I meant it from the sociological aspect as it pertains to Language.!
Max.

 

Careful Max, you're on the verge of getting into politics which on AAC is interdit, prohibido, verboten!

Verboten, it's still interesting as well that we speak English. 1066 brought languages together to create a really interesting but, Verboten language in the sum respect.

We could have been speaking German, English or French but, ya the Verboten influenced it.

 

1066 brought languages together to create a really interesting but, Verboten language in the sum respect.

.

Yes, actually at that time English was also suppressed in favour of French, declared officially the language of the court, this is why the English language is peppered with French, and also is the language of the diplomatic service, or Corp Diplomatique.
Max.

 

Yes, actually at that time English was also suppressed in favour of French, declared officially the language of the court, this is why the English language is peppered with French, and also is the language of the diplomatic service, or Corp Diplomatique.
Max.

In the interest of language, yes

 

I don't think that dedicating 2-4 hours a week to learn a foreign language at the age of 10 is going to pull resources from learning the native language.

It's 5 hours a week because the class is every day and yes, taking away 1/6 of the available time (or 1/5 in our case because we had only five periods) is a huge waste of time with kids where the school is failing to teach them the basics they will need to function and wasting time on a skill that 99% of them will not use.

It's all about priorities.

 

Verboten, it's still interesting as well that we speak English. 1066 brought languages together to create a really interesting but, Verboten language in the sum respect.

We could have been speaking German, English or French but, ya the Verboten influenced it.

One of if not the main reason English is the universal language is it's ability to adapt and expand as needed to encompass new advances. It was funny to listen to a pair of Chines engineers speaking completely in Chinese and every now and then you would hear some English word like "microprocessor" or "interface" or some other highly technical term that other languages have no way of generating a word for. English became the world's choice because of it's flexibility.

 

It's 5 hours a week because the class is every day and yes, taking away 1/6 of the available time (or 1/5 in our case because we had only five periods) is a huge waste of time with kids where the school is failing to teach them the basics they will need to function and wasting time on a skill that 99% of them will not use.

It's all about priorities.

Which I think brings up a European day vs an American day. Are the hrs the same or is the work day and year and Vacations different?

I've always listen to people and have had a hard time understanding?

 

I'm going to say not enough emphasis is placed on the 3 R's and more so, when did it become required to take spanish in grade school?
...

Since the "powers that be" realised the hsipanic population is growing much faster than the white population, and know that if the exponential curve continues (which it will) then in 30-50 years or so the hispanics will be the majority in the USA.

Texas and southern California are already >50% hispanic students in the schools. That's the future population right there, apart from the fact that more hispanics than whites will immigrate into the USA so it will get even more so. There's also evidence that hispanics breed faster and younger than whites on average, but it's hard to get good figures on that due to the social backlash and people's overly emotional response to the facts etc.

 

Since the "powers that be" realised the hsipanic population is growing much faster than the white population.

It may not stay that way, as time goes on. There is always a balance and that balance is education.

 

Which I think brings up a European day vs an American day. Are the hrs the same or is the work day and year and Vacations different?

I've always listen to people and have had a hard time understanding?

Kids from ages 6-12 go to school for about 5, 5.5 hours a day and have at about 6 periods. But they are also required to work at home as well, doing their homework.
In the way the society has formed, pretty much every kid also does extra courses, outside of school, in the form of private lessons. This could either be foreign languages, music or sports.

Since the "powers that be" realised the hsipanic population is growing much faster than the white population, and know that if the exponential curve continues (which it will) then in 30-50 years or so the hispanics will be the majority in the USA.

Texas and southern California are already >50% hispanic students in the schools. That's the future population right there, apart from the fact that more hispanics than whites will immigrate into the USA so it will get even more so. There's also evidence that hispanics breed faster and younger than whites on average, but it's hard to get good figures on that due to the social backlash and people's overly emotional response to the facts etc.

If the government shifts the personality of the whole country to better fit a growing percentage of the population, I would be greatly impressed. Usually we notice incidents of racism and fear of change.

 

When you have that many people who are functional illiterates in their OWN language, why on earth are they wasting the time to teach them a second language?

One thing is true: if you are bad at speaking / writing in your native tongue, do not expect to perform ANY better in a foreing one.

From that point of view, time spent in learning a second language is just pure waste. Pity is that the outcome, you know it later.

BUT, and this is an important one, if you like to give your children one more option in life, additional foreing languages do help. Not necessarily English.

With that in mind I pushed more or less hard my four children, with varied success. Again, pity is that the outcome, you know it later.

Keeping aside those gifted that learn languages easily, common people, no matter their age, will learn much more easily, any language, because of two reasons, that made all of us here, learn naturally: having someone to imitate and necessity. Or how do you believe you were able to say for the first time "mamá" or "agua" as a baby?

Still recall the first time, in London, when I had to tell the bus driver that I needed a ticket to Marble Arch. Oh yes!

 

One of if not the main reason English is the universal language is it's ability to adapt and expand as needed to encompass new advances. It was funny to listen to a pair of Chines engineers speaking completely in Chinese and every now and then you would hear some English word like "microprocessor" or "interface" or some other highly technical term that other languages have no way of generating a word for. English became the world's choice because of it's flexibility.

I believe that English owes what bit of flexibility it has, to Latin. I'm not an expert in language, but my phonics lesson as a kid included some history; not sure if public school has that. Words like photograph, audiophile, etc are Latin in origin and are a combination of two words. They treated words as building block with which to construct larger, more meaningful words. In Latin, you could throw 4 words together and make up a totally new word on the spot, to describe an unprecedented experience or object, and have it be grammatically correct. You can do the same with English, but only to an extent. Microprocessor is a good one, and if I'm not mistaken, micro is a Latin root. But what if I wanted a word to distinguish the wheels on my car from the wheels on my bike? Could I use carwheel or bikewheel? Not really; I need to be more rigid and use a sentence where a word would have do the job "the wheels on my car." I believe there are languages that are even more flexible than English, on par with Latin. I tried learning Arabic once, and from my very limited experience I believe it is one of those more flexible languages.

Edit: another thought along these lines: sure, we have more technical words in English, mainly because the technical artifacts were discovered by English speakers, or English speakers got hold of foreign technology and quickly branded it with their own name before it its native descriptive word could take hold globally. This does not necessarily make English more flexible. Every time there is a new discovery, we must reach deep into the imagination and come up with a brand new word, agree upon it, and rewrite the dictionary to include it. This is one of the reasons why we have so many words. If we had a truly flexible language, we could use preexisting root words to describe the new artifact and forego the dictionary entry.

 

I believe that English owes what bit of flexibility it has, to Latin. I'm not an expert in language, but my phonics lesson as a kid included some history; not sure if public school has that. Words like photograph, audiophile, etc are Latin in origin and are a combination of two words. They treated words as building block with which to construct larger, more meaningful words. In Latin, you could throw 4 words together and make up a totally new word on the spot, to describe an unprecedented experience or object, and have it be grammatically correct. You can do the same with English, but only to an extent. Microprocessor is a good one, and if I'm not mistaken, micro is a Latin root. But what if I wanted a word to distinguish the wheels on my car from the wheels on my bike? Could I use carwheel or bikewheel? Not really; I need to be more rigid and use a sentence where a word would have do the job "the wheels on my car." I believe there are languages that are even more flexible than English, on par with Latin. I tried learning Arabic once, and from my very limited experience I believe it is one of those more flexible languages.

Edit: another thought along these lines: sure, we have more technical words in English, mainly because the technical artifacts were discovered by English speakers, or English speakers got hold of foreign technology and quickly branded it with their own name before it its native descriptive word could take hold globally. This does not necessarily make English more flexible. Every time there is a new discovery, we must reach deep into the imagination and come up with a brand new word, agree upon it, and rewrite the dictionary to include it. This is one of the reasons why we have so many words. If we had a truly flexible language, we could use preexisting root words to describe the new artifact and forego the dictionary entry.

Some corrections, if you don't mind. I got to promote my products as well.

Audio is of Latin root (according to the internet). The synthetics -phile, photo-, -graph and micro- are of Ancient Greek root and are still used in Modern Greek.

I never did Latin, but I believe you that Latin works on synthetics. Greek, both Ancient and Modern work in the same way. This is a very structured way to build words, which allows for instant understanding by experienced users and also gives meaning in spelling choices.

However, Greek (and possibly Latin works in the same way to some extend) has different suffixes and forms to almost all words, depending on their tense, number and position in the sentence.

An example on an adjective:
The wheels of the car are big.
Οι ρόδες του αυτοκινήτου είναι μεγάλες.
My big brother is named Peter.
Ο μεγάλος μου αδερφός ονομάζεται Πέτρος.

In the first sentence, the word "big" refers to many objects, while in the second, it has a singular number. This is depicted in Greek within the word, in the form of the suffix.
But the suffix also tells you about the gender of the noun it describes; not all non-person words are "it" in Greek. Any word can be of male, female or neutral gender.
But wait! There is more! The suffix also tells you about the syntactical position of the noun it describes. In the first sentence, the suffix of big also encodes information that corresponds to a predicate, while on the second to a subject.

The same holds true for nouns, participles, verbs and articles.

All this makes for a very structured language, whose sentences compress a great deal of information. This, in turn, allows you to use incomplete sentences that still convey full meaning and are unambiguous, given little context.

On the flip side, this makes for a language which is *very* hard to use without mistakes and this is true for the natives as well, if they aren't very literate.
I don't think I ever met a foreigner who could speak Greek without mistakes, let alone have a good accent.

Now, consider that the whole world needed to use one single language to communicate. Which one would they pick? Greek or English?
Being native speaker of an easy language has its benefits.

 

I believe that English owes what bit of flexibility it has, to Latin. I'm not an expert in language, but my phonics lesson as a kid included some history; not sure if public school has that. Words like photograph, audiophile, etc are Latin in origin and are a combination of two words. They treated words as building block with which to construct larger, more meaningful words. In Latin, you could throw 4 words together and make up a totally new word on the spot, to describe an unprecedented experience or object, and have it be grammatically correct. You can do the same with English, but only to an extent. Microprocessor is a good one, and if I'm not mistaken, micro is a Latin root. But what if I wanted a word to distinguish the wheels on my car from the wheels on my bike? Could I use carwheel or bikewheel? Not really; I need to be more rigid and use a sentence where a word would have do the job "the wheels on my car." I believe there are languages that are even more flexible than English, on par with Latin. I tried learning Arabic once, and from my very limited experience I believe it is one of those more flexible languages.

Edit: another thought along these lines: sure, we have more technical words in English, mainly because the technical artifacts were discovered by English speakers, or English speakers got hold of foreign technology and quickly branded it with their own name before it its native descriptive word could take hold globally. This does not necessarily make English more flexible. Every time there is a new discovery, we must reach deep into the imagination and come up with a brand new word, agree upon it, and rewrite the dictionary to include it. This is one of the reasons why we have so many words. If we had a truly flexible language, we could use preexisting root words to describe the new artifact and forego the dictionary entry.

My point is that English, more than any other language, is friendly to new words. The point is, that every year they run a program listing all the "new" words added to the dictionary that year and many of them are silly..... but that's the point. English allows almost anything and that means it has the highest degree of freedom for new advancement.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/words/what-s-new

Technology remains a catalyst for emerging words and is reflected in the new entries including MOOC, bitcoin, Internet of things, BYOD, and hackerspace. Several fashion terms also make their Oxford dictionary debut this season from double denim to geek chic.

The latest update to Oxford Dictionaries Online reflects the continued influence of contemporary culture and social media on the English language, with newly added words in these categories including gossip mill, friend zone, tweetable, and social sharing. The language of technology has also influenced this update, with cruft, dumbphone, touchless, SSD, and FOSS all included.

Social terms recognized include bezzie, boyf, deets, First World problem, and stressy whilst technology brings us chatbot, forumite, Godwin’s law, and the recently launched LTE and 4G mobile networks. The continuing impact of the financial world can be seen in the addition of debt trap, payday loan, and payday lender.

 

One thing is true: if you are bad at speaking / writing in your native tongue, do not expect to perform ANY better in a foreing one.

From that point of view, time spent in learning a second language is just pure waste. Pity is that the outcome, you know it later.

BUT, and this is an important one, if you like to give your children one more option in life, additional foreing languages do help. Not necessarily English.

With that in mind I pushed more or less hard my four children, with varied success. Again, pity is that the outcome, you know it later.

Keeping aside those gifted that learn languages easily, common people, no matter their age, will learn much more easily, any language, because of two reasons, that made all of us here, learn naturally: having someone to imitate and necessity. Or how do you believe you were able to say for the first time "mamá" or "agua" as a baby?

Still recall the first time, in London, when I had to tell the bus driver that I needed a ticket to Marble Arch. Oh yes!

My point for public education is and always has been the same: unless and until public education can demonstrate that they are succeeding in giving the majority of students the basic education they must have to function, there must be no "extras" included in the curriculum because that time must not be wasted on other things. Period.

But testing always shows the same thing: our public education is failing BIG TIME in basic education and they honestly seem indifferent about fixing the problem (the refrain is always the same, we must have more money).

I went through a pretty good public ed system in California in the 60's and 70's and it was failing then just like it is now and one of the biggest reasons: the schools view educating the masses as the necessary evil they must have to do their pet projects. Every school focused on their "gifted students"... of which I was one for a number of years. In my classes of sixth grade through 12th, the average class size was between 30 and 40 students. In the gifted classes, one instructor typically taught four students. While the other kids learned grammar, we tried to read Kipling with a book in one hand and a dictionary in the other.

The point is: until public schools stop failing at their basic function, I don't want to see class time being used on foreign language, French literature, or any other subject that isn't in the basic curriculum. And I sure as hell don't want to see the great masses being educated in herds of 40 while the "gifted" essentially get taxpayer funded tutoring from teachers who should be focused on getting our public education levels above third world levels.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/us-students-still-lag-beh_n_1695516.html

U.S. Students Still Lag Behind Foreign Peers, Schools Make Little Progress In Improving Achievement




http://www.insidehighered.com/news/...-average-global-survey-basic-education-skills

Troubling Stats on Adult Literacy

http://www.cfr.org/education/us-education-slipping-ranks-worldwide-earns-poor-grades-cfr-scorecard/p30939

U.S. Education Slipping in Ranks Worldwide, Earns Poor Grades on CFR Scorecard


​

 

So what you are saying is that schools should stop teaching things like geometry, trigonometry, physics, calculus as well as anything related to industrial arts until they are up to snuff in grammar and other basic topics across the board.

 

I think he was after the 3 R's as in the beginning of the Thread.

By the way how did they arrive at that? Isn't it Arithmetic.

But, then you begin to get into the hole Athletic thing. Which should be outside of school, some exercise is good but, should we spend so much money on Sports?

 

I think he was after the 3 R's as in the beginning of the Thread.

By the way how did they arrive at that? Isn't it Arithmetic.

But, then you begin to get into the hole Athletic thing. Which should be outside of school, some exercise is good but, should we spend so much money on Sports?

The "three Rs" is somewhat of a sideways joke by intentionally misspelling "riting" and "rithmatic". But it probably originally referred to the strong "R" sound at the beginning of "reading", "writing", and "reckoning".

And don't get me started on athletics. I have nothing against physical education in school and nothing against opportunities to participate in and excel in sport. But it is out of balance in so many ways. Not the least of which is that someone that excels in sport is put up on a pedestal by everyone while someone that excels in academics often has to hide the fact out of fear of being ridiculed or even worse.

 

Which should be outside of school, some exercise is good but, should we spend so much money on Sports?

Good question. They build coloseums for the football teams, who have players that can hardly read. I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it if there were room in the world for all the players to go on from high school and earn a living playing football. But how often does that happen?

I think school should focus first on the basics, the 3 Rs (or, the 2Rs and the A) and then focus on something that will be useful. It saddens me that most schools have gone away from having an auto shop class. My school had an electrical class, geared towards grooming electricians; not any more. Now, the shotgun answer is "you have to go to college and get a degree if you want to do something other than dig ditches; doesn't matter what it's in, just so long as you walk away with the paper." I would strongly support diverting sports department money toward practical skill programs; culinary arts, electrical, auto shop, accounting, machine shop, construction (students could build on campus and learn building code and save paying contractors, maybe even a colosseum), drafting, engineering, computer classes, etc. AND guidance counselors in abundance to help kids line themselves up with courses and careers that they will flourish in, and hopefully enjoy.

Not everybody needs a degree, and hardly anybody gets to the NFL.

 

When I become king, the first steps I will take to fix public education are as follows.

1. Make all extracurricular activities extracurricular. Want to play football or be a cheerleader or play in the marching band? Good for you; practice is NOT during school hours.
2. Want to have a multimillion dollar sports facility? Fine, as long as it is self-supporting through ticket sales and/or donations. Same thing for the coaching staff. (And keep the coaches out of the classrooms.)
3. Cap the superintendent's salary at three times a starting teacher's pay. Cap the principal's salary at two times a starting teacher's pay.
4. Cancel/rescind NCLB immediately. Close the federal Department of Education, and return all control to the states.
5. Separate students according to performance (not ability,) and tailor the curricula accordingly.
6. Allow non-performers to fail; stop "social promotion." Allow non-performers to drop out at 16 years of age.