Hi all, I've been away from this forum for some time. I have to write a 3,500 word paper on language learning / linguistics on the topic of what is means to be proficient in a language. I've chosen to tackle this topic with relation to Japanese (which I also study, obviously).

Anyone who a) has an opinion on this and more importantly b) has any academic experience in this area please come forward and contribute to my thread!

Some topics I'm going to tackle are: JLPT as a traditionalist approach to fluency, the particular challenges of reading/writing vs speaking with Japanese, regional variancy in Japanese, and the varying levels of Japanese, formal, informal etc.

Thanks!

SSKanpai

There are already threads covering all of this.

Your professor is going to want you to cite actual academic resources, not some intarwebs forum though. It's fine to get ideas here, but you're going to need to follow them up in a book/journal.

Yes, obviously Jarvik. Im sure you didn't mean to patronise- Ive written academic papers many times before. I thought the utility of this forum was that it contains many Japanese learners, many different experiences and would be good as a sounding board. Im not expecting actual academic material- just a free exchange of ideas from any who wish to participate.

Being able to write that paper in Japanese would be a good indicator.

To be able to do what you want to do in the language, without feeling held back by your (lack of) knowledge or experience.

I know that when a university says they want you to be proficient in a language, it can mean anywhere between 2 and 5 years of study at the university level. Two years is generally for European languages counted as a research language. Four to five years is more for people doing grad work in a language. Generally 3 years is a safe bet.

The third year level for East Asian languages at my university has you reading newspapers and books in the language, though nothing too advanced. They save 魯迅 (Lu Xun) and 茅盾 (Mao Dun) for fourth year (I'm studying Chinese).

I'm not sure you're going to find much help in academic papers because this sounds like it's basically just a semantic issue that wouldn't be of much interest for people studying pedagogy.

I think if you want answers from scholarship you're going to have to redefine the question to be something like "What should students be able to do after completing a 4-year major in Japanese?" Although even there I don't know of much writing on that -- in my experience, there's not all that much scholarship dealing with program design.

Do you have a more definite prompt/assignment than "define what it means to be proficient in a language" or is that it?

Is there a correlation between a nation's literacy rate VS acceptable level of language competency?

For example, in the US, even an 8th grader can read a newspaper geared mostly at adults, such as the New York Times and understand most of it. However, do the same to a Japanese Middle Grade 2 student, and I hear they aren't able to understand as much as their American counterpart. Then again, I also read somewhere that most Newspapers in the US are written to use vocabulary one would learn by the end of middle school (8th grade).

Last I read, the US has a 65% literacy rate, while Japan has 99%. (but based on what?)

I know for certain that being "fluent" in Korean does not mean you can talk to a native and not get caught. By this, I mean the native speaker will generally understand what you're talking about, but will also hear a lot of oddities (unfamiliar accent, weird intonation, mispronunciation of some commonly used words) in your language usage.

ocircle Wrote:Last I read, the US has a 65% literacy rate

And you believed it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cou...eracy_rate

bflatnine Wrote:

ocircle Wrote:Last I read, the US has a 65% literacy rate

And you believed it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cou...eracy_rate

You may want to read this one instead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in...ted_States

wiki is by no means a credible source for academics, but:

Quote:Jonathan Kozol, in his book Illiterate America, suggests that the very high figures of literacy may be due to poor methodology. The Census Bureau reported literacy rates of 99% based on personal interviews of a relatively small portion of the population and on written responses to Census Bureau mailings. They also considered individuals literate if they simply stated that they could read and write, and made the assumption that anyone with a fifth grade education had at least an 80% chance of being literate.

Kozol notes that, in addition to these weaknesses, the reliance on written forms would have obviously excluded many individuals who did not have a literate family member to fill out the form for them. Finally, he suggests that because illiterate people are likely to be unemployed and may not have telephones or permanent addresses, the census bureau would have been unlikely to find them (and that if they did, these people might be especially reluctant to talk to a stranger who might be a bill collector, tax auditor, or salesperson).

Also, this:

Quote:Many high-income countries, having attained high levels of literacy, no longer collect basic literacy statistics and thus are not included in the UIS data. In calculating the Human Development Index (HDI), a literacy rate of 99.0% is assumed for high-income countries that do not report adult literacy information.

In other words, the methodology is flawed (see comment by above poster) and a good deal of the numbers are made up since they don't have the data.

I went to middle school in the US (DFW, Texas) after doing elementary school in Canada. The majority of my classmates had trouble reading "See spot run" level of English out-loud. This wasn't because they were ESL students or because it was a troubled school, they just had horrible reading skills. I was bumped up to honors English in the next grade above mine, and it was still extremely easy. Oh, and I wasn't even a particularly good student in Canada.

This isn't really the place for it, but the US education system is a joke. Athletics has priority over academics, and being smart is something to feel ashamed of/hide from others. The latter isn't caused by the faculty, but it is their fault for letting it persist.

I think the 65% literacy figure is probably too low, but 99% is definitely way too high.

Jarvik7 Wrote:This isn't really the place for it, but the US education system is a joke. Athletics has priority over academics, and being smart is something to feel ashamed of/hide from others. .

This isn't actually very different in Japan, although the athletics part maybe is not so bad. A big problem that I saw in Japanese schools when I was there is that nothing matters outside of the entrance exams. For kids who are going to technical or agricultural high schools (which have easy or no entrance exams), they can literally sleep through every class or talk with their friends during class and there's really nothing the teachers can do about it. Discipline options for teachers are extremely limited. I remember one school I was at where this group of girls, at the start of class, would put their desks in a circle and share purikura and talk, sometimes so loudly that the teacher could not be heard. Because the teacher was timid, she had no control over the class. There was another student in the baseball club who was very disruptive, and finally when it got to the point where he physically threatened a teacher, they were able to get the baseball coach to threaten to throw him out of the club if he did anything like that again. From then on he just slept in every class.

Not dissimilar to the UK system either. Its a common feature of high school/ secondary school that you have some kind of jock/nerd culture. Academics should flourish at university ("college") level though- and it does in both the US and UK- although the idea of college sports scholarships is ridiculous!

So really what we're saying is that the literacy rate depends on one's definition of literacy. Unless the same definition of literacy and the same method of measurement is used in both the US and Japan, we can't say that the US has a literacy rate of 65% and Japan's rate is 99%.

Now as far as literacy in the US, if you're talking about people who can read at a university level, then yes, I'd believe 65%. But if you use elementary school reading as the standard, then there's no way. With mandatory public education, it's nearly impossible to have a sizable portion of the country who can't read or write at all. So again it depends on your definition.

And I agree, the US education system is completely f'ed.

That sounds like just a lot of misinformed stereotyping and prejudice without anything real to back it up. If you want to try, I'd like to see your support for the following claims either implied or stated in your post:
- Asians place more importance on education than Westerners
- Asian college graduates are better educated than Western college graduates
- Previous generations studied "soft" subjects but did so on their own time or in night school
- Westerners are losing jobs to Asians due to education system differences
- Asians have more "general knowledge" than Westerners
- College graduates 20 years ago are better educated than today's college graduates

If we want to go back to what "previous generations" studied in university, time to throw away Japanese books and get out the Greek and Latin.

Your argument is pretty absurd, shihoro. Who's going to teach people how to read if you do away with English majors?

Who are you to decide which fields are legitimate and useful and which aren't? Besides, these "bullshit soft subjects" you're sneering at are the traditional domain of universities. You're saying that universities should essentially become trade schools or vocational schools. That isn't education, it's training for a specific job (which can become obsolete very quickly).

The humanities have always been the foundation of a good education, and have always been at the center of a university education. You say these subjects should be done away with at universities and yet you complain that people aren't well-educated. This is a pretty ridiculous contradiction. I'm all for people who want to study business, medicine, law, or whatever. But to deny other options because you think you know what's best for society is pretty short-sighted. People should be allowed to choose what they want to study and which field they want to work in.

Besides, the idea that studies in the humanities and social sciences will not improve society is pretty ignorant, too. That is their precise function. I don't see how you can come to the conclusion that research into literacy won't help anything. How do you propose that we do anything to fix illiteracy if we don't do any research to find out (1) to what extent it is a problem, and (2) what the best way is to fix it?

And please explain how being a professor is not a "real job."

Your whole post is incredibly ignorant, arrogant, and self-contradictory.


EDIT: Learning a language via anything other than "sink or swim" in the country where the language is spoken is making use of academic research in linguistics. If you've learned to read English in a school in the last 100 years ago or so, you've benefited from linguistic research. You argue that we need scientists, and then say we don't need linguists. Linguistics is the science of language, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and historical linguistics according to the dictionary.

It seems like you're arguing for the removal of all culture from society. Studying art is useless, I'm sure, according to you. But then you have to get rid of museums because there will be nobody to work there, acquire new works, explain the significance of the works, etc.

Anyway, I'd love to see you back up any of your ridiculous statements. Feel free.

Having lived under "Asian-type schooling" (6 days of school a week, 7 hours a day (+2 hours of hw) for 5 days, and 4 hours on Saturdays (39 - 51 hours a week)) in Kuwait. And having South Asian parents that will not give up until I get a $100,000+ salary, I would say that your view on education is far from the same as ours. >_>

But I would have to say that Canada is a joke compared to what I did back in Kuwait. 5 hours of school a day and 2-day weekends (not that that's a bad thing ), I'm averaging above 80% without even trying. And the number of class-skippers, weed smokers and low-lives in general scare me, people definitely do need to value education more.

I'm going to stay out of the education debate that's erupted, not because I don't have an opinion, but because defending it would take time that I'd really rather spend watching アニメ or doing SRS reps. My Japanese language proficiency is more important to me than my Internet ego size.

What does it mean "to be proficient."

To the student in his day-to-day life, nothing! All that matters in the present moment is growing. A student may dream of being proficient, but he can only be diligent. Proficiency is the fruit of diligence.

But, that's not gonna fill a 3.5 kword paper, is it?

To the student taking a long-range view (something that's okay in moderation), proficiency is "being able to do what I want without the language getting in the way." Proficiency is the point where the language disappears and the student is left with having conversations or watching movies or writing novels or whatever.

To employers, proficiency is "being able to do what I need this person to do." Whether you're marketing plushies or investigating international crime syndicates, language barriers can be a problem. If you hire someone to solve that problem, you hope they're proficient enough to actually do it.

In either of those cases, linguistic proficiency is the point when the Curse of Babel falls and people can almost remember what it was like for "the whole world [to have] one language and a common speech."

To test writers, proficiency is an objective standard that attempts to approximate personal and professional standards of proficiency, with varying success.

To the linguist, proficiency is the ability of ordinary people to use language rather than talk about it. (Latin is so complicated! How could people possibly use it? Amazing... ) It tends to mystify monoglot linguists--people who, in my opinion, should move to some far-off land, give up their native language, and get some real experience with language to inform their theories.

Oops. That's going where I promised not to go. Hope that helps with your paper. I'm gonna go back to listening to stuff I don't understand yet.

^ what he said.

shihoro Wrote:I taught in Japan for three years a long time ago. Even then, looking at Maths books and exam papers the teachers felt their students were 2 years ahead.

That's interesting. I've been quite interested by various aspects of the Japaense education system including when students learn the different levels of math, Japanese, and social studies and have the great opportunity to explore it as a teacher in Japan.

I've always sat down and gone through textbooks(particularly math) at different schools and it seems on average, it's about the same time I learned these things in middle school and high school back in the States. Of course there are differences in every state, look above at jarvik's post about Texas(there could be a whole thread about Texas).

Sometimes, I think the classes and subject matter for students of their respective age are a little slow and easy and have often seen students doing their juku homework during class here in Japan.

Perhaps things have changed since you were in Japan? Or each school and/or prefecture is different?

Anyway, different points of view always keep things exciting.

@shohiro

Not to be funny dude, but you sound like your a little upset that your precious English degree probably means as little as my Media Studies Joint Will/does. (I was offered it, so I accepted, I didn't apply directly for it.)

I was taught to read by my parents.. oh what.. parents don't read to their kids any more and in turn make them read back? Obviously I was taught in school also but having someone with an English Degree wouldn't really have made a difference.

English Literature, at one point looked upon with as much disdain as Media by the Oxbridge crowd.. I just read a nice article about it actually.

"English literature might be considered a suitable subject for woman, and the second and third rate men who become school masters.
The softening and humanizing effects of English, terms recurrently used by its early proponents are within the existing ideological stereotypes of gender clearly feminine. The rise of English in England ran parallel to gradual, grudging admission of woman to the institutions of higher education; and since English was an untaxting sort of affair, concerned with finer feeling rather than the more virile topics of bona fide academic disciplines, it seemed a convenient sort of non-subject to palm off on the ladies,
who were in any case excluded from science and the professions." (Eagleton 2008 Literary Theory: An Introduction)

You sound both very bitter and very arrogant. I guess your one of the "hate the youth" crowd. Because we are lazy, and we have it so much easier, and we didn't walk across fields 8 miles in the snow to go to school. It's called progress Mon Amigo. You think in 100 years when the Japanese accidental build a fully working version of the terminator any of this crap is going to matter?
You have a degree and you want to feel special, so you think restricting the amount of people that can get one will help you keep your special aura. Nevermind that going to University is a big deal to a lot of people. It makes a lot of people happy, People learn many things (not always academic) make important contacts, life long friends. Many positive things.
I suppose your going to turn up to graduation ceremonies to boo also?

and RE: your first post. Basically your saying that you should study a subject at University that you want a Job out of Immediately at the end. Because at 21-22 (assuming you start at 18) you know exactly how you want to spend the next 45 years of your working life.. (should be 43.. but thanks Gordon Brown.)
But yeah lets have them all study business and finance so we can breed another bunch of greedy little &$@*ers (your generation? ) to bankrupt the country into a hole. We the youth, now have to pick up your mess, so don't come flinging your #### down on us.

/Rant off

As for the actual thread *cough* check the things they have written about the European Languages Ladder, Their Final Marker is defined as Proficiency, and as its taken by university's across Europe as a kind of standard marker it could be something to help with your research.

You keep making these astounding claims (Japan's education system pulled it through the economic crisis?) You still haven't cited a single article, study, or anything to support what you're saying. It still just sounds like the same old "12 miles through the snow uphill both ways" crap.

I spent last week on an ESPN conversation board with fans debating who they thought would win Saturday's Arkansas/Mississippi football game. One thing I came to realize from that discussion: Being a native speaker ≠ Proficient in a language.

[psst - Stevesayskanpai, if you can nudge Shihoro a wee bit closer to the assigned paper topic, you might get your 3500 words]

bodhisamaya Wrote:I spent last week on an ESPN conversation board with fans debating who they thought would win Saturday's Arkansas/Mississippi football game. One thing I came to realize from that discussion: Being a native speaker ≠ Proficient in a language.

You're assuming that they're trying to speak English in Arkansas and Mississippi.