Language Museum Blog

It’s often said that some languages are harder to learn than others. Tonal languages such as Mandarin for example are supposed to be more difficult for native English speakers who have no experience of listening and speaking in this way.

This reasoning is supported by the US State Department, who “compile learning expectations for a number of languages based on the amount of time it takes a native English speaker to achieve speaking and reading proficiency”. The good people over at the Voxy blog have compiled an infographic from this information to show which languages are rated ‘easy’, ‘medium’ and ‘hard’ and the length of time it should take to achieve proficiency.

What do you think of the infographic? Do you agree that it will take less time to learn Spanish than Japanese?

Via: Voxy Blog

I posted a couple of weeks ago about the Ofsted report that highlighted the limits of language teaching in secondary schools in Britain. Now the Education Secretary has indicated that a modern foreign language may once again become compulsory at GCSE level.

A national curriculum review has just been launched in England, with Education Secretary Michael Gove stating that English, maths and science should be the core subjects pupils should study up to 16. From the BBC News article:

When asked whether he was “leaving the door open” to making modern foreign languages compulsory at GCSE, Mr Gove responded with an emphatic “yes”.

He added: “We have given people a nudge with the English Baccalaureate towards a certain set of academic subjects.”
“Beyond that we want to have an informed debate.”

To gain the English Baccalaureate pupils need good GCSEs in English, maths, science, a modern foreign language, and either history or geography.

Studying for a language GCSE was no longer compulsory after 2004, and the years following saw a large drop in numbers of pupils taking a language, to the dismay of many. The debate will surely continue.

A new Ofsted report has highlighted the limits of language teaching in secondary schools, according to a BBC News article.

Whilst the report said the initiative to introduce modern languages to primary level pupils was doing well, language lessons in secondary schools were described as “weak”. It further stated:

“Reading was not taught beyond exercises in course books or previous examination papers and teachers made insufficient use of the wealth of authentic material that is available to develop students’ speaking, listening, writing, knowledge about language, language learning strategies and intercultural awareness.”

From 2004 languages were no longer required at GCSE level. Since then the number of students taking a modern language GCSE has fallen from 61% in 2005 to 44% in 2010. This is unsurprising to me – I took GCSE French and was in the top class. My teacher made the effort to engage pupils, particularly in speaking exercises, but my fellow pupils rarely spoke up. French was seen as something to be endured rather than an enjoyable way to get to know another culture.

It seems the current crop of students feel the same way. There is hope though:

[Inspectors] also said pupils’ enjoyment of language learning in primaries was “clear”.

“They were usually very enthusiastic, looked forward to lessons, understood why it was important to learn another language and were developing a good awareness of other cultures,” the report said.

I wonder what is different between the way languages are taught in primary and secondary schools? From my experience I would say that a GCSE class is focussed more on learning from a textbook, with not so much emphasis on interacting with others and learning about culture. Language classes I’ve enjoyed in the past (outside of school) have engaged students through exercises such as singing and sharing food – perhaps this is something for secondary school language teachers to consider?

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2011: The holiday’s over and now is the time to set yourself some language learning goals for the year ahead.

These goals don’t have to be your typical New Year’s resolutions – let’s face it, those never last anyway. That’s because New Year’s resolutions tend to be fairly general (“I’m going to eat healthier” or “I’m going to learn French”. To make sure you achieve your goal, it needs to be smart.

I don’t mean your goal has to be clever, SMART is an acronym – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. Take for example the goal “I’m going to learn French” – this is not specific (it doesn’t state how you will learn or where you will learn). It’s not measurable – what do you mean by ‘learn French’? It’s possibly achievable – but only when you’ve defined what level of French you want to achieve, making it not realistic. And it’s not timely as there is no specified period in which to learn.

A better goal would be “I will sign up for beginners Spanish classes by the end of January”. This is a specific goal – to enroll in a class. It is measurable – by the end of the month have you signed up for the class? It is achievable – you can find a class that fits around your schedule and sign up for it. It is realistic – aiming to sign up by the end of January gives you time to find a suitable class, which also makes it timely.

Once this goal has been achieved, you can set further goals for yourself. “I will attend my class every week until the end of the semester”, for example. Or “I will complete my Spanish homework every Saturday afternoon”.

Give it a try – what are your goals for the year ahead?

Sometimes learning a second language can be a lonely experience. Plenty of time spent with learning materials and doing homework outside of class can make it feel like you’re not connecting with others.

The video below offers a chance to hear what your fellow language learners think about studying a second language. The students in the video answer questions like “what is the most difficult part about learning a language?” and “do you have any fears when learning a second language?”

Do you agree with their opinions?

As reported in the Telegraph today, foreign language GCSEs are making a return to the syllabus.

The current government is ‘overhauling’ the education system and this means that many more pupils will be taking a GCSE in languages including Spanish, French and German. Languages are counted as one of five ‘core’ subjects which also include English, maths, science and a humanities subject. Interestingly, the language requirement also includes ancient languages, allowing for students to study Latin as well as more contemporary options such as Mandarin.

I am, of course, in favour of people learning new languages. But although this policy seems like a good idea, as someone who has a GCSE in French and can barely speak a sentence in it, I have to wonder if it’s going to be effective. Post-16, are students going to continue with their language studies or, like me, forget what they have learned only to regret it later?

Pupils who study in Gaelic also keep up with their peers in English language skills, according to a new study.

A group of children from similar backgrounds took part in the study, which found that pupils taught for their first two years in Gaelic had broadly the same English abilities as their English-taught counterparts.

Professor Lindsay Paterson, a member of the team who carried out the study, Gaelic Medium Education in Scotland, said: “This indicates there is absolutely no risk, no harm, no diminishment of attainment at all in putting your children into Gaelic medium education.

“The attainment is exactly the same as in English education.

“In fact, there may even be some positive benefits as far as English reading is concerned.

“And in addition, children acquire the capacity to speak and understand Gaelic.”

Asked why many children are ending up ahead in English, he said: “There is good international research in other linguistic contexts to show that learning bilingually stimulates children’s brains, seems to stimulate their general development, their capacity to learn right across the curriculum.

“It may be that this is what we are seeing in Scotland.” (Source: BBC News)

Currently less than 1% of young Scots are in bilingual primary education, and it is hoped that these positive results will increase their numbers.

New research appears to show that difficult-to-read fonts make for better learning.

The study at Princeton University employed volunteers to learn made-up information and then try to recall it. The results showed that the volunteers whose information was in harder-to-read fonts were more likely to recall the information when tested 15 minutes later. From BBC News:

Researchers found that, on average, those given the harder-to-read fonts actually recalled 14% more.

They believe that presenting information in a way that is hard to digest means a person has to concentrate more, and this leads to “deeper processing” and then “better retrieval” afterwards.

It is an example of the positive effects of what scientists call “disfluency”.

“Disfluency is just a subjective feeling of difficulty associated with any mental task,” explained psychology Prof Daniel Oppenheimer, one of the co-authors of the study.

“So if something is hard to see or hear, it feels disfluent… We’d found that disfluency led people to think harder about things.

“When we found that in the lab, we were very excited, because it has obvious implications for the classroom.”

The study was repeated on high school students, and the results showed they scored higher in classroom assessments when given learning materials in harder-to-read fonts.

If you find it difficult to concentrate on written language learning materials, perhaps changing the font could help. Has anyone tried this? It sounds quite distracting to me.

A project run by the BBC aims to teach people English – through the medium of television.

BBC World Service Trust’s English in Action project is an initiative in Bangladesh to raise the English language skills of 25 million people by 2017. The project has created TV shows that children and adults can watch and learn from together.

One of the shows is called Bishaash, and is described as a “supernatural detective series”. It will be accompanied by a linked English-language learning show BBC Janala: Mojay Mojay Shekha (Learning is Fun). The characters in Bishaash mainly speak in Bangla, but useful English lines are woven into the script, with Janala building on the language used.

It seems the project has language benefits for the television production crew as well, with the producer commenting:

The local crew runs the studio floor in Bangla, English or both and their confidence is palpable.

This is most evident with the integration of language and humour, where the local crew has embraced irony. Much to the amusement of the crew, I’ve been taught how to say ‘marvellous’ in Bangla in three very different ways – along with ‘It’s not possible’. (Source: BBC World Service)

The programmes are supported by lessons and quizzes that can be accessed online and by phone, as well as in a national newspaper. I wonder how successful this project will be?

Gaelic medium schools are becoming successful in Scotland, according to an article in the Scotsman.

A big commitment to teaching the language to children has been made in parts of the country – including Edinburgh, where a council is looking into creating a dedicated Gaelic school. This follows the success of Tollcross Primary’s Gaelic Medium Education unit in the city, which has seen pupil number rise in the past five years.

Critics of the move point out that Gaelic is a dying language (one per cent of Scots speak it) and wonder why it’s use is being promoted in this way. Teaching children other languages such as Mandarin may prove more useful, they say.

Whatever the second language taught, the benefits of bilingualism for children are clear:

A glowing HMIE report has just highlighted the great academic success of children at Tollcross Primary, where “a significant proportion achieve national levels in English, Gaelic and mathematics earlier than might normally be expected”. It adds: “Children learning through the medium of Gaelic progress very well.”

Antonella Sorace, professor of developmental linguistics at Edinburgh University and director of the new information service Bilingualism Matters, says: “The results are consistent with research on child bilingualism, which shows that growing up with two languages brings a range of benefits to children.

For example, bilingual children tend to display improved attention and an enhanced ability to deal with complex information, have better metalinguistic skills and are more efficient language learners.”

And as the headteacher of another primary points out

“It’s like building a house. If you have one other language, whatever that is, it’s far easier to learn other languages and the benefits are wonderful.”

For language learners who aim to achieve more than two languages, that’s encouraging news.