Comments

Unsatisfactory.

-- JdFisher - 07 Jul 2006

That's what it means.

-- JdFisher - 07 Jul 2006

Hi JD!

That's what Ed said.

So it's an F, right?

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Jul 2006

For a native speaker of English who is choosing a second language to learn, Chinese is hands down the best choice (as English is for native speakers of Chinese). Arabic is a good second choice, and Japanese isn't bad since if you've mastered reading Japanese characters, you've reduced the difficulty of learning Chinese by an order of magnitude or two.

Spanish and French are less useful, not only instrumentally, but because they are much more similar to English and they don't stretch the learner's understanding about how different languages are nearly as far.

-- LindaSeebach - 08 Jul 2006

I think this depends on your purpose in learning a second language.

If you're learning it to stretch your brain, then yes, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or anything else with a non-Roman alphabet would work.

Or, you could go with Hungarian or Suomi (Finnish), which have Roman alphabets (plus diacritical marks) but are not Indo-European languages.

If you're learning a language to use daily, and you're in the Southwest USA, then Spanish is hands-down the most useful language right now.

If you're learning a language to use daily, and you live in a New England border state, then French might be a better choice.

-- GoogleMaster - 08 Jul 2006

My only purpose in learning a second language was to fulfill graduation requirements. In which case the best plan is to pick one commonly-taught language and stick with it.

-- RudbeckiaHirta - 08 Jul 2006

How many people leave middle school speaking a language fluently?

I would choose any language which is ancestral to English, or which has influenced it heavily: French, German, Latin, or Classical Greek. Knowledge of any of these languages will make you a better speller, and expand your vocabulary.

Our public schools have done a terrible job teaching grammar in the Language Arts domain; they rely upon the foreign language teachers to impart some knowledge of basic grammar to the college bound. I believe the private and parochial schools do a much better job with grammar.

I lean towards the Classics, if offered, because I believe they lead to better writing. The set translation pieces, once students are beyond the very first stages, are usually selections from such writers as Cicero, Catullus, etc. These are pieces which were strong enough to survive in a time when any manuscript needed to be copied over by scribes on very expensive parchment.

I am very wary of hot trends in education. I realise that Chinese is trendy right now, but I have no idea how many students will choose to stay with Chinese through high school.

-- KtmGuest - 08 Jul 2006

Hi, Linda!

I actually bought Chinese flash cards last year after reading a speculative study about IQ & Chinese characters...but we haven't used them.

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jul 2006

My only purpose in learning a second language was to fulfill graduation requirements. In which case the best plan is to pick one commonly-taught language and stick with it.

yeah.....you'd think so, wouldn't you?

It's not as if he's going to learn a language in any event.

I figure he spent this year not learning Spanish; he can spend next year not learning French.

plus ça change

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jul 2006

Hi, Ktm Guest —

Don't know if you've been around for this, but Irvington has a fantastic Latin teacher at the high school. Christopher will definitely be taking Latin. I wish I could take it, too.

Spanish is my "second" language; I almost majored in it in college.

It's been incredibly useful over the years.

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jul 2006

Our public schools have done a terrible job teaching grammar in the Language Arts domain; they rely upon the foreign language teachers to impart some knowledge of basic grammar to the college bound.

You know.....I don't think Irvington Middle School is doing a half-bad job with grammar (not that I know how to teach it).

Christopher's writing is reasonably grammatical, and his teacher this year spent quite a lot of time on grammar.

I'm having him do Steps to Good Grammar this summer, and I'm going to have him learn how to diagram sentences.

Plus the great news around here is that after 3 years of Megawords Christopher's spelling is starting to be plausible. It's not good, but it's no longer shockingly bad. Ms. K, his English teacher, also taught spelling all year long.

I'd say her writing instruction wasn't great, her refusal to provide models is outright bad teaching, and her grading was too harsh.

BUT my sense is that Christopher left her class knowing more than he did going in. Possibly quite a bit more.

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jul 2006