Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
True. That is frustrating. No college Spanish class is going to give you fluency to compete for jobs with someone who grew up speaking the language, or lived in a foreign country for an extended period of time.
True. That is frustrating. No college Spanish class is going to give you fluency to compete for jobs with someone who grew up speaking the language, or lived in a foreign country for an extended period of time.
I don't think that is the point of foreign language classes. It is more to expose the student to other cultures and ways of thinking. I wish as many American students as possible would spend a year or more abroad. It would go a long way to modifying how Americans view the world and our place in it.
I don't think that is the point of foreign language classes. It is more to expose the student to other cultures and ways of thinking. I wish as many American students as possible would spend a year or more abroad. It would go a long way to modifying how Americans view the world and our place in it.
I would have LOVED this. There's still hope for my kids to have that experience, maybe. If I'd gone to school before having kids I could have studied abroad. I did it all backwards.
I love to study other cultures. I just don't like my GPA to take the hit because of conjugation skills.
I do not like how many colleges have a foreign language requirement. They should offer it to those who are interested in it only. For the rest, they should have some general language class that would go into the linguist traits of many of the world's languages.
The worse people (not meaning they are bad, just dis-interested) in those classes are the ones who are forced to be there, it really holds back those who are interested in learning (with a goal of obtaining some fluency level) because the curriculum is really restricted during those first two years (or what ever the requirement is) to encompass those there just to meet the requirement.
Another problem I see is that the US overemphasizes some languages, French in particular, although Spanish can stay. We really need to be focusing on languages that will be most important for us in the coming century. Chinese is obvious. Vietnamese would be another. And Hindi. I think we are beginning to do that, but I still see a lot of high schools offering only French and Spanish, which I think is shortchanging our future.
Honestly, I learned a lot more Spanish working in retail for three months than I ever did in any kind of class. I would agree with stoutboy that the US education system, both at the High School and Collegiate level try and push certain languages. Mandarin isn't offered enough, neither is Hindi. I can understand the importance of Spanish.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
