To think language learning in schools is bullshit

[snowballkitty]

I'm just really annoyed. I 'learned' French and Latin in school, and after 6 years of learning, when I went to France; still didn't feel like I could speak French. I couldn't make a simple conversation confidently

I took up courses and learned some Spanish on the plane to the canaries.

Suddenly all of the staff were so impressed they called me the 'Spanish girl' for two weeks. Yeah they may have been taking the piss but I still had learned more in four hours in terms of how to actually communicate than a lot from GCSE, from what other English guests were saying. This is probably down to me making an effort to use my new Spanish (which I had never learned before).

My problem is this, and it's probably really daft. But I always thought that the most important component of language was speech? Yet it's 100% the least important in the curriculum.

To give you a broad example: if you go to China, and ask for directions they likely won't be able to understand you verbally. But if you write it down, they have learned written English since 7th grade, so all of a sudden they understand!

The two 'hardest' language skills are writing and speaking. Whilst I agree writing may not be a priority for most learners, speaking is as I can see it, no 1.

So how is it people can get an A/A* in a language and not actually speak it.

I don't get how we are so bad at languages. I also spent about 6 years learning french and can't speak it. I can read it, but noone in france understands a word I say.

I learned German at the same time as the teacher - he sat his GCSE with his students ( he had Spanish and french to degree level)

Like you said yourself ,confidence and making the effort.
For french,you had the knowledge but not the confidence/will to speak it.
For spanish you gave it a go. That's the difference,not the way you learned.

I was the same with french, knew how, could do the accent pretty well but no fluency in conversation. The french friends I had were fairly good in english , as was I and definitely more fluent(basically more practice from songs, hearing it in movies,cartoons etc)

Learned spanish from telly(mum watched lots and lots of spanish soap operas) well enough to sell shit to people in a call centre.

It's more about fluency and exposure to the language.

It's more about

I think it depends on your luck. I went to a very ordinary comprehensive, am not super clever but left speaking French pretty fluently. I did a work experience placement in France and didn't have any issues. So it isn't all bad.

I've been an MFL teacher for 20 odd years. There are lots of reasons why a GCSE doesn't enable you to speak a language properly.

Lack of curriculum time
Lack of effort
30 learners in a class means hardly any speaking time for each individual
Use it or lose it - as soon as you're not having lessons every week, you forget

Also the teacher is bound by the constraints of the syllabus. This sometimes means teaching to the exam in an unhelpfully restrictive way.

Also I don't quite understand what you're saying about the importance of speaking vs writing. We teach all 4 skills, but if anything speaking is favoured over the others, because it is used all the time in the delivery of the lesson and to communicate between pupil/teacher. You have to teach all 4 reasonably equally though, as there is an exam on each.

The GCSE and A level both have written and spoken components. I did German A level. I have found it extremely useful to read work documents in German, to read German novels in German etc etc. I can also translate French and German TV (after a fashion) for the children when we are abroad. Speaking is also part of it. All my children did one language GCSE and they did both speaking and written parts to that.

I also learned a lot of my English grammar from French and German lessons actually as in the 70s they were not good at teaching English grammar in English lessons which was a pity, but useful that I got those skills from the other languages.

I would force every English GCSE student except the very least bright to do either French or German GCSE as part of a rounded set of GCSE subjects.

You only studied it to o level that's why

Because you can study, study, study but if you don't immerse yourself in a language, you never learn to speak it fluently. Unfortunately you can't immerse children in a language within the normal school environment - you could send them off to a residential language school for the summer holidays and they'd make more progress in spoken language over six weeks than in 6 years of in-school study.

I did a degree in German and French many moons ago. Spent a year abroad in Germany (and only a month in France) during my degree. Consequently my conversational German is fine, but, I'm embarrassed to say, speaking in French (beyond usual holiday stuff) makes me a bit nervous. I got a 2.1 in all my French language exams at university, including speaking ones, but I don't know how. Immersion is the only way.

You could argue that in schools teachers tried to show us the foundations of languages rather than focusing on conversational phrases- particularly with regards to Latin, as who has conversations in Latin nowadays anyway? You might have learnt more than you realised which is why you found Spanish fairly easy to pick up when you tried.

Did you ever go to France as a teenager? Have you been since? You have to speak the language to learn it properly which doesn’t happen during class at school.

I also think that people don't really understand that learning a language is a very different process to learning most other school subjects. The lack of the huge amount of cultural exposure other countries have with English is an issue, as is the fact that until recent changes to SATS, we have taught kids almost no English grammar for generations. This means that a lot more time has to ne devoted to explaining how French/German/Spanish grammar works. "What's a verb, miss? How come we don't have that kind of stuff in English?"

We give our children an unrealistic view of the engagement necessary to learn a language.

They simply don't learn much. My youngest just started high school end of August. Does a couple of hours French in a class of 30 odd. No homework in the form of vocabulary, one task so far to research a European..we are already in October fgs!

YANBU.

Language learning in schools is shit. The problem is like you say speaking.

I agree with you, OP. Despite studying German at university, I didn't really become fluent until I spent time there. The way languages are taught in most schools just doesn't facilitate communicative learning, and class size has a huge impact here.

Speaking is loads more important now, 25% of the mark. I'm dong speaking every morning with targeted groups.

To learn a language properly, you have to use it all the time, be immersed in it, not hear it twice a week in class with 29 other kids. It's how you learn your 1st language.

Foreigners are often far superior in language learning because it's embedded in their culture, half the films they watch and music they hear is a different language to theirs, often English across Europe.

GCSE will not get you to fluency, but all my A level kids have been reasonably fluent by the end of Year 13. The speaking was always a massive focus.

Also, until this new specification came in (1st year of it just finished), kids were asked to learn paragraphs off by heart for the speaking exam, blame the bloody exam boards, they were all at it.

I did grammar based learning at school which worked well for me. I studied at home too, learning vocab and practicing structure.

Not much talking BUT when I moved to France for a while I picked up speaking very quickly and had enough grammar to do so quite well.

My younger family have all really struggled but have passed the exams with flying colours! But They seem to be at sea in all the four skills.

I did French gcse and a level. All I was taught was what I 'had to learn' in order to get said grade. It was a grammar school.

IME, with Spanish (which I never learned in school) - if you can say enough to make yourself understood then that is better than making a sentence perfectly every single time.

How many times have you heard the equivalent of 'excuse me? Bank I look for? Help me find?' It makes no sense but you still have broken the language barrier and are communicating far more than

someone who is stumbling over their verb/noun tables and trying to remember the hoops they have to jump through to make the correct imperfect past tense... language is fluid. And when other people get it wrong we still understand and get far further with them than the ones that freeze because they feel if they're not 'perfect' grammatically wise then they're not good enough

*in short - in school, you must be grammatically perfect, even if it means you don't form a sentence at all.

In real life: you use what you have, like everyone else, and everyone helps you, to make your self understood. Which is why everyone say immersion classes are better*

School language learning doesn't need to be bad - but it needs resources i.e. smaller classes, native speaker teachers, more hours. My 16 year old is in an intensive Spanish programme in her French high school and speaks and writes Spanish fluently. They have five hours of Spanish a week (language and literature) and they are also taught history and geography exclusively in Spanish which is another four hours a week.

And yes they did the memorising chunks. It was odd.

Just to clarify, I am now fluent in Spanish self taught, and fixed the errors in my learning in French to the point I am conversational but near fluent (can watch TV etc)

Op you'd probably like the Michel Thomas courses.

Sorry! Posted too soon. I was going to add my experience of learning a language at evening school. Even with only ten students it was impossible for each student to get the kind of speaking practice (and feedback) needed. Plus with only one teacher you end up talking within your own groups so there is little chance to model your pronunciation.

The methods used in CELTA are better because there is a greater emphasis on repetition which builds up confidence when speaking.

But your knowledge of French undoubtedly helped your Spanish which is an easier language anyway. But yes you’re right about teaching.

DS1 learnt Latin and French at school, his French teacher despaired at his efforts and told him he would be lucky to get an E...he got a B...now nearly 30 can speak passable French and Spanish and is fluent in Polish and Estonian. All learnt from colleagues in jobs. and girlfriends
I learnt French and German...I can say 'Hello'

Current pedagogy of language learning in schools mirrors first language acquisition, i.e. schools will try to teach pupils a second language the same way you learn your mother tongue.

This is proven to be the best way to learn a language thoroughly IF there's enough time given, pupils are engaged, and there's decent exposure to the language, which clearly doesn't happen a lot. However, ever in less than ideal circumstances it should lay a base of language understanding which goes deeper than just learning phrases off by heart.

Put simply, language acquisition should involve a 'silent period' of A LOT of listening BEFORE trying to get people to speak. For political reasons this isn't popular and so speaking is taught from early on, but a good teacher will not insist on accuracy/ fluency in speaking in the early stages. Speaking and writing are 'productive' skills which should follow after a period of 'receptive' skills.

I agree OP and it is a shame. I speak and email people all over the world for work and most speak English or on the rare occasion that they don't they will have a colleague that does and they are normally fluent.