If Your Goal is an Internationally Competitive Education...

[momma2three]

My affluent friends hired a nanny...a college studen t who spoke the language they wanted their children to learn. The Sat. and immersion school opportunities vary locally . Probably the easiest way is to move, and put your child in a school where imm ersion is offered.

 

There is an immersion school in my town which is supposed to be very effective, but there's no way I could afford to send 3 kids there.  I actually think that I would if I could. 

[Mama Geek]

I had 4 years of Spanish in high school and never got fluent in it and haven't had the chance to use it in 20 years.  I have spent about 6 months with a fairly new friend from Columbia.  I see her probably about once a week.  She has come a long way on her English and we practice some Spanish, I am still not comfortable talking in sentences.  I can ask lots of vocabulary and I can use words here and there, but the fact is I am not immersed in it on a daily basis.  Even from week to week dd is not picking it up as fast as I thought she would.  I thought it would come much easier for her.  

 

Since dh is a contractor one of his goals is to take a job overseas.  it would help round out his resume and it would give us a chance to really become fluent in a second language.  The strange thing is the most likely place we would end up is Russia.  

I really don't expect any of us to become fluent in a language other than english until we live in another country.

[regentrude]

DH first started out speaking only German to our kids.  He did hope they'd learn German.  But what started happening is they weren't learning enough from that alone.  So conversations became strained when the kids wanted to talk about more than, "I want a drink of water."  It got to the point where they were crying every day over it.  DH works a lot so maybe he is with them an hour a day.  And there just isn't much to talk about in an hour of general day to day life.

 

My friends where Mom is German and dad is Italian managed to teach their kids both. Dad would ONLY speak Italian at home. And yes, he works a lot, too. Every now and then, he would take the kids on a  weekend outing for Italian language immersion - mom got to stay home. It was a priority in their home. He'd also travel with the kids to see relatives back home, but that was only the icing on the cake; fluency was established in the home.

I am not entirely sure how a child can manage not to learn his father's language if the family consequently adheres to One-parent-one-language - after all, the kid learns to speak the mother's language as well, even if the kids attend a daycare in  yet another language.

But then, none of the multilingual families I know are in a situation like you where one spouse does not speak the other spouse's language; in all those families, both spouses speak the other's language reasonably well. So I suspect this is the reason it did not work in your family, because you can not really do OPOL.

[regentrude]

So the question is... for those of us who ARE interested in our kids learning another language, what is the answer?

• A Spanish after-school program at a local immersion school, two hours 1x per week for $2400 per school year.  We did this, and I'm not convinced that she learned anything so we pulled her out.
• Once a week French classes at the French library in Boston (about 40 minutes away, and parking is expensive) for $170 for a 5 week session.  I will probably do this when all 3 of my kids are old enough.
• The same setup as above, but German at the Goethe Institut for $190
• A private French tutor for $50 an hour
• Sending her off to Concordia Language Villages for a few thousand dollars for a week (including transportation costs)
• There are a few language/culture schools in Boston that are hard to find and fill up fast... kids are expected to spend all Saturday every Saturday during the school year there learning the language and the culture.  I have a friend who did Latvian school growing up, and I know the Goethe Institute has a German one, and I assume there are others.
• Chinese after-school class.  We live near a small city with a huge Chinese population.  There are a few big after school programs, where they learn Chinese language and academic skills.  I've heard tell of a few white/American families who send their kids to these.  They are inexpensive, but kids are expected to go every afternoon.  And one of them was shut down for a while because of its disciplinary techniques, which they claimed were standard in Chinese schools.  I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I think that ignorance is bliss.  I've heard that it re-opened "underground," i.e. not licensed and in a warehouse somewhere.  Sketchy as it sounds, I've actually considered this option.

 

All of the above are INCREDIBLY expensive, but the only way to learn to talk from another person.  Alternately, there are things like Rosetta Stone, which are also expensive and IMO of dubious value for younger kids... probably fine for business travelers and older teens looking for some fun conversational skills.  I know that my sister, who enjoys traveling, loves Rosetta Stone so I'm not knocking it, I'm just dubious about its merits for a 1st grader.

 

It's one thing to criticize Americans for not teaching our kids languages, but realistically, how are we even supposed to do that?  I've advertised on Craigslist and looked at WyzAnt, and nobody is interested in teaching a 1st grader a foreign language.

 

First of all, the problem is so ingrained that it will take along time to remedy, since language education in schools is so poor.

So, discussion what would have to change there would probebly be beyond the scope of this thread.

 

So I would want to address your direct question: how can YOU teach your child a foreign language. The following are my personal thoughts and opinions; I am not a language expert and am merely speaking from the perspective of having learned two foreign languages to fluency myself, self teaching a foreign language as adult, and homeschooling two different foreign languages for my kids.

 

1. Unless there is an immersive environment, I find 1st grade too young to learn a foreign language in a systematic manner. Little kids learn easiest through immersion, but if you don't have any, I would wait a few years to make a textbook approach more effective. It will go much quicker once the student is fluent in reading and writing in his native language.

 

2. I personally find it not effective to use any program that meets once, for 1-2 hours, per week, unless the student studies at home between meetings. So, unless you can get textbooks with CDs and work with your child at home, once a week options are not very effective. Same goes for tutor.

I have been using a tutor once a week, but only after we had already achieved a basic level with books, workbooks and CDs and were able to use the tutor for composition and conversation practice. If the tutor dos all the teaching, you'd need many more tutoring hours.

 

3. I sense a negative undertone in the two bolded phrases: "are expected to spend all Saturday every Saturday" and " kids are expected to go every afternoon. " If you want your child to learn a language, they must put in time on task, at least several hours per week. These programs seem to accomplish just that. Language learning is a commitment and requires time. There are no short cuts; you have to make the time for it, or they won't learn.

 

4. Price.I hear you, yes, those are expensive, and not everybody is able to afford those opportunities. OTOH, many people spend comparable sums and time (every afternoon, or all day Saturday) on sports. For those who can afford the cost, it is a question of priorities what they want to invest in.

 

 

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

So the question is... for those of us who ARE interested in our kids learning another language, what is the answer?  It really isn't as easy as finding our Friendly Neighborhood Immigrant and asking them to teach our kid.  Right now my language options are:

 

• A Spanish after-school program at a local immersion school, two hours 1x per week for $2400 per school year.  We did this, and I'm not convinced that she learned anything so we pulled her out.
• Once a week French classes at the French library in Boston (about 40 minutes away, and parking is expensive) for $170 for a 5 week session.  I will probably do this when all 3 of my kids are old enough.
• The same setup as above, but German at the Goethe Institut for $190
• A private French tutor for $50 an hour
• Sending her off to Concordia Language Villages for a few thousand dollars for a week (including transportation costs)
• There are a few language/culture schools in Boston that are hard to find and fill up fast... kids are expected to spend all Saturday every Saturday during the school year there learning the language and the culture.  I have a friend who did Latvian school growing up, and I know the Goethe Institute has a German one, and I assume there are others.
• Chinese after-school class.  We live near a small city with a huge Chinese population.  There are a few big after school programs, where they learn Chinese language and academic skills.  I've heard tell of a few white/American families who send their kids to these.  They are inexpensive, but kids are expected to go every afternoon.  And one of them was shut down for a while because of its disciplinary techniques, which they claimed were standard in Chinese schools.  I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I think that ignorance is bliss.  I've heard that it re-opened "underground," i.e. not licensed and in a warehouse somewhere.  Sketchy as it sounds, I've actually considered this option.

 

All of the above are INCREDIBLY expensive, but the only way to learn to talk from another person.  Alternately, there are things like Rosetta Stone, which are also expensive and IMO of dubious value for younger kids... probably fine for business travelers and older teens looking for some fun conversational skills.  I know that my sister, who enjoys traveling, loves Rosetta Stone so I'm not knocking it, I'm just dubious about its merits for a 1st grader.

 

It's one thing to criticize Americans for not teaching our kids languages, but realistically, how are we even supposed to do that?  I've advertised on Craigslist and looked at WyzAnt, and nobody is interested in teaching a 1st grader a foreign language.

 

I think we hear so often that young children are particularly receptive to language, that we come to believe that if we can't give language lessons to a young child, then all hope is lost.  Perhaps this is true for truly different language types- East vs. West- but my experience is that it is not true for vaguely similar languages. 

 

I learned French in four years of high school, plus 3 semesters of university.  Was I fluent at that point?  NO!  Would any number of classes ever produce fluency from that point on?  NO!  I studied abroad in a language immersion program.  My French skills doubled in one semester.  I continued to study abroad, married my husband, and now feel perfectly comfortable in French.  All of this started at age 13, not 5, and probably could have started even later than that. 

 

Don't feel like a time bomb is ticking over your head.  NOTHING will create fluency except immersion- either by having a family language different from the local language, or actually going to live elsewhere for a while. 

 

[Rachel TX]

I want my kids to be conversational in at least three foreign languages. My goal is not fluency. At this point, my goal is basic conversation that I learn along with them and practice daily. Today we practiced counting in French. Little by little...

 

We focus on a country each month for our world cultures study.

 

We study geography every day. I want them to be able to locate every country on the map.

 

We study world history. We won't spend two years studying our state's history like I did growing up.

 

I don't plan for my kids to attend school overseas, but I want them to feel like they can live anywhere they want when they become adults.

[Arcadia]

 

• .....kids are expected to spend all Saturday every Saturday during the school year there learning the language and the culture.
• Chinese after-school class.  ...........They are inexpensive, but kids are expected to go every afternoon.  

 

My boys' German class is $275 for one kid, $510 for two kids (sibling discount) and it is for ten sessions of 2.5hrs.  The school is a non-profit.  Maybe check for sibling discount if you are thinking of one a week lessons.

 

For German and Chinese, as with other languages, daily practice is required. Once a week class or tutoring is not enough for improvement without the daily effort.  My kids has German homework every week.  They have to do a few pages of their workbook, revise their vocabulary words and read an assigned German story book. We listen to classical music on Deutsche Klassik so that my boys can listen to the person explaining the classical works in German.  I would find German cartoons for my kids to watch. 

 

My hubby and I both started learning German when we were twenty-one so age is not a factor. We didn't find it that hard to get the pronunciation right.   My hubby was able to read and understand work emails in German from Dresden.  The Dresden engineers wrote their emails in both English and German and the German version is more interesting as the English version was politely tone down.

 

I learnt Italian terms from music theory exams. Language is just like music or art or sports. Even if the child has innate talent, effort is still required to take it to the next level.

[Matryoshka]

So the question is... for those of us who ARE interested in our kids learning another language, what is the answer?  It really isn't as easy as finding our Friendly Neighborhood Immigrant and asking them to teach our kid.  Right now my language options are:

 

• A Spanish after-school program at a local immersion school, two hours 1x per week for $2400 per school year.  We did this, and I'm not convinced that she learned anything so we pulled her out.
• Once a week French classes at the French library in Boston (about 40 minutes away, and parking is expensive) for $170 for a 5 week session.  I will probably do this when all 3 of my kids are old enough.
• The same setup as above, but German at the Goethe Institut for $190
• A private French tutor for $50 an hour
• Sending her off to Concordia Language Villages for a few thousand dollars for a week (including transportation costs)
• There are a few language/culture schools in Boston that are hard to find and fill up fast... kids are expected to spend all Saturday every Saturday during the school year there learning the language and the culture.  I have a friend who did Latvian school growing up, and I know the Goethe Institute has a German one, and I assume there are others.
• Chinese after-school class.  We live near a small city with a huge Chinese population.  There are a few big after school programs, where they learn Chinese language and academic skills.  I've heard tell of a few white/American families who send their kids to these.  They are inexpensive, but kids are expected to go every afternoon.  And one of them was shut down for a while because of its disciplinary techniques, which they claimed were standard in Chinese schools.  I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I think that ignorance is bliss.  I've heard that it re-opened "underground," i.e. not licensed and in a warehouse somewhere.  Sketchy as it sounds, I've actually considered this option.

 

All of the above are INCREDIBLY expensive, but the only way to learn to talk from another person.  Alternately, there are things like Rosetta Stone, which are also expensive and IMO of dubious value for younger kids... probably fine for business travelers and older teens looking for some fun conversational skills.  I know that my sister, who enjoys traveling, loves Rosetta Stone so I'm not knocking it, I'm just dubious about its merits for a 1st grader.

 

It's one thing to criticize Americans for not teaching our kids languages, but realistically, how are we even supposed to do that?  I've advertised on Craigslist and looked at WyzAnt, and nobody is interested in teaching a 1st grader a foreign language.

 

Hi!  You live near me. :)  My kids are the ones giving up all their Saturdays, it will be from K-11th.  It hasn't been that big a deal.  It's extremely inexpensive if you go by hours: $840 for the first kid, and less for each subsequent one, for a full school year of 3 hours of weekly instruction by native speakers, surrounded by lots of native speaking (and language learning) kids - that's about $8.75/hour for one kid, and even much less per hour per kid if you have more.  The German Saturday School is not run by the Goethe Institut, nor is it affiliated.  It's been around since the 1800's, believe it or not.  It was at a BU building in downtown Boston, but last year moved to Lexington (free parking both places).  I actually liked it in Boston (further away) since it was nice to be in the city once a week.  Yes, there are weekend language schools for lots of other languages too. Chinese schools are so thick you can throw a rock and hit one.  It is harder if the parents are both monolingual, but I think they're a fantastic deal. Some people drive over an hour to give up their Saturday mornings to be there (fortunately it's not quite so far for me). The PP who said it's about priorities is right.

 

[regentrude]

  My kids are the ones giving up all their Saturdays, it will be from K-11th.  It hasn't been that big a deal.  It's extremely inexpensive if you go by hours: $840 for the first kid, and less for each subsequent one, for a full school year of 3 hours of weekly instruction by native speakers, surrounded by lots of native speaking (and language learning) kids - that's about $8.75/hour for one kid, and even much less per hour per kid if you have more.  The German Saturday School is not run by the Goethe Institut, nor is it affiliated.... Yes, there are weekend language schools for lots of other languages too. Chinese schools are so thick you can throw a rock and hit one.  It is harder if the parents are both monolingual, but I think they're a fantastic deal. Some people drive over an hour to give up their Saturday mornings to be there (fortunately it's not quite so far for me). The PP who said it's about priorities is right.

 

 

Jealous!!!

We are 100 miles from the nearest city that would have these opportunities :-(

[Laura Corin]

My boys did indeed go to Chinese class every Saturday while they were home educating in Scotland.  It was a very cheap community class but they were expected to do a lot of work between classes to keep up.  The whole family travelled an hour on the train to Edinburgh for the day each week.  

 

Learning languages is not easy and repays hard work.  For comparison, when I learned French in middle school I had a class every day (so around four hours a week) plus probably two hours of homework.

 

Hobbes now has a Chinese tutor.  He has a one-hour class once a week and probably puts in about three hours of homework a week.  I think that's a minimum for making any kind of progress.

 

L

[SkateLeft]

I wish I could come up with a way to make it happen, but thus far that is all there has been with it.  ME pushing for it to happen.  DH is the one with the "gift" to pass on.  Not me.  But he made no effort. 

 

I'm right there with you. If I was the one who spoke Hungarian, things would have been different in our house.

 

[NASDAQ]

IB you need an IB school for. I just suggested it as an example of a world-class education.

 

International A levels can be sat by anyone. But they aren't the same as English A-levels. England split off.

[momma2three]

Hi!  You live near me. :)  My kids are the ones giving up all their Saturdays, it will be from K-11th.  It hasn't been that big a deal.  It's extremely inexpensive if you go by hours: $840 for the first kid, and less for each subsequent one, for a full school year of 3 hours of weekly instruction by native speakers, surrounded by lots of native speaking (and language learning) kids - that's about $8.75/hour for one kid, and even much less per hour per kid if you have more.  The German Saturday School is not run by the Goethe Institut, nor is it affiliated.  It's been around since the 1800's, believe it or not.  It was at a BU building in downtown Boston, but last year moved to Lexington (free parking both places).  I actually liked it in Boston (further away) since it was nice to be in the city once a week.  Yes, there are weekend language schools for lots of other languages too. Chinese schools are so thick you can throw a rock and hit one.  It is harder if the parents are both monolingual, but I think they're a fantastic deal. Some people drive over an hour to give up their Saturday mornings to be there (fortunately it's not quite so far for me). The PP who said it's about priorities is right.

 

 

That is soooo cool that you go!  I had it bookmarked for years, from the time my oldest was a baby, but then when she was actually old enough to sign up my husband nixed driving into Boston every Saturday morning :(  I was pretty bummed, but it is his weekend, too.  They only do intake in K and 1st, right?  I'm trying to remember.  

[Matryoshka]

That is soooo cool that you go!  I had it bookmarked for years, from the time my oldest was a baby, but then when she was actually old enough to sign up my husband nixed driving into Boston every Saturday morning :(  I was pretty bummed, but it is his weekend, too.  They only do intake in K and 1st, right?  I'm trying to remember.  

 

No, you still have time!  They take non-German speakers up till third grade!  One of my younger dd's friends joined in 3rd grade.  It's also much easier to get in since they moved to Lexington - one of the reasons was that the waiting list had gotten ridiculously long, and they needed room to expand.  They now have 3 classes in some grades.  There are also adult German classes on-site for non-German speaking parents who want to be able to help their kids (or just learn alongside). 

 

Is Lexington better or worse for you than Boston?

[momma2three]

No, you still have time!  They take non-German speakers up till third grade!  One of my younger dd's friends joined in 3rd grade.  It's also much easier to get in since they moved to Lexington - one of the reasons was that the waiting list had gotten ridiculously long, and they needed room to expand.  They now have 3 classes in some grades.  There are also adult German classes on-site for non-German speaking parents who want to be able to help their kids (or just learn alongside). 

 

Is Lexington better or worse for you than Boston?

 

Lexington is better, because there's parking.  

 

And I'd heard that it was nearly impossible to get in, which I think was another reason why I hadn't bothered.  A friend told me that it was mainly for ex-pats and if nobody spoke German at home my kids wouldn't fit in anyway.

 

Hmm, maybe I'll register for next year.  You're inspiring me.

[boscopup]

I think we hear so often that young children are particularly receptive to language, that we come to believe that if we can't give language lessons to a young child, then all hope is lost.  Perhaps this is true for truly different language types- East vs. West- but my experience is that it is not true for vaguely similar languages. 

 

I learned French in four years of high school, plus 3 semesters of university.  Was I fluent at that point?  NO!  Would any number of classes ever produce fluency from that point on?  NO!  I studied abroad in a language immersion program.  My French skills doubled in one semester.  I continued to study abroad, married my husband, and now feel perfectly comfortable in French.  All of this started at age 13, not 5, and probably could have started even later than that. 

 

Don't feel like a time bomb is ticking over your head.  NOTHING will create fluency except immersion- either by having a family language different from the local language, or actually going to live elsewhere for a while. 

 

 

Yes!

 

My brother took German in high school, then took more German in college. He wasn't fluent, though he was conversational. Then he did a Junior Year Abroad program in Germany (during college), and while the other kids around him would speak English with each other, he ONLY spoke German the entire time he was over there. Guess what? He came back thinking and dreaming in German. He didn't learn his first bit of German (or any other language besides English) until he was 14, and he's fluent now as an adult (he's a professor and still uses his German a lot in his work).

 

I took Spanish and German in high school and more German in college. I couldn't hold a conversation with anyone in either language. I always got A's in my classes, but I wasn't immersed, and I wasn't really forced into conversation either. I can understand some Spanish and German when reading, but I can't talk to people in either language.

[regentrude]

I took Spanish and German in high school and more German in college. I couldn't hold a conversation with anyone in either language. I always got A's in my classes, but I wasn't immersed, and I wasn't really forced into conversation either. I can understand some Spanish and German when reading, but I can't talk to people in either language.

 

That indicates a problem with the quality of your foreign language instruction. A good foreign language class forces conversation, writing, active language use from the very beginning. (This seems epidemic; none of the US foreign language materials I have examined incorporate extensive reading, composition and dialogue as European programs do. Nan has written about this in other threads.)

[mommymilkies]

But, like you said, you grew up learning English and Russian in addition to German. Pretty practical for the time and place. Europeans are in close proximity to other languages. Quebecers have access to spoken French all the time. You may be right about the different point of view (I don't know), but Europeans are still getting credit for being multi-lingual and having a greater respect for language learning when in reality it is much more of a practical necessity for them. 

I think this has a lot to do with it.  Sure there are a few areas in the country where learning other languages is close to a necessity.  But through my travels and living all over the place, I have not lived anywhere it has been an issue.  I have never needed to speak Spanish, Mandarin, French, anything but English.  

 

We have three close neighbors who are native Spanish speakers.  The above is our experience.  They are NOT in any way interested in helping anyone else learn Spanish.

This has been my experience, as well.  My Mother had a friend who immigrated from China when we were young, and she often spoke Cantonese to us.  That was wonderful.  But even with exchange students in school, they wouldn't speak their language to us.  They were here to learn English, they said.  One of my best friends was from Poitiers.  She never once spoke French to me, even when I begged her for help on my pronunciation (I was in French National Honors Society). Dh's exchange students also will not speak it.  We've asked a few for tutoring with our kids.  Nope.  I feel very jealous when I hear someone finds a native speaker who will tutor!

 

I do teach my kids languages for the sake of just learning languages and other cultures, the best I can give.  We are in rural America.  English is the *only* language you need here unless you really feel like flipping the instruction booklet over and doing things the hard way.  Even Mexican immigrants are not exceedingly common and speak English well.  The closest I've come to needing other languages has been in one major hospital I worked at (not here) where we often needed rarer languages (for this area) like Hungarian or Afrikaans.  Quite simply for most Americans, another language is unnecessary for daily life.  My children aren't getting away that easily, though.  I focus heavily on languages.  My oldest is learning French and Latin with me, and Gaelic, old Viking languages, Greek, and Welsh on her own.  IME, it was relatively easy to pick up the meanings of Spanish words once I knew French and my kids have found that to be true, as well.  Learning two languages opens you up to figure more out. :)

 

:lurk5:  This thread.  I don't have the money to send my kids to International schools, but my oldest fantasizes about the ability. :)

[alef]

I struggle with teaching foreign languages, even thigh I speak several. I learned mostly through immersion living and going to school overseas, my own kids don't have that opportunity. We currently work on Chinese with a tutor once a week supplemented by other resources at home, but I am also supposed to be teaching Spanish and we are not making much progress.

[Matryoshka]

Lexington is better, because there's parking.  

 

And I'd heard that it was nearly impossible to get in, which I think was another reason why I hadn't bothered.  A friend told me that it was mainly for ex-pats and if nobody spoke German at home my kids wouldn't fit in anyway.

 

Hmm, maybe I'll register for next year.  You're inspiring me.

 

You should have checked better ;) - there was tons of parking in Boston; BU gave us a lot where we could park for free.  Lexington is tougher as it's a middle school that really only plans on parking spaces for teachers, and then during soccer season we're competing with the soccer crowd for the already-limited parking.  I tend to drop off usually now, and head to a B&N.  But it is in the 'burbs, and like 5 minutes from the Burlington mall etc., so lots of parking around and things to do.  It was also really hard to get into, but I think it's gotten much better since the move.  But I'd still submit in the application (it's actually online now) as soon as it's available - don't wait.

 

There are a lot of ex-pats.  I like that, as it means many of the my kids' peers really speak German.  Then there are a lot of families like mine with one fluent parent.  There are less families where neither parent speaks it, but there are some there.  There's an Italian girl in my dd's class - they lived there for a while so she picked it up, but her parents don't speak it.  There's another homeschooling family with two boys where neither parent spoke much at the beginning - they've been taking the adult classes - and their boys are in the upper class.  They do split by level.  I think it might be easier now, as I have a feeling the third classes in the lower grades may have a larger percentage of students who don't have any German at home.  It does help to visit Germany to do some immersion.  Many of the ex-pats or 1st generation go home to visit relatives over the summer.

[SarahW]

My friends where Mom is German and dad is Italian managed to teach their kids both. Dad would ONLY speak Italian at home. And yes, he works a lot, too. Every now and then, he would take the kids on a  weekend outing for Italian language immersion - mom got to stay home. It was a priority in their home. He'd also travel with the kids to see relatives back home, but that was only the icing on the cake; fluency was established in the home.

I am not entirely sure how a child can manage not to learn his father's language if the family consequently adheres to One-parent-one-language - after all, the kid learns to speak the mother's language as well, even if the kids attend a daycare in  yet another language.

But then, none of the multilingual families I know are in a situation like you where one spouse does not speak the other spouse's language; in all those families, both spouses speak the other's language reasonably well. So I suspect this is the reason it did not work in your family, because you can not really do OPOL.

 

:iagree:

 

 

It's a combination of things.  Definitely the fact I don't speak German is a huge factor. 

 

:iagree:

 

 

 

It's a struggle, to be sure. We just pulled CP from Dutch Language school (more DH decision than mine) because it was expensive and once-a-week of above his head LA was causing him stress. We're hoping to keep up with learning at home, and rejoin later (and hopefully they'll let us repeat his Groep, but they have accreditation to worry about).

 

DH is home a lot, but he is the one who doesn't find Dutch to be a very useful language to know, so it is hard for me to motivate him to teach us. I'm the one who found the language program we're using (good materials are really hard to find), but it's not something I can really do on my own.

 

Meanwhile, dear Dutch cousin who is the same age as CP is learning English quite rapidly....and the only native English speaker he talks to regularly is me, by Skype.

 

As for starting early or late - One advantage of early, I think, is that it normalizes the brain to switch. Maybe I'm just language-deficient, but I have a really hard time connecting the foreign words I say to their meaning. To me it is like speaking a secret made-up gibberish language. CP, however, who used to be bilingual, has a much easier time connecting with new foreign words.

 

 

So, with OPOL, I speak English to DH, and DH speaks Dutch to me? I mean, when we first moved back to America I thought OPOL would just work out, I speak English, DH speaks Dutch. But, yeah, since I don't know Dutch, DH speaks English to me, and that just carries over to CP. And now CP is no longer bilingual. So it didn't work, argh. So in the morning DH should ask if I want coffee in Dutch? And then if I don't understand something I ask, in English, to explain?

[stripe]

I always wondered why we are so lame here in the US with foreign language (I do want to say I cannot speak for everyone in the US or all places in the US regarding this, just MY personal experiences here).  

I can tell you why. Because people should learn English, dammit.  Because people think being bilingual means you don't speak English.

[stripe]

We have three close neighbors who are native Spanish speakers.  The above is our experience.  They are NOT in any way interested in helping anyone else learn Spanish.

But it's a big responsibility to teach someone a language. How interested are any of us in teaching someone else English or another language? I know a fair number of Spanish-speaking nannies who teach the kids Spanish. But they're being paid for it!

[Pawz4me]

But it's a big responsibility to teach someone a language. How interested are any of us in teaching someone else English or another language? I know a fair number of Spanish-speaking nannies who teach the kids Spanish. But they're being paid for it!

 

I wasn't referring to formal teaching by any stretch of the imagination.  Nobody even wants to carry on an informal conversation so that one can attempt to practice what one already knows.

[Arcadia]

I wasn't referring to formal teaching by any stretch of the imagination.  Nobody even wants to carry on an informal conversation so that one can attempt to practice what one already knows.

 

There are a few factors at work.  Firstly, there is the herd instinct.  When a group of people at the park or any other place are chatting in the same language, they tend to "close in".  Secondly, if it is one to one, I have a bad habit of talking very fast in English and Chinese.  I talk at normal speed in German since I am not proficient at it.  So that would mean I have to conscientiously slow down if I am talking to a "less proficient" speaker.   Thirdly, there is also the amount of vocabulary of the person. If I were to discuss world politics and economics, I would have no problem doing that in Chinese but run out of the correct words in German. So that restricts my informal conversations with a fluent German speaker.

 

I find cashiers (when it is not busy hour) and grandparents at parks are the most willing people to strike up informal conversations with in their native languages. 

[stripe]

That's my problem with being unmotivated to learn German. I don't want to talk about what I had for breakfast or how to buy tickets at the train station.  Especially since my time with DH is limited.

I have amazed a brother-in-law with my knowledge of words for diarrhea, gas, vomiting, and a whole host of other useful phrases. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, seemed to think it was perfectly natural that I would know how to say all that. :lol:

[Crimson Wife]

Why, for example, aren't people in areas with large Hispanic populations fluent in Spanish? Don't tell me it is lack of access. It is lack of interest.

If I had realized in 7th grade when I had to choose a foreign language that a quarter-century later I would be living in a state where the single largest racial/ethnic group is Latino/a, I would've chosen Spanish rather than French to study. But in New England in the early '90's, French actually seemed like it would be the more useful language given the proximity to Montreal. I never even met a single Latino/a until I was in college (seriously).

 

As an adult, learning Spanish hasn't been a priority. Frankly, it irks me that I should have to be the one to spend the money and effort required to bridge the communication barrier when the immigrants are the ones choosing to come here. If I chose to emigrate to Barcelona, I'd make it a priority to learn the language of my new home- I wouldn't take the attitude that it's the Spaniards' job to learn English.

[regentrude]

As an adult, learning Spanish hasn't been a priority. Frankly, it irks me that I should have to be the one to spend the money and effort required to bridge the communication barrier when the immigrants are the ones choosing to come here.

 

Ouch.

First of all, many immigrants actually can speak English.

Second, there are also Hispanic families that have been settled in now US territory since way before English speaking people arrived.

 

Historically, the English speaking immigrants have been of the attitude that they do not need to learn the languages of the peoples already settled here.

[SorrelZG]

Although you might not move to Barcelona expecting the locals to communicate with you in English, plenty do have that attitude. I've encountered it where I live: English is the "global language" - "everyone" is learning English - therefore it is a waste of my time and effort to go to the trouble of learning the local language.

 

:-/

[quark]

The utilitarian argument about foreign languages has always confused me.  Are we not all here trying to give our children well-rounded educations, including the beauties of the worlds of arts and sciences, rather than just teaching them a set of life skills?  I am not likely to put Shakespeare, cell biology or higher mathematics to any practical use, but learning about them is an enriching part of general education.  

 

My life would have been poorer if I had never heard my father tell me about how my personality changed when I spoke Chinese, or if I had never laughed at Moliere in the original language.  

 

L

 

Late to the conversation but I had to agree! I speak, read and write 3 languages, English being one of them, but my favorite songs are actually from a fourth language that I am teaching myself through movies and musicals. My son notices how my face, my whole vibe changes when I sing in that fourth language and how much less animated I am when I sing in English and the other two (one of which is my mother tongue). There's just something about the sound, the "mellifluousness" of words strung together to a tune in that fourth language that makes me want to dance when I sing. When I was younger and learning Cantonese from Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow movies, I felt my body language changing with the words when I used them too but it was a different feeling and only later did I learn that I was inadvertently using swear words (gulp!).

 

My husband speaks a little Mandarin and reads some of it too. He is also learning Korean and Japanese. I still remember feeling goosebumps when he explained how the character for "country" (in traditional Mandarin I believe?) is actually a boundary that encompasses strokes that stand for people, and I think it was land and the military? When you read "country" in Mandarin, you have that image of protection, citizenry etc. ingrained in your mind, something you won't necessarily think about when reading "country" in Roman alphabets.  He is a highly techy/ analytical guy and doesn't have a lot of patience for touchy-feely things but had to learn to accept it because business negotiations can succeed or fail depending on linguistic and cultural nuances. How a "no" in one language might not mean the "no" that we understand in English based on the idea that you don't say "no" to elders in that culture due to disrespect and so on. He is learning the languages as a life skill (work skills) but is also realizing what he is missing (cultural literacy etc) by not learning them earlier in his career.

[Hannah]

IB you need an IB school for. I just suggested it as an example of a world-class education.

 

International A levels can be sat by anyone. But they aren't the same as English A-levels. England split off.

 

I did not realize there was a difference. 

Dd is doing the IGCSE, AS and A-levels through Cambridge International Exams. 

How do these differ from those in the UK and are they accepted by UK universities?  The qualifications are accepted for university entry here in South Africa.

[NASDAQ]

I think Americans don't learn other languages because they aren't particularly close to any other country (and the largest border is with Canada), and because they already speak English. English is the lingua franca of the world right now.

 

Canada has spent approximately nine bazillion dollars trying to get people bilingual. The results have been uninspiring. French Canadians speak French and range from "getting by" to fluent in English, with a heavy lean towards fluent in Montreal. Everyone else speaks less and less French as one moves away from Quebec. By the time one gets out to Alberta or BC, no one speaks French, even though they took it from fourth grade at the latest. You don't have to so you don't.

 

If all of the best movies came out in French, and all of the good TV was in French, and the bulk of the science and academic writing was in French, people would know a lot more French. As it is, you mainly use it for not having to turn your cereal box around to know what the ingredients are.

[Arcadia]

Dd is doing the IGCSE, AS and A-levels through Cambridge International Exams.

How do these differ from those in the UK and are they accepted by UK universities?

They are accepted by UK universities and also by AU universities. Yout child would be applying under international admissions catergory.

I don't know how they differ in syllabus compare to the UK ones. I took the international ones.

[Arcadia]

If all of the best movies came out in French, and all of the good TV was in French, and the bulk of the science and academic writing was in French, people would know a lot more French. As it is, you mainly use it for not having to turn your cereal box around to know what the ingredients are.

The german technology/engineering books was what made my hubby and I pick german as a third language.

It does comes in useful for reading ingredient labels of Belgian chocolates and German coffee.

[Laura Corin]

I did not realize there was a difference. 

Dd is doing the IGCSE, AS and A-levels through Cambridge International Exams. 

How do these differ from those in the UK and are they accepted by UK universities?  The qualifications are accepted for university entry here in South Africa.

 

It's not problem - they are absolutely accepted by UK universities.  The international exams are more traditional: the UK ones went more in the direction of coursework, but this is now being reversed.  If anything, the international versions are more highly regarded: some of the top private schools in the UK do them in preference to the standard domestic ones.

 

Don't worry.

 

L

[SarahW]

 

If all of the best movies came out in French, and all of the good TV was in French, and the bulk of the science and academic writing was in French, people would know a lot more French. As it is, you mainly use it for not having to turn your cereal box around to know what the ingredients are.

 

 

I think the "lingua franca" and pervasiveness of English is more of the reason than anything else. Before I came along, the time of the year  my Dutch in-laws would use their English the most was when they would vacation in Scandinavia. And over half their television programming is American shows with subtitles. Movies are nearly 100% English. Even many of the native rock bands sing in English. DH learned English so well because of his love for Bob Marley (and he understands Jamaicans far better than I....)

 

The French (in France) however, apparently still think that lingua franca means exactly that. DH and I were quite surprised about the number of French people working along the main highway in Normandy who didn't know a lick of English. I've met plenty of French people who speak fluent English, so I know they exist. But my DH was absolutely shocked that people who work near a major ferry route (never mind that it was the main ferry route to England) wouldn't bother to learn basic English.

 

It's a mindset, which is based on some real factors. But even so, becoming too comfortable in it is dangerous.

[stripe]

I guess that depends on your volunteer interests. I taught reading with Literacy Volunteers of America. Students range from inner city 10th plus generation to just arrived, here. I quickly found out I was teaching English more than how to read. The taxpayers in this area also fund free English instruction thru the school system for adults. Many businesses did the same before the recession, and paid the employees to attend. There is no such effort from any community that uses its mother language amongst itself, and English in mixed settings.

The fact is that quite a few immigrants work multiple jobs, therefore leaving them minimal time to help others learn their language. This is one reason why some are less successful at passing it along to their children.

 

Additionally, not everyone feels qualified to teach others (I surely don't, although I speak English just fine), and may not know how to organize a group. People may feel that no one is interested, whether that's true or not. Coupled with low interest on the part of native English speakers, is it a wonder these don't succeed? Also, paid programs are in some cases associated with more dedication on the part of the participants, or the perception of higher quality, than are free programs.

 

But in my town, there are groups ranging from English-language groups that welcome both immigrants from many cultures and non-immigrants as part of welcoming newcomers, to ones for people to talk in other languages (I verified ones in Spanish, French,German, Italian, Chinese, and Russian). I also found a database of local individuals interested in being language partners in languages from Arabic to Bengali to Swedish to Thai to Turkish to Wolof. So, there are people. But it often helps to have a structure in place to organize such activities, as well as people who have free time to participate.

[boscopup]

That indicates a problem with the quality of your foreign language instruction. A good foreign language class forces conversation, writing, active language use from the very beginning. (This seems epidemic; none of the US foreign language materials I have examined incorporate extensive reading, composition and dialogue as European programs do. Nan has written about this in other threads.)

 

Exactly. The foreign language instruction in the public schools is not good. So taking what they're not doing well in the first place and moving it earlier and adding in more languages may end up a waste of time here, if they aren't going to fix the parts that don't work. :tongue_smilie: Obviously, the language immersion schools are probably different. I don't think those are available anywhere near me.

 

I'd like my kids to learn Spanish, but they likely won't get any better than a public school type of education in it from me. Thankfully, I *do* have some folks at church that are fluent in Spanish, so my kids could talk to that family. But as far as materials to teach with and such... I get lost and give up. My oldest is doing Latin right now because it doesn't rely on conversation, and it is benefiting him. He'll need formal language instruction for high school credits later on, of course.

 

[Mbelle]

I was just curiously skimming through this thread.  I have always been interested in language. I think it's because I like to talk, so I have more people to talk to!  I did live in Germany for 3 years and took language classes and of course had every opportunity to speak German.  Now, my kids have no interest whatsoever.  DD is set on learning Italian.  I feel I've lost my enthusiasm a little bit for foreign language.  Maybe I'm just old! LOL

 

The other thing that interested me was education in different places.  My experience with Germany and Switzerland (where dh lived) is that the kids were given an enormous amount of work and a very rigorous education.  Swiss kids went to school on Saturday(I think every other Sat morning). (One of my friends lived above an adorable swiss school with multi-age class rooms and their little indoor slippers all in cute order in the hallway!) They did indeed know a lot. Then it seemed like they went off to university and took 8- 10 years to get a degree.  I very often met people who were 30 years old who lived at home and had never had a job.  It seemed like they just needed to de-stress after years of high level studying.  It almost seemed like the opposite from my educational experience.  I was in my 20's then so I wasn't really thinking about education in the same way I do now.

[Alicia64]

I haven't read the entire thread so forgive me for interjecting, but re: learning languages. I have a good friend from India who learned English in school -- of course -- but got really good at it by watching I Love Lucy! :lol:

 

Cracked me up.

 

Don't shoot me, but if Italian were the International-finance language or French or German. . . I'd be learning it in a heartbeat. English is the agreed upon language for whatever reason.

 

Another way to pick up languages is to order Nemo, Beauty and the Beast etc. in the language you're studying.

 

Edit: I'm reading the Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way. Fabulous book that explains how Poland progressed to do well in testing right along w/ Finland. South Korea is doing well, but OMG! those poor kids go to school from early in the a.m. to around 11 p.m. at night. The country loathes the set-up but can't seem to get themselves to break from it.

 

I highly recommend the book.

 

Alley

[Walking-Iris]

Yeah see that is another thing.  Most language classes I have taken, even at the university level, were not very good.  It was basically studying vocabulary, some basic phrases, and some very basic grammar.  That is it.  So without having real people to converse with, what is the point?  I think it's depressing to hear that people spent 4 years studying a language and can't even have a basic conversation.  What is the point?  That's like studying an instrument for 4 years and not being able to play a single song!  Depressing!

 

I haven't read this whole thread, but i'm interested since foreign languages is my homeschooling kryptonite. 

 

I spent two years in high school studying French and I can't have a basic conversation, but I can read it pretty well. Our teacher was from Morocco and taught the French classes and would occasionally go on an Arabic rant when frustrated with us. She never offered to translate her rants! ;)

 

Most of my French class was devoted to learning French culture, grammar and vocabulary. We wrote and read it so much that to me it's a print language. Something I recognize written down, but hearing it is another matter. Our final assignment was reading and translating The Little Prince from French back into English. So basically it was pointless, although interesting. 

 

Our local high school only offers Spanish and a Latin club. 

 

I do think  there's a bit of racist feelings in America about learning Spanish. I'll just call a spade a spade. 

 

I do think immersion is best and hard to come by in America. My college roommate for a time was Korean and would have long conversations on the phone in Korean, play Korean music, and occasionally watch a Korean VHS. I never really paid much attention. I was sitting there studying and she was sitting there talking on the phone. But I heard it almost every other day, and one day I realized that I was beginning to understand a bit of the jist of her end of the conversation. She taught me a few phrases and how to write a few words and names. 

 

It's the closest I've come to actually understanding another language.

 

I do agree that in Europe and Asia etc...there likely is more opportunity to find oneself immersed in another language as well as English. Here in America...nope. English is a universal language for economies and business and politics. It's important for others to learn it. I don't think this is America's fault---it goes way back in history to England's colonizing history. 

 

I do feel that America needs to spend more time at the very least teaching Spanish to all children starting early. But then again schools work so hard to get ESL students to stop speaking their language in schools. 

 

I don't know how to do it honestly. Other than learning some basics and playing around with Duolingo, languages haven't been big in our homeschool. I just don't know enough. 

 

I also do feel that there is an aptitude for it. Some people pick them up easily and some struggle. Without an outlet for actually using a language and speaking to others and needing to use it to get along....then really it can only be an intellectual exercise in grammar, vocabulary, literature etc. It seems like something someone would make themselves memorize. 

[NASDAQ]

I've had that experience as well in France. Thank goodness I can get by in French.

 

Quebec goes to massive lengths to preserve the French in the face of English hegemony. You aren't allowed to put up a sign in a language other than French unless it's got the French on top and the French is some percentage larger than the other language. The language laws are myriad and it does put Quebec at a disadvantage internationally. Companies aren't locating in Montreal anymore, partly for that reason. The ridiculously high taxes don't help either.

[Stars]

This is one of those rare threads where I find myself agreeing with practically everybody, even the posters who are disagreeing with each other.  I concur with both the viewpoint that fluency in foreign languages is very worthwhile and with the idea that it is difficult to acquire here because it is not practical.  Oh, AND with the opinion that even though foreign language is important, it's maybe not the best bang for the PS tax dollar bucks (guess that would be the American in me?).  As I am not relying on the education provided by PS tax dollars for my children, however, I hope to give my kids a better foreign language experience than the one I had.  In two years of HS French and a minor in college, I never had a native speaker as a teacher -- and I can recognize a few French words in print, at best.

 

Actually, this thread has illustrated for me how inadequate my own ideas of foreign language requirements may be in comparison to the global standard.  Thanks for the eye-opener.  I may not be able to raise my children to that standard, but now I can feel guilt because I'll know what they're missing!

[kubiac]

  I may not be able to raise my children to that standard, but now I can feel guilt because I'll know what they're missing!

 

LOL right there with you on the guilt train!

[Rosie_0801]

Actually, this thread has illustrated for me how inadequate my own ideas of foreign language requirements may be in comparison to the global standard.  Thanks for the eye-opener.  I may not be able to raise my children to that standard, but now I can feel guilt because I'll know what they're missing!

 

That's always been one of the most fun things about this board. The most kick arse education I could ever imagine was other people's idea of barely respectable. So now I'm a welfare bum with upper middle class ideas on education! :rofl:

[Korrale]

Nice that you can, but we cannot. Verizon's map of 4G coverage is optimistic, and cable and satellite have their own issues.

 

Internet has only been available in the last 10 years or so in speeds that work for video. Some areas still do not have Internet that is good enough to watch a movie (ie. don't bother buying Netflix up here).

 

Most Americans don't live in a big city, where people speak a foreign language. Where I am now, I can pick up French radio, am, after dark. That's it. My cable TV does not have any foreign language programming.

 

When we were in Europe, OTOH, we could flip through channels on the TV in several languages (German, French, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, English, Romansch) and easily pick up as many on the radio. A half hour drive put us in another country. A two hour drive brought us to another language. Swim meets were announced in several languages (local meets for kids, not the Olympics). In Europe, you don't have to "seek it out".

 

Attitudes and school requirements came from the decades during which most Americans had to travel for hours and spend hundreds of dollars to hear a foreign language outside of a classroom setting. Most Americans had no need or opportunity to speak another language. One would think that advances in air travel and the Internet would have lessened this but it hasn't. Air travel is more onerous and expensive than ever and people generally don't go surfing through other languages on the Internet unless they are already studying/fluent in them.

I studied Japanese (only option at school) for 8 years when I was in school. And I barely learnt to speak anything, despite being a good student. This was back before internet was prevalent. The only access I had to Japanese speakers was other students in my class that could not say much more than me. And my Japanese teacher... Not a viable option really.

 

I then moved to the south western United States and picked up quite a bit of Spanish from exposure. Spanish was spoken by many and there were even parts of town where everything was written in Spanish and English was not well understood.

 

Now I live in a rural town where I can't find a Spanish speaker, even a student learning Spanish to come play with my son to get him some exposure! He watches A bit of TV show in Spanish thanks to the internet...but nothing is sticking.

[Joan in GE]

I realize I'm very very late to this thread, but find the discussion so interesting that it makes me think and rethink...I know I've previously promoted 2nd and 3rd languages but this thread makes me wonder about cost vs result.....

 

About the OP question....
 

isn't there also the question of the wage one is willing to work for?
 

A friend's son in WI works in an Insurance co ...they are slowly replacing people with Indians (people from India) coming to work in WI but who work for less pay and for fewer benefits (eg related health insurance - that was just before Obama care so not sure about that part now, but others as well)...
 

So maybe you have the "international" qualifications, but want a certain standard of living - then what?
 

In relation to the foreign languages aspect....how many job offers in the US are asking for a person to speak a second language fluently, let alone a third one? I'm curious regentrude, how much you use your German in your position right now? And then, how much would the average Physics professor use German in the US (ie how typical would it be to need a foreign language as a teacher of physics?) Of course a real poll would be difficult to really accurately represent the situation in the US and results would be regionally dependent...
 

So that goes back to need, interest, and utility....If it won't change your pay one iota, if you don't have the funds to travel in foreign lands where you would need to speak a foreign language, how could people really value a second, let alone a third language?
 

Then there's the issue of which language - sitting in the French speaking part of CH, many job offers require a second language of German as the majority of the country speaks it...then there's English for all the tourists and banking clients...It becomes very obvious 'which' language to choose. But people in the German speaking part tend to learn English first - not French.
 

Also, regentrude, you mentioned foreign communities in big cities....apart from the Spanish ones...if you want another language....how useful would Vietnamese be unless you want a career as a diplomat there or want to work in an NGO (please, I'm not objecting to the language, country or culture at all, just trying to make a point about how to choose where to put ones eggs)? or various other foreign languages represented by cultural communities in various cities in the US?

We were studying Chinese for awhile thinking we might move to China. It ended up probably being a wasted year + because it detracted from German which is what the kids really need now. (I say probably with the rare case where it might have helped their ear if they want to learn it in the future).

For people sitting in the US - how do you know what language you will really need in the future? I think it's also the case of 'too many options' and none seeming that obvious...The Spanish speakers are in the US so theoretically should also be learning English. And while the language would be helpful to work in social services or health care services, it is not a business language unless you're working in seriously Spanish speaking communities or in Mexico or further south (this is of course a broad generalization made from afar). I think it would be good to learn Spanish personally, but can just understand why people might not make it as high a priority as Europeans tend to make learning other languages...
 

Real fluency takes years to develop....I look at nieces and nephews who aren't fluent in a foreign language and wonder how being fluent would really change their job options and if there aren't skills/knowledge they need more.....and am better understanding school district choices....
 

On the other hand - I'm loving really learning French (not that I'm that great at it either)...I find the way of speaking, in general of course, to be kinder....it's not as direct as English, so perhaps leaves more room for interpretation? But it's partly learning about the culture while living here....I can't ever remember thinking about this when learning French in high school, college or even when living abroad earlier on in my life....Sadly here, as soon when many people hear the least bit of English accent in my French, they want to practice their English and will switch to English! So here I am living abroad and stuck (of course not completely stuck but just trying to emphasize that even here I have to make an effort and get guilt feelings of being rude when asking to switch back to French..)

 

 

Historically, the English speaking immigrants have been of the attitude that they do not need to learn the languages of the peoples already settled here.

 

This is an interesting question - where did that attitude come from? is it the cause of English being the international language it is today? or is the cause that first the British empire was so vast and then that the US was a major force in world affairs that it ended up being so widely used? Is there something innate in the Anglo Saxon brain that pushes English? or is it cultural? or none of the above?

 

Joan

 

 

[73349]

I think for me, what it comes down to is 1) I won't feel that DS is truly an educated person unless he learns at least one other language (two or three would be nice, but we'll see how things go) well enough to read and converse; and 2) it's too much fun not to do it, even if there's no tangible result.

 

I can't be sure it will ever help him get a better job, or that he'll move to some country where English is not enough. But I don't teach him art because I think he'll become an artist, and I don't take him to P.E. because I think he'll be a pro athlete. He won't need a lot of the things he'll learn, and maybe he won't enter a field that involves international competition at all. I know I haven't done a thing with balancing chemical equations or most of the other material I learned in high school, and I seldom get to use my French, but I don't regret putting the time in. I do regret that a better education was not available to me.

 

I want DS's education to give him a lot of options, but I also want him to value the learning itself--the diving into subjects (history, math, Latin, music, physics, Spanish, whatever) just for the joy of it. I think that the ability to compete will follow naturally from that.

Isn't that part of what's wrong with school today--that everything is about the test score at the end? I want to let the practical benefits be a result of education, but not the point of it.

[LibraryLover]

Interesting thread!

[regentrude]

 

In relation to the foreign languages aspect....how many job offers in the US are asking for a person to speak a second language fluently, let alone a third one? I'm curious regentrude, how much you use your German in your position right now? And then, how much would the average Physics professor use German in the US (ie how typical would it be to need a foreign language as a teacher of physics?) ...

 

 

So that goes back to need, interest, and utility....If it won't change your pay one iota, if you don't have the funds to travel in foreign lands where you would need to speak a foreign language, how could people really value a second, let alone a third language?

 

A physics instructor in the US needs no German for his job. Every physicist in the entire world publishes in English. German scientific journals have not been basically obsolete since the middle of the 20th century (but were important in the beginning of the 20th c.)

I think there is a cultural divide between the purpose of education as seen in the US and in the cultural tradition in Germany. I have noticed this many times in many different situations.

The typical Americans approach to education is utilitarian: do I need the skill for a job? How much more money can I make if I need this skill?

I am coming from a cultural tradition that values education for its own sake. People were supposed to be multilingual not because they traveled or conversed with natives, but because speaking and reading several languages was the hallmark of an educated person. For example, for several centuries, every educated person was expected to be able to converse in French.

 

I believe that there are benefits of education unrelated to job prospects. Studying foreign languages has proven effects on brain development. That's why, for example, I don't let my kids off the hook and have them count their native German as fulfilling the German language requirement, because the process of language acquisition is different from studying an actual foreign language; I feel that it is beneficial for their cognitive abilities to undergo this process. Whether they use the language in their jobs or not is completely irrelevant to me.

 

I find it very sad when education is valued only where it leads to an increase in pay. The trends in education in this country are disturbing: cutting arts and music education, for example. Yes, most kids will not use these for a living and playing an instrument will lead to higher pay for almost none - but I consider these invaluable experiences for the human soul and the development of the brain (again, as has been shown).