Job Discussion Forums

[jpvanderwerf2001]

Here's a link to an interesting article about English (out of The Economist).

I love the cartoon, "What do I see in front of me? Is this a short pointed knife?"

Anyway:
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8418152

[SueH]

Further discussion on a similar topic here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1971578,00.html

Quite a number of contributions from language teachers too.

[jonniboy]

The recommendations are that it be made compulsory for Primary School pupils (ie ages 4/5 to 11)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6177389.stm

Would make more sense than it being compulsory ages 14-16

[sonjainOK]

I enjoyed reading all three of the articles with links posted on this thread.
As I am a native speaker of midwestern American English, I found them quite interesting although, of course, these articles were in reference to British English. I find it quite difficult to learn a language when visiting a different country as most people speak English and wish to practice their English with me. Thus, it is hard to learn their language.

One of the articles mentioned Spanish as being a language that is also used widely today. This is certainly true in the USA. Many of our students are pursuing this language as a second language.

Have a great day, and thanks again for sharing the links to the articles.

[Jizzo T. Clown]

[bennyr81]

learning a foreign language is hard work and i am not surprised that only 30 percent of brits can speak a second language. But as the article states it would be moving the age of learning from 11-16 to begin at 4-5 when a child is still absorbing information at a much quicker rate! Will french for example be taught through songs and games? I very much think so, though personally i remember learning french songs and can still sing them though i havent the faintest idea of what they mean (ok i do, but im sure many of my classmates dont have the foggiest!)
But I had a small lesson on the guardian article and discovered that my students too thought english people were terrible at languages! but when i asked them qhy they were studying english none of them replied with for the love of it, for the linguistic pleasure or the such like! im sure if french were the lingua franca(!) of the world we, in britain, would attain a much higher percentage!
I also think subjects like Religious Education should be dropped, maybe the chance to drop Geography or History to specialise in electronics, plumbing, carpentary or some other useful tool for the future! the road to becoming alphas or epsilons (Brave New World) isnt too far away

[Justin Trullinger]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

I say good. It means that the chance of losing your job as an EFL teacher to younger people may not be as high, because if they haven't actually studied a foreign language, then they don't really know what it's like.


hmmm...

[Justin Trullinger]

[mondrian]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

The consequences of that will likely be limited to more loanwords from Spanish, but the fact of the matter is that there are already towns that are more Spanish speaking than English (in terms of native speakers). It canges nothing because the people with the power speak English. The rest of the country uses English.

[spiral78]

Hey, Justin, I've done quite a lot of work with international air traffic control (Eurocontrol) too. Maybe you've already done this, but I found that some practice with stock phrases and their common reductions helped somewhat in terms of the non-native speakers and communications with North American pilots (the Canucks present the same problems, often). Phrases like "Waddaya got?" "Wammeda (do)?" make no grammatical sense and don't appear in the manual!

It would be interesting to compile a list of North American phrases and their reductions that fit this industry. Wish I had time to do it! It'd be useful everywhere...maybe such a thing already exists somewhere?

You're probably very aware that pilots (and controllers too) can be an arrogant bunch, and they seem sometimes to take the attitude that if the controller can't understand them, it's his/her professional lack, not the fact that the pilot should learn to speak to international standard.
I remember some Texans, in particular.....who absolutely refused to abandon the 'cool' drawl - whether it was arrogance or a sort of shyness (fear of sounding uncool in front of the flight attendants?), I can't say.

[fluffyhamster]

The following could make an interesting counter to the Wilby article (posted by SueH above):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/15/michael-hofmann-learn-another-language