Language Instruction in Different Countries

[Shrdlu]

You first, hun.

[Drydic]

Seriously. Go fuck up your own language, GTFO of mine.

[Yng]

he makes a good point, please stop thinking you can spell English however you want

[Shrdlu]

he makes a good point, please stop thinking you can spell English however you want

The thing is, it was an accident stemming from the fact I spent eight years of my life spelling "want" as "whant" because my english-teachter(R.I.P) forced me to, until she broke her hip in two. I've tried to reverse it, but sometimes it creeps back up,,

[Yng]

he makes a good point, please stop thinking you can spell English however you want

The thing is, it was an accident stemming from the fact I spent eight years of my life spelling "want" as "whant" because my english-teachter(R.I.P) forced me to, until she broke her hip in two. I've tried to reverse it, but sometimes it creeps back up,,

Did your English teacher also make you spell 'fuck' as 'fjuck'?

[Shrdlu]

[Did your English teacher also make you spell 'fuck' as 'fjuck'?

Nah, that began life as an accident.

edit: fjuck.

[Zumir]

because my english-teachter(R.I.P) forced me to

What? Sorry to make such a vapid post, but this left me staring at the screen.

[Nortaneous]

shrdlu, get spellcheck

although, in my experience, "fjuck" pops up whenever there are enough scandinavians with odd senses of humor writing in english, so

[Latinist13]

I'm from the US, when I went through K-12 (kindergarten through 12th grade), we learned a smattering of phrases here or there in Spanish or other languages in elementary school, but nothing formal until I got to seventh grade. During that year, they had a one semester course called Foreign Language Survey where they did an overview of the world's religions and a few different cultures during the first quarter, then a brief exposure to Spanish, French, German, and Latin during the second quarter where we learned words for colors, the numbers 0-10, and parts of the body. After that, in eighth grade or, in some cases, a couple years later, we picked a language to study, and that was optional. You only had to take a foreign language (and only for two years, at that) if you planned to go to college. Since I planned to go to college, and I plan to be an ordained minister, I thought it would be best to take Latin. The course I took went as follows:

8th: Intro- a full year course during which you cover in one year what you would otherwise cover in a semester

9th Level I- a continuation of Intro, after this point Intro/Level I are combined into a single year, you learn the basics of the grammar at this point

10th Level II- you cover intermediate grammar and the assigned passages get a little longer, some cultural notes are covered

11th Level III- advanced grammar (ablative absolutes, uses of the subjunctive) at this stage. Also at this stage you start learning a lot about Roman culture in intricate detail

12th Level IV- This is when you start learning to read the original authors, although my teacher did not stress this as much as she should have. We read the Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses in translation, along with passages from C. Iulius Caesar's Commentarii de Bellis Gallicis and some of Catullus' poetry (though, most certainly not Carmina XVI... ).

As for how the other languages did things, as the students advanced, they were expected to use their L2 exclusively in the classroom and had oral tests. This was not the case in my HS (and college, tbh) Latin classes Needless to say, I plan to teach this most beautiful of languages differently than my teachers did, as I plan to teach before going into the ministry.

[Aszev]

Seriously. Go fuck up your own language, GTFO of mine.

he makes a good point, please stop thinking you can spell English however you want

Way to be lenient with someone making one single typo/mistake in a non-native language.

[finlay]

one single

ehhh no

[Alces]

I'm another person from the UK. When I was in primary school (age 4/5-10/11), a French woman came in to teach us French, I think starting in the second-to-last year. But that was infrequent, and full second-language teaching only started in secondary school. The only language we had to do was French, up until Year 10 (age 14-15) when we could choose our own subjects. Although since then, the school has made it so you have to take a language even in Year 10-11. If you did well in French in Year 7 (age 11-12), you were given the option to take either German or Spanish in Year 8-9, and if you did that you could continue with that language as an option in Year 10-11. Those three languages were the only ones you could do.

The teaching was good enough, but most people didn't take it very seriously; it was seen as a lesson to relax in.