State and Ole Miss used to require foreign language of all arts and science students. Perhaps they still do. Ole Miss has a two semester math requirement. This guy has already taken the path of least resistance. I wonder what language he thinks they speak in Canada.

Goosefrappe wrote:

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Curt, you are such a troublemaking whiny xxxxxxx. Everytime you see something in the Student Printz that makes you wish you were still there, you go running to your keyboard to complain about it in every forum you can find instead of writing them about it. When they were just starting the sex column, you went to eagletalk, this place, myhattiesburg, and others to tell everybody, and now you're doing it again.

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Wait a minute. When I studied foreign Language, a "xxxxxxxx" was a positive thing. Have they changed that and didn't tell me? No wonder people don't like foreign language.

-- Edited by Moderator at 18:26, 2006-10-05

LVN wrote:

LVN wrote: "Frankly, this student has done nothing but embarrass himself."

He not only embarrassed himself, LVN, he also embarrased the university. What is embarrasing is that an institution of higher education would award an undergraduate degree in any discipline without a forgeign language requirement. A  mandated foreign language requirement should be an essential part of the university core and not at the discretion of individual colleges within the institution.

students at USM can take Latin to fulfill their language requirement.

LVN wrote:

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We would be better off to start language instruction in the lower grades, when the brain is still capable of learning a new language fairly easily. There's a window that closes at an early age, and trying to learn a language in one's teens and beyond can be much more difficult. That's not to say it shouldn't be attempted, just that high school and college are late to begin. Of course I had a devil of a time with my own language requirement (I was in my late 20's) and took Latin to avoid the lab and speaking.

I wonder if undergraduates could take the "reading" language courses like some graduate programs offer, if they would have an easier time of it?

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I agree with this fully. When I was in first grade there was some special project to teach kids either Spanish or French, and I soaked that up like a sponge. This was in Starkville and was likely tied to the efforts of one student teacher who wanted to do something new. I LOVED it, ate it up like candy. Then, nothing, it was never followed up. I forgot some of that stuff, but still carry some of it with me (the Spanish numbering)

Yes, we need to do other languages early on, that is for sure. Spanish, French, Latin, whatever. I wish now that I had taken Latin to get a better handle on my own language, but I did not. Young kids should have some grounding regarding the basics of many languages. At a very young age, they are eager to take this on!

 

 

A University education used to be about edification -- making students more well-rounded people. Now, students view a University education as a glorified trade school that is a requisite step in becoming a(n) _________ (insert career here).

Of course, it doesn't help that the IHL has determined that "more people with degrees equals a better educated population" without regard for the dumbing down of education in general. This student writer is just a a child, at least intellectually. Unfortunately, there are far too many administrators at USM who are willing to aid and abet this type of behavior.

Given the current interest in the Printz, it occurs to me that the writer just may have been trying to be provocative and had his tongue (insufficiently) planted in his cheek.  Note his final question: "Besides, what's more embarrassing, not knowing the way to the donkey show, or not knowing who won the war of 1812?"

Does anyone know who won the War of 1812? 

qwerty wrote:

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this item in the letter caught my attention:

I understand other countries have super-smart children who know dozens of languages. Who cares?

My kids school district (in NC's Research Triangle Park-area) began Saturday morning Chinese-language imersion courses for elementary ages. The class is oversubsribed and now has a waiting list as long as my arm. The parents most eager to put their kids in the course are largely non-Chinese folks who work in pharma and high tech--big industries in the area. I think they know something we folks in Mississippi don't. They certainly "care."

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The student is perpetuating the myth that language acquisition has something to do with intelligence. Nope, it's age of acquisition. I knew a Downs syndrome child in Tunisia who knew the three local languages. Americans continue to make second language acquisition difficult by scheduling foreign language instruction after puberty.

Were the Printz writer correct about the adequacy of English, then I should logically--as someone with a Ph.D. in English--be agreeing with him. But I don't. In fact, I ask every student I teach to tell me which foreign languages they know, and how well. One understands one's own language so much better by having the mirror of another language for comparison. In addition, it's hard to do well in my period, the Renaissance, without multiple languages. The great English writers in the Renaissance were essentially bilingual, having studied Latin in school and sometimes, if they were lucky, also Greek and Hebrew. English wasn't taught as a school subject until the nineteenth century, and for most places, it was late in that century. My own researches take me not only into Latin, Greek and Hebrew, but also into French, German, and Italian. John Milton, the great English poet, wrote poetry in most of these languages, and under Oliver Cromwell he had the important government post of writing diplomatic dispatches in various languages.

None of my international friends would be happy to know that they'd been called donkeys, by the way. I don't think in any case that they are the donkeys in this story.

Jameela

RE: "I was told that in some foreign language literature classes the students read the work translated in English rather in the language in which was written. Is this true?"

 I teach the intro to Lit Class in the spring and I guarantee you that will NOT be happening.

-- Edited by Froederick at 13:52, 2006-10-06

-- Edited by Froederick at 13:59, 2006-10-06

As a non-traditional student who attended a local high school in the 70s when not enough students were interested in a foreign language course, I can relate to the writer's frustration.  I enrolled in Spanish 101 a couple of semesters ago.  The adjunct faculty taught the class as if the students had a basic knowledge of Spanish.  Unfortunately, I had no basic knowledge.  When I related this information to  her, she informed me that it was up to me to keep up with the class.  Needless to say, I dropped the class to maintain my GPA.

Because we live in a society which more and more internationals are speaking Spanish, I would like to the university offer an 099 class in a foreign language.

Froederick identifies another issue in learning a foreign language in the United States. Because of the stress on how "hard" it is to learn languages, i.e., the assumption that foreign languages are somehow intellectually challenging, it is difficult for those of us with low confusion tolerance not to get overwhelmed. I taught high school French for the two-year hiatus between getting back from overseas and getting settled into graduate school, and I remember some students being very frustrated with language learning because they tried to "get" the language intellectually rather than just going with the flow as an infant or small child does. Language is partly an unconscious motor skill; it is also difficult to walk if one thinks too much about it. The students who had a difficuilt time were the ones who said, "Why do they do it THAT way?" and the ones who had an easier time were the ones who said shrugged and said, "Oh, THAT's how they do it." As I told my students repeatedly, "Il n'y a beaucoup à comprendre, mais il y a beaucoup à comprendre" ("There's not much to understand, but there's a lot to learn").

Jameela

First Ant at the Picnic wrote:

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There was a time when USM would allow sign language as one of the language proficiencies in meeting the Ph.D. degree requirements. Strange but true.

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Not strange, actually. Sign language is a true language, exhibiting all the markers of a language--e.g., productivity--except phonology, which it could hardly exhibit, being soundless. And there may be features that replace phonology; someone else on the list may know.

JL

Sorry, First Ant. I did not understand the target of your surprise, thinking you were arguing that sign language was not a real language.

In general, Ph.D. granting institutions are looking for research tools, which may or may not be a reading knowledge in two foreign languages. I know that UCLA at least at one time accepted a reading knowledge in two languages OR a profound knowledge in a single language. Some programs require an entire graduate minor in a foreign language. And the tools may not always be languages that can be read on the page at all.

JL

Jameela Lares wrote:

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Sorry, First Ant. I did not understand the target of your surprise, thinking you were arguing that sign language was not a real language.

In general, Ph.D. granting institutions are looking for research tools, which may or may not be a reading knowledge in two foreign languages. I know that UCLA at least at one time accepted a reading knowledge in two languages OR a profound knowledge in a single language. Some programs require an entire graduate minor in a foreign language. And the tools may not always be languages that can be read on the page at all.

JL

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Agreed! And to that I would add that some universities allow a certain level of competency in statistics in lieu of one of the foreign languages. I once read an article presenting data which showed that, interestingly, the more prestigious the university the fewer the number (0, 1, or 2) of language proficiencies were required for the Ph.D. degree.