Languages "not taught properly" in Anglophone countries

[Brian]

I often hear fellow English natives commend folk in other countries for their excellent knowledge of our language. A common follow-up observation is that the reason the reverse scenario isn't generally true is down to "the way languages are taught here" - implying that schools in English-speaking countries offer a vastly inferior language learning experience.

Yet every foreign language teacher I've met in the UK has been very passionate about their subject and also the culture of the country where the language is spoken. They are fully aware of the difficulties of putting across to young people the importance of knowing other languages - but they give it their best shot. In fact, I would say that Anglophone language teachers are probably under more pressure to attach bells and whistles to every lesson because - quite frankly - many native speakers of English can't see any point in learning another language.

So let's give those beleaguered language teachers a round of applause. They are doing a good job under challenging circumstances.

I'm willing to wager that German kids who study some Italian at school don't emerge as even confident conversational speakers. So a country that "gets it right" with English falls flat on its face with other languages? Funny that!

[Ezy Ryder]

My best guess would be that even if a teacher has an enthusiasm for their subject, oftentimes they are simply not going to be allowed to use methods which the empirical evidence suggests to yield noticeably better results and/or to be more efficient.

Personally, I'd also put foreigners' alleged success with English, at least partially, to cherry-picking individuals who are actually willing to put in the work on their own.

Those are however just my own views, I don't claim them to be correct; and I'd love to amend them if presented with evidence to the contrary.

[tiia]

I'm willing to wager that German kids who study some Italian at school don't emerge as even confident conversational speakers. So a country that "gets it right" with English falls flat on its face with other languages? Funny that!

When you compare the skills of English to Italian, Spanish, French or Russian skills after school, you have to consider that English is usually the first foreign language, often thaught for at least 8 or 9 years (nowadays even longer). Even if you're leaving school after 10th grade you will have had at least six years of English.
Just in contrast to other foreign languages that usually start later, with less hours per week. So it is absolutely no surprise the skills in those language end up being worse. Due to the system and the time you can choose languages, Spanish or Italian are often learned for only 2 or 3 years in school, French and Russian a bit longer.

It's exactly what I experienced myself: 9 years of English vs. (less than) 3 years of Spanish. Plus, the first years of English I had 4 or 5 lessons per week, in Spanish only 3. So in total that makes around 4 times more English than Spanish lessons. Of course you do have some discount when learning the second (or in my case: third) foreign language, but it's by far not balancing out the difference in the amount of lessons.
And I'm not considering the difference in the motivation to learn different languages here. (Which is, to be honest, a quite important factor.)

It's not only that English natives might not see the point of learning a foreign language, for the very same reason other people might not see why they should learn a language other than English.

Btw. I've also met some Germans, who were telling me that their English in school wasn't that great. But quite a lot of them were able to get the missing skills outside of school and the rest is probably more or less "invisible" for foreigners.

How many years of language education do you usually have in anglophone countries?


I guess that when you're choosing to teach languages in a country where students usually do not aquire conversational skills in foreign languages, this will require a lot of motivation. First, to learn a language yourself to such a high level, probably even without a "real" need and then still having the energy to teach and encourage others.

[tastyonions]

How many years of language education do you usually have in anglophone countries?

When I was in school (finished thirteen years ago) the requirement was three and most people took only three.

One could start taking it as an elective earlier, though, and someone who wanted to do the absolute maximum available could have taken up to seven years worth of language instruction (starting in sixth and ending in twelfth grade). I knew only a couple of people who did that.

I hear that these days more primary schools are offering languages, but I don't know if it's required anywhere yet at that age.

[garyb]

For one more bit of anecdotal evidence, my high school French teacher was passionate about the language but her frustrations were having to follow the curriculum rather than use better and more motivating teaching methods, and the fact that most pupils simply didn't want to learn.

On the other hand, I've met a few high school language teachers in recent years who didn't know or speak the languages they taught very well, and I hear that the better teachers can usually find easier, more enjoyable, and better paid work in private language schools. In the UK at least, school teaching just isn't a very attractive career: high stress, long hours, workplace politics, relatively low pay.

[reineke]

"I was recently criticised by some of Stephen Krashen’s fans for something that to me and many other teachers is a sad given : MFL teachers operating in secondary schools have simply no time to teach languages the way they should ideally be taught.

If I had five hours contact time a week I would teach entirely differently from the way I teach now. This would be my recipe: lots of daily receptive exposure to compelling aural and written input ..

The truth is that every method language researchers and educationsts have come up with in the last fifty – sixty decades or so is effective in its own way, each of them addressing one different stage or facet of the complex process that language acquisition is. To say my method is better than yours is preposterous.

...The result is a teaching profession whose pedagogic beliefs – whether we are aware of it or not- are often a hybrid of all the methodological approaches it has been exposed to in the last forty years or so – whether through word of mouth, readings, CPD, government policies, etc. So many of us are advocates of the Communicative approach whilst teaching grammar like the Romans or the Greeks used to 2,000 years ago ; believe that reading extensively for pleasure will subconsciously result in learning whilst we train our students to teach towards reading comprehension tests that teach little ; advocate the importance of oral interaction and listening but most lessons are about reading and writing – or embrace enquiry-based learning tasks where students barely ever speak; say one should tolerate error and that mistakes are ‘good’ (as CLT preaches) but then make a huge fuss about them by excessively focusing students on correction.

Eclecticism or pedagogic hypocrisy ? Neither, in my opinion. The ugly truth is that a lot of us are confused and disoriented ; overloaded with government and school policy requirements which change way too often and quickly ; overflooded with information coming from different camps ; misinformed by CPDs which squeeze years of researching and theorizing in one or two Powerpoint slides ; galvanized by keynote speakers who excite us with great ideas which are difficult to translate into our classroom practice."

https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2 ... -teaching/

[Cainntear]

I often hear fellow English natives commend folk in other countries for their excellent knowledge of our language. A common follow-up observation is that the reason the reverse scenario isn't generally true is down to "the way languages are taught here" - implying that schools in English-speaking countries offer a vastly inferior language learning experience.

If anyone said that to me, I'd be tempted to ask how languages are taught "here" and how they're taught "there". Having worked in several countries, I know there really is very little difference, and I suspect a lot of their beliefs about "here" will actually be pretty outdated, and more applicable to mainland Europe than the Anglosphere...

[aokoye]

In terms of the US there's not going to a be a quick or easy way to figure out how languages are taught, outside of perhaps in IB programs, because of the way education is set up here. The ACTFL will likely have some statistics. That said foreign languages are often first taught in 9th grade as opposed to elementary or middle school.

[golyplot]

As mentioned before, I suspect the main reason people learn English to a higher level is motivation plus more intensive study.

I also think it's crazy that non-native speakers would be hired to teach languages.

On a side note, I once watched a Swiss TV series (Best Friends) set in high school, where there was a plot point that one character failed her oral English exam. Obviously, the character's English dialog is full of mistakes, but the hilarious part is that one of the corrections offered by the teacher also contains a mistake. http://www.zambo.ch/Sendungen/Best-Frie ... Geheimplan

[Xenops]

I also think it's crazy that non-native speakers would be hired to teach languages.

Really?