"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education"

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - Printable Version

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"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - nest0r - 2009-01-19

Found this in my Live Bookmarks: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/01/the-illogic-of-us-foreign-language-education.html

"... The critical period hypothesis, which refers exclusively to first language acquisition, in turn suggests that children possess certain innate faculties which are crucial for (and, perhaps, specific to) the acquisition of language. This notion, which was brought to mainstream attention by Steven Pinker in his 1994 bestseller, The Language Instinct, is accepted in some form by most psycholinguists. However, a related question – one with even greater practical relevance – remains a point of controversy: does one lose the ability to acquire a second language? ..."

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - kazelee - 2009-01-19

I too lazy to read. Please gif the cliff notez.

Edit: Read it. Interesting.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - playadom - 2009-01-19

I disagree with this theory: "For instance, it may be that these individuals, who acquire non-native languages during adulthood, are exceptional: while most of us lose the faculties, which, during childhood, facilitate the acquisition of language, these lucky few retain such abilities, enabling them to pick up additional languages later in life. "

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - alyks - 2009-01-19

I agree with this theory: "It stands to reason that children who take part in these programs (as opposed to non-immersive ones) will be more likely to acquire a second language because they will have spent significantly more time engaged in it. But it may also be that immersion methodologies utilize our natural language acquisition faculties in a way that explicit, rule-based learning cannot."

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - playadom - 2009-01-19

alyks Wrote:I agree with this theory

As do I.

Interesting article.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - timcampbell - 2009-01-19

This is the crux for me:

"However, Birdsong argues, when the circumstances for adult acquisition do resemble those commonly encountered by younger learners – namely, when an individual is immersed in a foreign-language – the rate of success is surprisingly high. So, he suggests, given the right environmental and motivational factors, most adults are capable of acquiring a second language."

Supports AJATT and what many of us are doing on this site. Children are very natural at picking up language, and in many respects are better at it than adults, they do it without fear or hesitation, yet when adults actually put the effort in, we can be quite successful.

One thing most of us do is disregard the amount of time children spend practicing their native language. From, say, the age of 2 until age 6, when they are quite proficient little talkers, they have been practicing for up to 15 hours a day, seven days a week, in a natural setting, with constant tutoring from parents, siblings and frends. Of course they are going to pick up the language quicker than adults who may spend an hour or so a day in front of a textbook.

The brain does change as we age, but if you put an adult brain into more of that childhood environment, it will pick up language quite naturally.

Interesting article.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - nest0r - 2009-01-19

Yea, I kind of like and dislike the 'have one's cake and eat it too' approach of the article at the expense of making a case for adult language learning, but I give it a thumbs up in the sense that it makes a solid case for incorporating immersion education into the mainstream, and at an early age, to boot.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - strugglebunny - 2009-01-19

Foreign Language education in American schools is a joke. I agree with the starting early and using immersion, instead of the stupid 2 semesters of 1 class in high school, 2 semesters of 1 class in college (in which most of the instruction is in English anyways) that seems to be the standard now.

Interesting article and interesting website. Thanks for pointing it out.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - Hashiriya - 2009-01-19

my Spanish class is so horrible that I just take it because how easy it is since it gives me plenty of free time to study the real language that I want to learn (Japanese). Our mid-term last year was to "eat with the class at a Mexican restaurant". This is a college level class too! We even watched a Spanish movie (in English!) at the end of last semester and the teacher bought us all pizza!!

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - HerrPetersen - 2009-01-19

@Hashiriya - This sounds so sad, it has to be true. (Well it doesn't sound sad for you, just for the learning goals of the class).

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - playadom - 2009-01-19

timcampbell Wrote:One thing most of us do is disregard the amount of time children spend practicing their native language. From, say, the age of 2 until age 6, when they are quite proficient little talkers, they have been practicing for up to 15 hours a day, seven days a week, in a natural setting, with constant tutoring from parents, siblings and frends. Of course they are going to pick up the language quicker than adults who may spend an hour or so a day in front of a textbook.

Also consider that children in their native country go through many years of education. They learn all kinds of cultural and obscure terms there.

An interesting thought: Say you're in America, and you stumble across two people. One was a rural farmer, the other was an immigrant[of an obviously different race]. They both are rather poor at English. You would probably perceive the farmer as being uneducated, but you'd blame the foreigner's poor English on him being from a different country.

Perhaps we should all go through 国語 textbooks to get the same linguistic, cultural and historical background as native 日本人.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - Hashiriya - 2009-01-19

HerrPetersen Wrote:@Hashiriya - This sounds so sad, it has to be true. (Well it doesn't sound sad for you, just for the learning goals of the class).

trust me, it is true... i am currently taking Spanish 2 with the same guy this semester... now all i got to do is just hope that he teaches up to Spanish 4 ^_^

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - igordesu - 2009-01-19

@hashiraya: I feel so bad for you. I hate classes like that. That's why I dropped out of my college foreign language class after I finished 1st semester. Makes you wonder how those teachers got their teaching degrees, right? They definitely don't deserve them!

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - Dragg - 2009-01-19

I'm sure that immersion helps, but I think you can become fluent in a traditional classroom setting as well. In my opinion, US foreign language education sucks in high school and below because of low expectations and lack of extracurricular effort on the part of the students. I took a semester of Spanish in college and I am nearly absolutely positive I could have become fluent in it from another year or so of it. However, I think going from one European language to another is much easier to do, with or without immersion. The Japanese syntax is so different that hours upon hours of immersion may be more important in order to let your 'innate faculties' sort it out.

The thing about kids learning much better than adults seems like BS to me now. I once knew a kid who was born in the US but had a very strong Spanish accent and well below average English skills in general, even in high school. But he was quite good in subjects like math. It's true that he spoke mainly Spanish at home, but he had been half immersed in English since kindergarten (because school teachers and kids only spoke English to him obviously) and his family watched a lot of American movies. I'm not really sure where the kid went wrong; he was one of my better friends growing up and his situation perplexes me to this day.

If I was to guess, I would say he probably lacked strong willful intent. I think if you expose children or adults to the same amount of foreign language materials and exposure time, the one with the most interest will probably surpass the other.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - Hashiriya - 2009-01-19

It's cool man, like I said, it gives me more time to study Japanese... I try to take the classes that require the least amount of effort just for that reason.

What really irritates me about my college is that they limit the amount of credits you can take CLEP tests for. I have a good bit of natural talent when it comes to taking them. I got 17 credits already by doing them. They only let you test up to 20 credit hours though. So far I CLEP Biology 1 & 2, Sociology, and English Literature 1 & 2... I think I might CLEP Psychology sometime in the future.. it shouldn't be that hard since I am a nurse already.. oh well.. college sucks...

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - Dragg - 2009-01-19

By the way, I don't agree with the article's assumption that feral children cases are good evidence of a critical period in language acquisition. I wouldn't be surprised if the abuse and neglect brought upon extreme biological changes in the brain or, at the very least permanent psychological trauma that will no doubt inhibit ALL types of great success in future learning. Not to mention vitamin deficiencies and hordes of other unknown variables.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - playadom - 2009-01-19

Dragg Wrote:By the way, I don't agree with the article's assumption that feral children cases are good evidence of a critical period in language acquisition. I wouldn't be surprised if the abuse and neglect brought upon extreme biological changes in the brain or, at the very least permanent psychological trauma that will no doubt inhibit ALL types of great success in future learning. Not to mention vitamin deficiencies and hordes of other unknown variables.

Maybe the critical period is only for first language acquisition. Perhaps the only requirement to acquire a second language in adulthood is having fluency in a first language.

Probably not though.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - kazelee - 2009-01-19

playadom Wrote:Perhaps the only requirement to acquire a second language in adulthood is having fluency in a first language.

Interesting hypothesis, lol.

Being serious, though, you'd have to be able to objectify fluency to determine whether is was a factor at all. Where do you draw the line?

I personally think a lot of these theories on language acquisition/talent suffer from magical child syndrome. It might just come down to fearlessness and/or a willingness to make mistakes and/or time - not totally, but in large part.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - wccrawford - 2009-01-19

I think the only thing necessary to acquire a second language is motivation. This could be personal desire, job requirement, your spouse or parent nagging you, inability to talk to the people living around you... Whatever.

My father constantly says "I don't think I can learn another language now" and I don't argue with him because the truth is: He doesn't really want to. It's something he thinks he -should- do, not something he -wants- to do. Add to that the fact that he's got no external motivation whatsoever and he'll just never do it.

On the other hand, I'm past the age where you aren't supposed to be able to pick up another language either, and I'm doing just fine. Because I want it.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - mattyjaddy - 2009-01-19

Interesting article.

I don't understand the title of the post though. If anything, US high school foreign language classes are based on logic. But that's the problem, language isn't a logical system. People have developed rules that show how to produce language correctly - they are usually based on logical interpretations of language and introduced in a logical order (not the order in which they are naturally acquired). Teachers realize that young children are fairly incapable of understanding and consciously implementing these rules, so it is logical to wait until their analytical skills are more developed to introduce students to language. Generally, the ones teaching foreign language learned the foreign language in a classroom with those rules. Logically, if they could do it, other people can, too. If anything, this was a system founded on logic, as opposed to nature.

The current system is still in place for a several reasons, tradition probably being the most prominent. But another is logistics. To create immersion programs around the country, we would need thousands upon thousands of qualified elementary teachers with near-native to native level abilities in a foreign language (ideally, both English and the target language). There are many high school language teachers who would probably not be considered near-native and I believe their effectiveness in an immersion setting would be questionable. There are quite a few pilot programs around the country with immersion programs, but they are just a start. If you think this isn't adequate, please, PLEASE, start contacting your local board of education, your mayor, your congressman, your senator, your governor and your president. Writing about this on a forum, especially one where many people have similar views on this topic, doesn't really do so much to make changes.

One issue in average elementary schools that try to implement language programs is the lack of time and resources alloted for them. Often there is one teacher for an entire school of 500 or so. This doesn't constitute an immersion program and is not a logical interpretation of the theories discussed in the article. But parents only hear from this and other articles that learning a language is best done at a young age. So when their child is in this type of poorly implemented language program and does not ultimately acquire a language, they think that it is a waste or that the teacher is unqualified or blah blah blah. Then programs are cancelled with not much hope of getting support for a real immersion program (especially since it would require more time, more effort and more money than the previous program).

And remember, personal experiences don't equal all experiences. There are quite a few good, solid language programs around the US. Some are magnet, pilot, or private schools, but some are your average public school. In general, the state of foreign language education in the US isn't great. But I believe it isn't so much due to methodologies (other countries are using similar ones to the US) but rather to attitudes. Until we get our collective head out of our ass...

playadom: 1) It's impossible for a native speaker to be bad at their native language. Even a rural farmer. 2) If I'm in America, what exactly should I look for when I'm looking for someone "of an obviously different race"?

igordesu: I don't know what college you go to, but many (most?) colleges don't use qualified instructors to teach beginning level classes. So, your teacher might not have had a teaching certificate (other than perhaps taking a seminar on how to teach). So in this case, it's not really fair to blame the person at the front of the class but rather the system that put them there. (That is, if your college is similar to others).

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - igordesu - 2009-01-20

It is a respected campus in the University of Wisconsin system. And my teacher has a Ph.D and has been teaching french for many years. I mean, it's kind of sad that she has been teaching for so long, and yet she can't seem to teach her subject correctly (I judge this based on how well her students learn-which is practically not at all...). It's also sad considering she has studied many other different languages.

edit: oh yeah, and I wasn't in a beginning level class. It was my first year in college, but I was in an intermediate-upper level class.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - mattyjaddy - 2009-01-20

Gomen igordesu. I put the caveat because I didn't want to be assuming. To be noted though, is that even professors with PhDs don't necessarily have official teaching credentials (though yours may have) other than having done it for a number of years. You'd think they would get the hang of it after a while. I'm sorry your experience hasn't been a good one. I was lucky enough to have competent grad student/professor French instructors for my college career (I don't think I heard a word of English ever during classtime). It was nice not to have to battle to enjoy language learning. (Come to think of it, there was one so-so professor. Good at his French studies and research, but not great for the classroom. Lots of English, not so much learning as reviewing what I did in high school. Guess I kind of blocked that one out.)

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - wio_dude - 2009-01-22

I agree with "The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education"-- it IS illogical to expect the typical U.S. citizen to learn a foreign language, because they won't use it and it will be forgotten.

What one needs to understand is that foreign language education in the U.S. isn't meant to teach students a second language. Instead it has 3 practical, although hidden, purposes:
1) Teach students about other cultures, diversity, yada-yada.
2) Get students more into a habit of studying
3) Help students understand the workings of their own language, English, via comparison to another language (This is why high schools tend to only teach European languages with constructs similar to those of English).

The whole thing about Americans not being bilingual just seems like another way for haters to complain about the U.S. It's simply not practical or logical for an American to learn a second language which they will forget due to lack of use anyway. I don't say this with the intent to discourage any Americans who are learning a second language. It's just that being bilingual doesn't make you superior or anything, it simply makes you bilingual.

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - mentat_kgs - 2009-01-23

Meh, one of the greatest joys in my life is to be multilingual. I just want to share it!

"The Illogic of U.S. Foreign Language Education" - playadom - 2009-01-23

musigny Wrote:It's true but if the parents were in the same exact situation/environment as the children with the same psychological outlook, wouldn't they yield almost the same results? AJATT

The adults won't have 100% A[whatever language]ATT going on -- all the processes in their brains will be carried out in their native language. Children don't have a language in which to analyze their [soon-to-be] native language(s).