Reader Question: What if You Studied in School But Failed?

A while ago a reader named Genevieve sent me an e-mail with four questions she had. Most were about learning Spanish on your own after a failed study in college (she was actually passing classes easily, but couldn’t even hold a simple conversation at the end of her study). This is the email she sent me. At the end I’ll discuss each of her questions.

…

I left Secondary School with GCSE’s in Spanish [A] and French [B], alongside a number of other GCSE’s, after repetitively being publically told by my French teacher that I would not “get more than a [C]” in French and so could not advance to GCE ‘A’ Level French. Incidentally, my Spanish teacher was brilliant and very encouraging. However, I did advance to ‘A’ Level French, and Spanish, and it was during Sixth-Form College that I personally decided that I had natural aptitude for languages, because I managed to attain [C]’s in ‘A’ Level French and Spanish with no independent study and just a 10% attendance rate. (I am neither proud of this fact nor am I encouraging truancy. In fact, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have attained better grades in College if I had attended College). Nevertheless, today, two years after completing an ‘A’ level in French and Spanish, I cannot speak a word of French or Spanish! Why? (QUESTION NO 1)

Thus, simply studying a language for eight years (French) and five years (Spanish), as I did, did not amount to fluency.

I have applied to study at a university in Prague for three months (end of Feb-beginning of Jun – lectures in English) through the Erasmus (exchange) scheme, and I to intend to leave the Czech Republic in June – fluent in Czech! I intend to do this by constantly communicating with native speakers, as opposed to non-native speakers like fellow exchange student, as I am a stickler (perfectionist) for formal language as opposed to colloquial language. Is this trivial? (QUESTION NO 2)

I deliberately applied to study in a non-English-speaking country not only because I am an avid lover of languages, but also because I believe that fluency in at least one other language would complement the degree subjects which I am currently studying: International Relations and Politics. Nevertheless, I feel that my zeal for languages has been diminishing as I have not been able to afford language tuition since completing my language ‘A’ levels two years ago. How can I reignite this flame? (QUESTION NO 3)

Furthermore, I do not have enough self-confidence to teach myself a language as I have been formally educated throughout my life and so have always been taught, and thus convinced, that formal education, and the consequent paper qualifications, is the best and only way to be proficient and respected in any discipline. Is this true or is it just ‘educational snobbery’, which has been embedded into my mind? (QUESTION NO 4)

I will ensure that I explore your GREAT weblog for answers to any further questions I may have in the future; however, if you wouldn’t mind, please could you directly answer my questions just this once? Thank you very much in anticipation.

Best regards,

Genevieve

This is my answer. To make reading easier I took each question and wrote a short answer to it.

I left Secondary School with GCSE’s in Spanish [A] and French [B], alongside a number of other GCSE’s, after repetitively being publically told by my French teacher that I would not “get more than a [C]” in French and so could not advance to GCE ‘A’ Level French. Incidentally, my Spanish teacher was brilliant and very encouraging. However, I did advance to ‘A’ Level French, and Spanish, and it was during Sixth-Form College that I personally decided that I had natural aptitude for languages, because I managed to attain [C]’s in ‘A’ Level French and Spanish with no independent study and just a 10% attendance rate. (I am neither proud of this fact nor am I encouraging truancy. In fact, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have attained better grades in College if I had attended College). Nevertheless, today, two years after completing an ‘A’ level in French and Spanish, I cannot speak a word of French or Spanish! Why?

That doesn’t surprise me. In general, language instruction is very, very inefficient, grammar centered and often dull as hell. As you might know I major Spanish in college (combined with a training to be a teacher in the future) and I find the overall instruction just as pain in the ass. Teachers promote ineffective learning and teaching methods, which only contributes to the (future) problem.

I don’t know exactly how your teachers taught, but if you still can’t hold a normal conversation I’m sure it just wasn’t the right way. Often they stick to their textbooks which teach you nothing but dull and not very useful things.

My advice: don’t worry too much about it. We all know how inefficient language instruction is in general. Just be sure to not let you hold back by others and do everything you can to get better on your own (which is, in my opinion, the only way to get better at a language; working on your own. A teacher is nothing more than a coach that can help you and answer questions).

I have applied to study at a university in Prague for three months (end of Feb-beginning of Jun – lectures in English) through the Erasmus (exchange) scheme, and I to intend to leave the Czech Republic in June – fluent in Czech! I intend to do this by constantly communicating with native speakers, as opposed to non-native speakers like fellow exchange student, as I am a stickler (perfectionist) for formal language as opposed to colloquial language. Is this trivial? (QUESTION NO 2)

You mean if colloquial language is trivial? Well… YES! I mean, that’s simply how people talk at home and on the street (although there are people who always use formal language, but I think most people regard them as ‘freaks’). If you stick to formal language only you limit yourself to books and often (for many people) uninteresting subjects (or a limited amount of subjects at least).

Watching television? Listening to music? Speaking to natives? You’ll get colloquial input and really need to understand it/produce it yourself as well. I actually learned informal speech first and later moved on to more formal speech (speaking to professors in Spain, attending lectures in Spanish, etc.; this is not necessarily formal speech, but it’s still more formal than speaking with your friends).

But even though you start out with colloquial language, that doesn’t mean you’re doomed to fail when it comes to more formal language. Sometimes you just have to be formal, but here the teleivision can help you as well. Yes, most things on television are a bit informal, but in many shows formal language is used as well and you therefore will get formal input too.

About the lectures in English; is there an alternative? I mean, fluent in three months is pretty much impossible (whatever others say, or it depends on how you define true fluency), and even more if you still spend time with English. If you want to get fluent as soon as possible you should avoid contact with other languages at all costs (that includes Spanish and French; ANY language that’s no Czech will be bad for you).

I deliberately applied to study in a non-English-speaking country not only because I am an avid lover of languages, but also because I believe that fluency in at least one other language would complement the degree subjects which I am currently studying: International Relations and Politics. Nevertheless, I feel that my zeal for languages has been diminishing as I have not been able to afford language tuition since completing my language ‘A’ levels two years ago. How can I reignite this flame? (QUESTION NO 3)

I know you see this as something negative, but I see it as something positive. I actually hate language instruction and think self-’instruction’ is the way to go. Getting massive input, having fun getting it and interacting with natives is the most efficient and fun (duh!) way to learn a language, any language.

But now you say that you also learn languages because they give you a good opportunity to land a good paying job. Of course this is nice (teachers are earning more and more in the Netherlands, which certainly adds to the fact that I want to go for that career), but the only real reason you should want to learn another language is the fact that you just can’t live without it/them. You say you’re a language lover, and this is something good. Still, don’t lose that focus and only learn another language if you want it yourself.

Be sure to get the FUN back in your language learning. Many see learning their target language as a daily chore, and they’re just aiming to fail. If you don’t have fun or a goal you really want to work towards you’re probably just bullying yourself and connecting your target language with something negative.

To overcome this I’d use native materials you actually enjoy. You don’t have to understand everything to enjoy a television show; pictures can say a lot and really give you a good time. Just be sure to not continue watching/listening/reading something because you think you have to; no one is punishing you for stopping reading a certain book, the only punishment is if you push through and don’t have a good time while learning your target language.

Furthermore, I do not have enough self-confidence to teach myself a language as I have been formally educated throughout my life and so have always been taught, and thus convinced, that formal education, and the consequent paper qualifications, is the best and only way to be proficient and respected in any discipline. Is this true or is it just ‘educational snobbery’, which has been embedded into my mind? (QUESTION NO 4)

I never thing in terms as ’self-teaching’, see it at self-learning instead. In school, many believe that teachers are the most important factor; they almost see it as the teachers will do the learning for them. This, of course, is impossible. Like I said before; teachers are nothing more than coaches, or at least should act like that. YOU have to do the work, and time and money can be spend better if you just learn everything at home.

Language learning is all about absorbing the new language and imitating native speakers. As a kid you absorbed your native language, no one taught it to you (the only teaching that took place was when you were making mistakes and got corrected by your family and/or teachers). Imitating is very important in language learning, but is not really something that can be taught.

Recently I was hanging out with a Dutch friend of mine who learned Spanish to absolute native fluency (no, not even near-native, NATIVE fluency). She told me she never even opened a textbook and learned most by imitating the people around her (“hey, he’s saying this, so if I say something similair or exactly the same I’ll sound MORE native” – that’s what she thought and it certainly brought her true fluency over the years).

Possessing a diploma stating that you have a certain level in a certain language doesn’t say much. You can actually answer this question for yourself. You have quite some certificates for French and Spanish. Did those courses help? Answer it yourself and you’ll see that self-learning (yes, not teaching) is the way to go. Stick to it!

You should read this post (http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/classes-suck) as well. Also read his website, it contains some really good stuff. I know it talks about Japanese but I applied his ideas to Spanish and succeeded.

Tagged as: language instruction, Learn Spanish, should I go to a language class?, spanish school, why classes suck