness behind an unassailable and lofty ideal. This is the same pattern as the case of the gun registry.

Official language instruction, whether for immigrants or in the pursuit of bilingualism for Canadians, is controlled by the established language teaching industry, who want all learning to take place in a classroom. In fact, as someone who has learned 11 languages, I know that you do not learn a language in a classroom. But you can try to teach a language in a classroom, or get paid to do so, and that serves the interests of existing teachers.

A recent report by the US Department of Education, indicates that elearning is more effective than classroom learning. The Internet abounds with language learning resources that are more effective and cheaper than government subsidized classrooms. But government inflexibility wants to shut off innovation.

Here are some examples.

1) The Feds introduced a voucher system for immigrant language learning. I approached the Immigration department (CIC) to find out how our own online language learning community, LingQ, could qualify under this voucher program. I was told that ALL immigrant language learning has to conform to the Task Based Language System approach. This form of language learning is not particularly effective, nor widely used elsewhere in the world, and can only be carried out in a classroom.

2) Recently the government announced a Canadian Language Portal, ostensibly to "provide Canadians free access to the language tools that will enable them to use and understand both official languages more easily". In fact, this portal is a 16 million dollar white elephant, of no use to Canadians who want to improve their language skills. It is just a place to promote the publicly funded Canadian language industry. When I applied to have LingQ listed on this site, I was turned down because LingQ charges a fee. In fact all of the public institutions listed on the portal charge a fee or are funded by government. On the other hand, most users of LingQ do so free of charge. Only our elite users pay.

It rankles me that the fact that I have invested a large amount of time and money, and never dipped into the public trough, should disqualify me from participating in any government funded language learning initiatives. It also rankles me that an outdated "1990s vintage portal", that should cost a few thousand dollars to put up, apparently had a budget of 16 million dollars. This is all part of a billion dollar plus boon doggle called the Roadmap to Linguistic Duality.

The issue is not whether immigrants should be helped to learn our official languages, nor whether bilingualism is a worthwhile goal. The issue is the power that is given to the public sector to shut down innovation in an important field, language and the Internet.

I know that I have a vested interest in this, Of course I do. On the other hand, I have been a lumber exporter for over 35 years. I have developed markets for Canadian lumber in the Far East. I have paid millions in taxes. It is only because of my interest in Canada, and in the integration of new immigrants that I got involved in this venture. I did not need it. But now my entrepreneurship and innovation and willingness to take risks, without clamouring for funding, makes me a pariah?

The parasitical bureaucracy is choking off, and not encouraging, innovation in Canada. In the future it will be innovation, not natural resources, nor politically correct smugness, that will determine the success of countries and economies.

I have attached a brief description of LingQ, and a recent comment that I received on my blog about LingQ for your reference.

Thanks for your patience.

Steve Kaufmann

Hi ,

Daniel Poole (danielpoole06@gmail.com) has left you a comment:

Personally, in finding LingQ I truly believe I have saved myself a great deal of time..and possibly even failure. It just works, and the podcasts and advice from Steve have made me aware of the fact, the FACT, that at no time during the course of the aquisition of a language does it have to be a chore. ALL the time, if one choses the right method for themselves, can be enjoyable and be classified a 'leisure' activity. That is now my personally philosopy in regards to languages.

LingQ is both a language learning system and a dynamic community of people with a serious interest in languages. The learning methodology is based on Steve Kaufmann's own experience in learning to speak 11 languages, as well as considerable evidence from research by Stephen Krashen and others on the advantages of focusing on input based activities in language learning.

LingQ is unique in the way it takes advantage of the Internet and enables members to acquire vocabulary and language skills from relevant and interesting language input, wherever they may find it. This way of learning is enjoyable and not stressful, and therefore, for many people, represents the first time they experience success in language learning.

The main learning activity is simply listening to interesting language content on an iPod or MP3 player. From time to time the user needs to read the transcript at LingQ in order to save words and phrases from the text to his or her personal database. As the database grows, it generates Flash Cards, special highlighting of words in new texts, statistical records of activity and achievement, and many other effective learning functions, all of which are customized to each learner's situation.

Learners can interact with native speaker tutors via Skype and can also submit writing for correction. After each online discussion with a tutor, members receive a discussion report, listing the words and phrases that were not used correctly and these are added to the learner's database. Similarly learners can submit writing for correction and will receive a detailed report with the corrected text and explanations of errors. Again, the corrected words and phrases are added to the learner's database.

Members are not only involved in learning one or more foreign language themselves, but also can create content and provide tutoring services in their own language for other members.

Registration at LingQ, and use of many of the resources at LingQ, are free of charge. To use all of LingQ's functions costs $10 a month. However, members have the opportunity to earn much more than this by creating content and providing tutoring services in their own language to other members of the community.

The term LingQ is a play on the word link. Language learning is considered a process of creating links; between words, sounds, meaning and people,and eventually between neurons as new language skills are acquired.

Steve Kaufmann has written a book about language learning called The Way of the Linguist, A Language Learning Odyssey. He maintains a blog called The Linguist on Language, and has a channel at Youtube explaining his language learning philosophy.