My name is Colin Quinn, and since this is a global platform, I would like to ask everybody about their past schooling experiences in your native countries. How many of you learned another language whilst in school--besides your native one? How were the school days structured?
I personally found American schools to be INCREDIBLY flawed. We didn't learn the basics in mathematics, English grammar, or any other foreign language. I have spoken with many people so far, and nearly everybody speaks fluent English, or multiple languages. I understand that we don't get a good representation from the rest of the world, but a lot of us are subjects of our poor school systems.
After 1 month, I am very impressed with the English of people all over the world, given that it is not their natural language. That is why I'm asking you what you have learned while in school/college. I hope that in the USA we will start teaching our young kids Spanish or Chinese, instead of other unimportant subjects, but the education system here is all about money, pensions, and making sure that kids fit into the work force.
It is not about education here, it is about building a pseudo businees on education--hence why we have trillons of dollars worth of student loans to deal with.Which only harbors the students with more stress and frustration. This is not the way to go about it or educate our youth, but it is a failed system here.
That is the perspective from someone who has been through many years of primary and secondary schools in the USA. It has personally been EXTREMELY difficult for me to practice Spanish with native speakers, as they already know English, and I am trying to learn in my 20's. I appreciate your patience, but it is not easy.
So, what do you think of Americans and their education system? Do any of you agree with my points? Let me know what your school experience was like.
The published tables of academic attainment in maths and science around the world show East Asian countries regularly fill the top places, followed by northern European countries. We also see that these countries have very high levels in foreign language learning.
In contrast, other western countries tend to lag behind, particularly when it comes to languages, with the UK following the US in treating the teaching of foreign languages as an optional extra that is not taken seriously by most students.
School systems tend to reflect the culture of their countries, so perhaps there is something fundamentally wrong with western cultural values in which examination passes, moderated to ensure they are achieved by a certain proportion of students, are considered to equate to knowledge, understanding and competence.
Not that I'm so sure really like this plan:)
What surprises me...
this idea had never even came to my mind! Untill I read about the Netherlands and the way things are there.
Even in late 80s and early 90s Everything was dubbed here (in tiny video-salons, in small neighbourhood-level cable networks... mostly dubbed by the translator himself). I never thought it could be other way.
Watching foreighn language movies is a popular past-time here. It works this way: "Mary, you are learning Italian, eh? What about gathering at Michael's tonight to watch an Italian film in Italian? With subtitles, yes".
Hello, Colin
I live in Mexico. I've been learning English for almost twenty years. I don't feel like I have any rights to judge another country's school system, I'll limit myself to tell you: that seems like a very dark picture for students. The fear of having students loans must be incredible. I probably wouldn't study if I was in that situation.
Now, here in Mexico, there are several situations when it comes to education. There are three big "problems":
- The students don't like to learn (not all of them)
- Some teachers bought their right to work.
- The education is free for all and a really big portion of the national budget goes to education, however, the government workers in the education sector always steal most of the money and the schools probably just get a 10%. (There's a teacher who was head of the union. She bought the biggest house in Coronado Island).
I'll be glad to continue telling you more. Just let me know.
Saludos,
