How effextive is California schools' foreign language education compared with other states and countries?

[payutenyodagimas]

Originally Posted by citizensadvocate

The other ideas are good too. Chinese is a very good language to learn. China is now pretty much the world's largest economy and trading partner. Also those who learn Chinese would have a easier time visiting Japan as well, as in Japan they do use quite a number of Kenji(Chinese) characters as instructions even though they talk very differently. And more and more Japanese working in the International sector can speak some Chinese and probably understand it better than English. I agree we should offer Chinese as a foreign language alas in reality Chinese was not offered as an option in public schools until well recently in the 2000s.

Though I mentioned Spanish in the post as its the de facto foreign languages to learn for students and schools to teach.
In some parts of the state Spanish seems to be used even more than English. Though even in those areas there are still a significant number of the population who cannot seem to catch on what they learned in in school. Sadly some of those kids are of Spanish speaking family origin themselves. I would expect that even if you cannot teach a non Spanish speaking family child successfully we should at least be able to get children of Spanish speaking families to be able to use their own language in real life. I guess the other poster is right about how the Spanish they teach in school does not reflect real life therefore its not pretty effective for everyday use. Therefore I wonder are there room for improvement.

taking Spanish or any other language should be optional to the students.


the students you are referring to already speaks Spanish at home so why still the need?


im guessing you're teaching Spanish

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

The Spanish learned in public schools here barely resembles the language spoken on the streets. I can pretty much understand someone speaking actual Spanish but not this mashed together slang we have here.

That's pretty much the case for any language. You learn the formal one in school, but in real life people do use lots of colloquialisms in their daily and informal conversations.

[citizensadvocate]

Its true that what the schools teach may be different than what is used in practice in the event of languages. Though I find this phenomenon may occur even with the home language of the school's location.
Having said that I still get curious comparing the effectiveness of foreign language education in different parts of the world. Of course where ever we go we are always going to find those who are language learning tycoons, as well as those who can barely learn a new language no matter what. Though I wonder are there actual measurements of how well the average students learns? Maybe we can compare the results between district to district, State to state, our northern and Southern neighbors, and the other parts of the world?

[payutenyodagimas]

Originally Posted by citizensadvocate

Its true that what the schools teach may be different than what is used in practice in the event of languages. Though I find this phenomenon may occur even with the home language of the school's location.
Having said that I still get curious comparing the effectiveness of foreign language education in different parts of the world. Of course where ever we go we are always going to find those who are language learning tycoons, as well as those who can barely learn a new language no matter what. Though I wonder are there actual measurements of how well the average students learns? Maybe we can compare the results between district to district, State to state, our northern and Southern neighbors, and the other parts of the world?

the only thing that is measureable is English. that is because US, UK, Australia, NZ and Canada require prospective immigrants to pass IELTS. so you can see how various countries fare in the exam or you can say, how effective various countries' English program, if there is

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by citizensadvocate

I always wonder this question about the effectiveness of foreign language education.
Most students in CA attend about four years of foreign language education, usually Spanish.
Though compared to other states or countries how effective are CA students' foreign language education?
Since CA metro areas are Meccas of so many languages Spanish in particular. In some parts of the state Spanish tend to be even more common language than English with many Spanish language radio stations, television broadcast, businesses, restaurants, and personnel speaking Spanish in public areas. In this case one may think students regardless of their nationality/or ethnicity should have a greater comprehension of the language. When compared withsome one learning a foreign language in a monolingual homogenous area where the foreign language is hard to find in real life.
The best way to compare this is to ask how easy for a Spanish speaking only foreigner to visit CA and get help when visiting places or stores that happens to have no Hispanic personnel? Is it as easy as finding someone that can speak English on the streets of Japan or Korea.

Personal experience. I started formal Spanish training in 7th grade (had some minor training prior). Took it every year 7th - 10th grade. It was good enough to allow me to feel very comfortable doing high tech business in Mexico. My crowing accomplishment was translating several highly intricate technical specifications and manufacturing manuals.

[citizensadvocate]

wow Mexico. An interesting way to ask the question is how do we fare on language education compared to students in Mexico, our southern neighbors. They often learn English as a second language just like the students here learn Spanish. Which is a more difficult endeavor, an English only speaker traveling in Mexico or a Spanish speaking only traveling north how likely are they likely to find someone particularly a young person who can help them with translation.

Another thing I would always like to find out is we have a lot of "Chinatowns" around the state both inner city(San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles) and suburban or defacto ones such (Cupertino, foster city, San Gabriel, Monterey Park, Alhambra, Irvine). These areas have nearly 40% of population of Asian and possibly of Chinese descent. Do schools there teach Chinese as a second language? Is it common for non Chinese going to schools there to pick up some words of Chinese from school. Interesting the largest demographic outside of Asians in these cities or parts of cities i listed are Spanish speaking maybe with the exception of Foster city and Irvine.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by citizensadvocate

I always wonder this question about the effectiveness of foreign language education. Most students in CA attend about four years of foreign language education, usually Spanish.

Most of us took a foreign language from grades 7-12. I took Spanish, and I'm sorry to say that I cannot speak it well and I can understand only a little of it, although I can certainly translate from the written word. About all we did in those classes was translate from textbooks or write conjugations of verbs on the chalkboard. Very little instruction in actually speaking it. I have no idea how foreign language is taught in other states.

[natspapa]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

Most of us took a foreign language from grades 7-12. I took Spanish, and I'm sorry to say that I cannot speak it well and I can understand only a little of it, although I can certainly translate from the written word. About all we did in those classes was translate from textbooks or write conjugations of verbs on the chalkboard. Very little instruction in actually speaking it. I have no idea how foreign language is taught in other states.

I can order a beer and ask where's the restroom. That's about it.

My parents are spanish speakers but didn't want me to learn it, they saw it as a stigma back in the 70s/80s. To be fair, they really spoke spanglish so they couldn't help me with my homework anyways.

Originally Posted by citizensadvocate

Do schools there teach Chinese as a second language? Is it common for non Chinese going to schools there to pick up some words of Chinese from school.

My grand-daughter has been in a Chinese Mandarin immersion program since kindergarten. She starts 2nd grade in August. It's been eye opening to see how fast they can learn such a difficult language.

[citizensadvocate]

Wow Chinese immersion program. I heard that people in some other countries are breaking down the doors in getting kids into such immersions. In China they would actually send kids to language immersions taught by native speakers at a young age.

Alas I had heard the reason foreign language education is behind is due to the strong stigma even for families with parents that natively speak such language back in the 1970s and 1980s. So even some immigrant parents were reluctant to teach their children their own language. Its a pretty sad history. I guess that partially explains why kids in the US seems overall behind other countries in learning multiple languages in any means whether in school or other sources. I wonder what caused such stigma. How many other countries have similar stigma?

It appears in other countries not just in multi lingual Europe but in Homogenous Asia language learning seems a cool thing to do at an early age. I was surprised to see groups of students doing trips from Asian countries how they had surprisingly good foreign language skills.