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
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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.
