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 Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:47 am
In the school district I am in, we have to take 3 years of Spanish to graduate, not to mention it has become almost a necessity to get a job. Mexicans are swiftly becoming the majority in Texas and I wouldn't be surprised if they have reached that point by the time I graduate. My mum is a teller at a bank and I have had to teach her basic Spanish for numbers, money, greetings, etc. just so that she can communicate with some of her customers.
I think language immersion is a very good idea, and the idea of a sink or swim situation takes care of the difficulty of language-lazy students.
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 9:30 am
That would actually make me want to go to school. (is homeschooled)
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Eccentric Iconoclast Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:13 pm
I think immersions should be more available, or more talked about. Most people just stick their kids into the English side because:
a) All their friends are going there
and
b) They maybe never realized that French immersion was available in the school.
In the perfect world, I think everyone should be at least bilingual.
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 10:35 am
NO! Well....only if I don't have to be in Spanish class with retards. Since I'm one of the best Spanish students (which saddens me to how horrible our program is here scream ), my teachers ask me to sit next to the "struggling" students (aka students that should die stare read my rant on special education if you have the time). So the kids I've sat next to never bring their textbooks and think Spanish is some dumb language where you add an "o" to the end of everything. gonk
Next year we have split tracks, though, some I'm with students that actually know at least some part of the language. I'm so happy! Some of my friends are Spanish geniuses, and we're taking Latin together next year. So that makes me happy too! In my school, about 20 students in all 4 grades take 2 or more languages, so I guess they're the passionate ones. The other kids can rot in Spanish 1 and fail that too. mad And we can't even call the upper track "Honors" because that might lower the lower track's self-esteem. Anyway after one year, the two tracks are about a quarter apart. Then it becomes a semeseter. Then it becomes 3 quarters. And by AP Spanish, it becomes a full year.
And Pistil, most people ARE bilingual. Americans just aren't...unfortunately. My parents both knew four languages. Both of them know Korean (native), needed to take English as a mandatory language, and took German and French as electives. Me, I want to learn Spanish, French, Latin, some Greek, and Chinese fluently by the end of college so I can talk to pretty much everyone in the world in one of their comfortable languages and know a lot of roots for the romantic languages.
But those sped kids I sat next to? Aaaaahhhh....
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Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 9:11 am
Of course, it sucks if you're no good at languages and you're stuck in an immersion school... I expect I'd have hated it. I was terrible at languages when I was in school. sweatdrop
So I agree with Hawk, actually. Not everyone's cut out for learning languages.
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Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 12:36 pm
Hmm, the teaching of languages shouldn't be mandatory. I mean, at least this point of view should change from countries to anothers.
I'm just having the exemple I have in France. We start a first foreign language at 12 (English in most cases) and are forced to take a second foreign language which is for mosts Spanish.
I loved English at school & I worked it a lot. When I looked at my comrades who didn't care with English, they couldn't even do a proper sentence in English after 4 years of teaching !!
For some personnal reasons, I took unwillingly Spanish as a second foreign language. Though I love my third language : Japanese (which is optionnal), I just can't concentrate in Spanish lessons. You're just not given the choices, and if added to this you have to get through weird teaching methods, you just self block yourself to the language.
I know we have some "immersion" classes in France, but their really useless. It is the same language teaching hours as in other classes but you haev once a week a French history lesson in English.
Then people are wondering why the French just don't speak languages ... It's because they can for most only speak French sweatdrop , though they were taught for at least 5 years two languages
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 11:37 am
I'm in and have been in French Immersion since grade 1 and in grade 7 and 8 the language the subjects r taught in is half and hlaf(1/2 english, 1/2 french)
As for when they start teachin english for me dat was in grade 4
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 11:40 am
Pistil I think immersions should be more available, or more talked about. Most people just stick their kids into the English side because: a) All their friends are going there and b) They maybe never realized that French immersion was available in the school. In the perfect world, I think everyone should be at least bilingual. I agree
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Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 8:09 pm
yeah , everyone should but, most people(mainly Americans) expect you to know their native language because they don't wanna take the effort to learn a language an example of this would be:
there was this girl in my gym class(co-ed) who didn't speak english and later, I found out from someone else that she refuses to learn english.
so when she would talk to me I would talk to her in Japanese.
of course vice-versa happens to
I wish I had more language exposure when I was younger (learn a few spanish words from my 3rd grade teacher but she moved away and we never learned any after that and I ended up forgetting what I learn, then I learned how to say "konnichi wa and "Sumimasen" when I was in 5th grade and learned "Privyet" somewhere inbetween 5th and 6th grade.
now I'm in High school and my school offers , Spanish (up to really levels) French(same as spanish), German(up to 3 maybe AP),Japanese EdNet(they got rid of it this year ><; , it might come back my senior year though),and Russian(up 2 now (it used to be up to 3 then they got rid of it, I'm taking this next year), my high school only requires 2 concecutive years over foreign Language , only if you wanna go Universities such as the U of U(universiy of Utah) and Byu(Brigham Young University)
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Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 5:39 pm
I'm not so sure if it should be mandatory in all schools. After all, take a look at Japan; they supposedly learn English as a second language from elementary school and on, but if you try to talk to them a majority of them don't know much beyond "Hi, how are you?" Why? Because they don't care enough, they don't plan to have a career where they need it.
I think it's more of a case of school by school, and those who want to learn another language should try to go to such schools.
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Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 6:25 am
Jurori Songwind I'm not so sure if it should be mandatory in all schools. After all, take a look at Japan; they supposedly learn English as a second language from elementary school and on, but if you try to talk to them a majority of them don't know much beyond "Hi, how are you?" Why? Because they don't care enough, they don't plan to have a career where they need it.
I think it's more of a case of school by school, and those who want to learn another language should try to go to such schools.
from what i've heard japanese don't take english until middle school on
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Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 7:59 pm
Proudly_Jewish Here in Canada we have what's called "French immersion" schools, which is where, for the first 8 years of a child's education (and for some it continues until the end of secondary school), the majority of their subjects are taught in French. English is taught starting from 3rd or 4th grade as a second language. . I went to french immersion for 5 years... but I had to leave.. but thats another story... Anyways Its really good, to learn a second language when your areound 5-6, but the only downlfall is math/science, as sometimes you have no idea what the heck they are in English, which can pose a problem if you switch schools.
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Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 3:41 pm
Well, I disagree with those who are saying that learning other languages should not be mandatory. The study of a foreign language is not only (potentially) useful, but it also helps to develop the brain. Think of all the faculties that you have to use! Memory, association, etc - what an intelligence boost! If you support that non-mandatory policy, then you would also have to say that Maths and all the other subjects shouldn't be mandatory. According to that, students should choose their own curricula, which I'm sure everyone will agree is ridiculous...
Now, I'm from Portugal, and although education really sucks here, a good thing is that we are forced to study two foreign languages. One of them is English and is studied more thoroughly than the other, which is chosen by the student. We take eight years of English, and at the least three of the other, which varies from school to school depending on the teachers that are "available". And although a lot of kids leave school without a good grasp of English, I would never say that it was an effort made in vain. Truth is, if you want to go to college here, you had better start studying English and/or French. Most of the books you'll have to read simply aren't translated most of the time.
But that's going a bit OT...
About immersion - of course! I always felt I had to "feel" a language in order to learn it. And by "feel" I mean being surrounded by it, being spoken to in it, being forced to scour what little one knows to express himself. What good is it to learn to say a few phrases someone else made up? The first chance you're confronted with someone who speaks that language for real, you'll be overwhelmed, because he won't follow those schollar standarts, that's for sure!
But, like people have already said, it's not so easy to implement that sort of thing in a school. You'd be asking all the other professors to also be fluent in whatever language was chosen for the day! In Canada, a bilingual country, that may be easy to do, but in other countries? I don't think so. For now, I'd settle with a solid language education inside the very language classes. Asking for good teachers isn't that big of a deal, but it certainly looks like it in most places...
Cheers! wink
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 3:39 pm
The problem with a program like that in the USA is that we have no "official" language, even though English is the one used by most people. The problem would be that, if a program like that were used in the public schools in the states, it would be seen as promoting a certain culture or country... something like that. Canada has 2 official languages, I believe, and that justifies the whole program.
When I went to Germany, my host family's younger brother in grade school was learning beginning English, and was running around yelling "I like sandwiches with marmalade!" in English. xd I was very impressed that he got the opportunity to learn English so early in his school carreer.
What really makes me mad about public education here is that in my school, I just found out that foreign language isn't even a requirement to graduate! Most people take one to satisfy other requirements to graduate, but other people don't take one. The students seem to feel that since English is taught in so many other countries, learning other languages is a waste of time! I hate that... At the very least, we should require some form of foreign language in our schools, preferably at least 3 semesters.
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Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 6:30 am
I don't think it's a good idea.
1) Some people just detest learning foreign languages
2) Some people struggle with foreign languages. I know that learning from an early age generally helps, but I'm sure there's someone in my year who started learning French in P3, like myself, yet the exam they sat this year was the lowest level for a French qualification available for S4 in my school.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing. If it works, I don't have a problem with it. I just don't see it being mandatory - lots of protesting parents come to mind.
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