I don’t know what you do for a living, but would you like your job replaced by software primarily because it saves your industry money?
1 Like
Also just because one KNOWS a language doesn’t mean they can necessarily teach it, right?
Generally I certainly agree, but I still think that someone who is a teacher in general and a fluent, likely native, French speaker and has the materials should be able to teach a beginner class that can compete with Rosetta Stone.
1 Like
That’s likely true, I’d agree. But once you get past the basics, you’d probably have issues.
Would I like it? No.
Would I accept it? Sure. It happens all the time. In fact, portions of what I’ve historically done for a living have been replaced by software, so my career has been about improving my skills to manage the software as opposed to the servers the software manages.
Your argument is a variation of the classic “who will think of the buggy whip makers?!” theme. It’s not the job of society to keep people in outdated careers employed. It’s their job to adapt or fall by the way-side.
Maybe that’s how I sound. But these changes in the structure of our economy has real world impact on real live people, and I don’t think we should just shrug that off as unimportant, because it gets in the way of some ideal known as progress.
2 Likes
It’s like Soylent, but for learning.
On the other hand, I’ve found learning software often gives me better results than classroom learning. Chinese vocabulary learning was much easier with Memrise, and you get more conversation practice on Busuu than you would in a classroom. Duolinguo is great for learning structures and vocabulary in context. When it comes to maths or similar areas, I learn a lot faster with Khan Academy as I don’t have to stay at the speed of the rest of the class and can go over anything that I don’t understand. The actual speaking level and teaching ability of language teachers can also vary:
(my first German teacher had a strong Cork accent and my first French teacher had a strong Mancunian accent - it wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I was taught any second language by a native speaker)
that’s pretty much all my industry does…
You mean… a teacher?
Because nobody in Quebec has anything better to do than sit around and teach kids for free, right? This is almost as bad an idea as the whole “have the quicker students teach the struggling students” thing that was a popular refrain when I was in school.
SPENDING TIME WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE LEARNING THINGS, HELPING THEM TO LEARN, IS A VALUABLE CONTRIBUTION THAT REQUIRES SKILL AND GETS BETTER WITH PRACTICE.
AKA, a profession.
2 Likes
Definitely, but there is not much risk of getting past the basics within 100 hours, especially in high school. At that stage you are still dealing with basic grammar and a carefully selected subset of the language.
IIRC my first year of French in ninth grade amounted to around 160 hours and we didn’t even cover all tenses. In university I took 120 hours of Japanese and because of the time devoted to kana we didn’t even make it past the classic “explaining the way to the post office” and “how i brushed my teeth and had breakfast this morning” exercises.
(So I have taken classes in four foreign languages. Then I forgot all about two of them and one I sort of remember is Latin. Yay!)
1 Like
Wait… it replaces people in your industry or in other industries?
We can not stress this fact nearly enough…
1 Like
both, depends on your specialization.
No. Not all native speakers are teachers, although all teachers should be native speakers.
[quote=“Elusis, post:49, topic:52554”]
Because nobody in Quebec has anything better to do than sit around and teach kids for free, right? This is almost as bad an idea as the whole “have the quicker students teach the struggling students” thing that was a popular refrain when I was in school.[/quote]
“Language exchanges” are a very common technique in language learning. I want to learn Spanish, so I find a Spanish speaker who wants to learn English. We talk over skype, 30 mins in Spanish so I can learn, 30 mins in English so they can learn. I’m not sure what you find so objectionable about this idea. It’s a very equal exchange.
These sorts of conversational exchanges are a great thing to do even if you have a professional teacher as well. This is especially the case because, in a classroom setting, the amount of time you actually spend speaking, let alone speaking to a native speaker (as opposed to having contrived conversations with whichever student you are sitting next to), is very small.
[quote=“Elusis, post:49, topic:52554”]SPENDING TIME WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE LEARNING THINGS, HELPING THEM TO
LEARN, IS A VALUABLE CONTRIBUTION THAT REQUIRES SKILL AND GETS BETTER
WITH PRACTICE.
AKA, a profession.[/quote]
I agree with you in theory. In practice, I learned more from e.g. Michel Thomas audio courses than I ever did in a classroom. Good teachers are great, but when it comes to languages they are rare, at least in my country.
1 Like
Of course a diligent student can use Rosetta Stone to learn French. It doesn’t mean it’s the most effective practice. I started learning Russian using a grammar and audio CDs. It’s not like I didn’t learn anything, but I’m pretty sure disciplined instruction could have cut my learning time in half. As it is, I haven’t moved past mere initiate.
The argument for software against teachers is really about autodidacts. I have yet to see software that reaches the same level of interactivity as real people. Until it can pass a sort of educational Turing test, it’s a resource like any book or CD. Or combination of both. I’m no Luddite, I believe that these tools can eventually reach a level of sophistication that will stress our ability to favor human teachers, but we’re nowhere near that point. Of all the fields of human study, after years of being taken for granted, the humanities will have the last laugh as being the most complex to teach. Languages are especially challenging for computers to interpret and understand.
2 Likes
There often seems to be an idea that the professional teacher model is the best - as someone who has studied linguistics and taught languages, I’m really not completely convinced. It’s one method of learning, but it greatly depends on the teacher, the classroom setting, the student’s learning style and a number of other factors. Learning a language requires exposure to authentic language, the ability to test hypotheses, plenty of practice, a wide range of input at a suitable level and so on. First language speakers don’t learn from professionally qualified instructors in a classroom setting (and that setting often doesn’t achieve convincing results), so there’s no a priori reason to prefer that model where others are available. Where there are large classes with non-native teachers, this may actually be one of the worst ways of learning. In contrast, studying using software can be much more time-efficient and sensitive to people who don’t understand. Skype conversations with native speakers in their own countries provides people with language that an older teacher who may have lived outside of their country for years may not have (especially where there’s a generation or more between the teacher and the students). In addition, young people are going to be much more motivated if they can talk with a person who shares some of their interests and if they can be engaged in the teaching process too.
My son is pretty shy and after about five months of living here the teachers were wondering if he had a problem with learning German, as he wouldn’t speak with them - until they actually saw him playing with the other kids and talking with them quite happily. They thought it was amazing, but it’s really just the natural way that kids learn language. I’m sure he did learn a lot from them, but arguably not nearly as much as he did by interacting with his German speaking environment.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
