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Cdaniels
Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 663
Location: Dunwich, Massachusetts
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dmb
Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Posts: 8397
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
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 Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2006 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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| The report's author, David Graddol, says UK students should be encouraged to learn Spanish, Mandarin and Arabic, "languages of the future", if they want to keep up with international competitors. |
Guardian
While it's a good idea to be fluent in more than one language, I doubt any of the above could be considered languages of the future....t least not in our lifetimes.
| Quote: |
| He also questions whether the world will continue to buy its English text books from the US and UK as schools increasingly chose to buy from local suppliers. |
- FT
Yay! Cheaper text books. I think the photocopy industry should be more worried.
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| From September 2004 the compulsion for all secondary school pupils to study a modern language up to GCSE or the equivalent level was removed. |
- BBC
Now that's not good. |
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Cdaniels
Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 663
Location: Dunwich, Massachusetts
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| Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2006 8:02 pm Post subject: No experience necessary? |
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Geez, I need to get trained on properly posting urls!
The Guardian's piece on untrained teachers was thought provoking. One question that it doesn't answer is: are untrained bilingual teachers better (as well as cheaper) than trained monolingual teachers?
I'd say the common widom in the US seems to be- yes!
Which would help explain lower than expected funding for adult ESL teaching. |
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lozwich
Joined: 25 May 2003
Posts: 1536
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| Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2006 10:59 pm Post subject: Re: No experience necessary? |
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| Cdaniels wrote: |
| Geez, I need to get trained on properly posting urls! |
Nah, its not you, its Dave's. They haven't been working properly for a while now.
If anyone wants to read the whole (132 page) British Council report, you can get it from their homepage. 1000 Dave's points to anyone who wants to wade through it all and post a summary!  |
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mondrian
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Posts: 658
Location: "was that beautiful coastal city in the NE of China"
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| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:30 am Post subject: |
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| Guy Courchesne wrote: |
| Quote: |
| The report's author, David Graddol, says UK students should be encouraged to learn Spanish, Mandarin and Arabic, "languages of the future", if they want to keep up with international competitors. |
Guardian
While it's a good idea to be fluent in more than one language, I doubt any of the above could be considered languages of the future....t least not in our lifetimes.
| Quote: |
| He also questions whether the world will continue to buy its English text books from the US and UK as schools increasingly chose to buy from local suppliers. |
- FT
Yay! Cheaper text books. I think the photocopy industry should be more worried.
| Quote: |
| From September 2004 the compulsion for all secondary school pupils to study a modern language up to GCSE or the equivalent level was removed. |
- BBC
Now that's not good. |
I disagree
Your three points:
1. Consider the projections for the populations of the mid 21st Century = number of potential clients/customers. There will be more Spanish speaking Americans than English speaking Americans in the US (I wonder why?!); China will be the second dominant trading nation on earth; the Arab nations geopolitical influence will be increased due to dogmatic religious belief and continued requirement for oil products.
2. Depends on the regulation of Intellectual Property Rights. What teacher can say (with hand on heart) that he does not photocopy from a Western textbook? Photocopying is entrenched in our environment!
3. What is the purpose of education? Why make all Chinese students learn English? Most of them will never use the language. Ask the students what they want to do, and listen to them. All of them love their cellphones and their laptops and will willingly work for little or nothing to improve these products. They just need the technological training to be able to do so. So give it to them at the expense of unused and unusable language classes |
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tedkarma
Joined: 17 May 2004
Posts: 1598
Location: The World is my Oyster
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| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 11:25 am Post subject: |
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India (English speaking) has a bigger population than China. It's economy also growing quickly - though has much more to do to catch up with China - but will also have a strong global impact.
All the China alarmists - are forgetting India. |
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