Incidentally, as money drives so many aspects of society, a strongly preferred criteria for getting a job at Body Shop in UK is fluency in Mandarin....
This is an extreme generalisation - I have heard a lot of quite poor English spoken in both UK and US, so maybe one should start there when defining "good with languages" - and does your "on the scale of Europe" extend to tiny villages in the mountains of eg Greece that might well compare to tiny towns in west Texas?
OK. So would you say that Brits "in general" are as good as those in central Europe at speaking languages??
If the answer is yes, then great, I can stop feeling guilty and defend us the next time a hear a Swiss person say "you Brits are so bad at languages, so lazy"!
I'm not so sure I would want to step out and say "yes, Brits in general..." - its a big island, but I think there is a reluctance/shyness to actually speak the languages that may have been learned. And how many people in Central Europe speak Welsh or Gaelic?
I grew up in the US (New Jersey to be exact, northern not "down the shore") and my closest childhood friend was of Swiss extraction. After a while one became immune to the subtle comments that implied everything Swiss was somehow better - I think saying "the Brits are so lazy at languages" or whatever is mostly a time-honoured cliche, like saying Scandinavians are depressed or closet alcoholics.
Hihi, I have 2 cousins of Swiss extraction (of a Swiss father, but who were born and grew up in Northern NJ- but who also have a house on the shore (Barnagate Island))
Closet? There ain't no closet.
(sorry. couldn't help it. :-))
One of my brother's best friends in HS was also Swiss. Their family was nothing like your friends. So I never had that stereo type of the Swiss. They were just very lovely friendly happy people. So that's what I expected when I go here.
Just to reassure you , language teaching in France is terrible - a national scandal in my opinion. Very formal and far too little talking. Most French kids leave school with 7 years of English under their belts and they are generally very shy about talking, due to years of tough correction of the slightest fault, as perceived by their nit-picking teachers, see Odile's post above.
A factor unmentioned so far is foreign language television. No programs are dubbed in Holland or Scandanavia, as far as I know, so kids are exposed to the language spoken by natives with subtitles from the start. That makes a huge difference.
To be honest the standard of English teaching here is appalling. A French native speaker is getting English lessons paid for by the Chomage (RAV) as she works in the Film industry. Her English is quite good, she spends much of her time correcting the English teacher who says "I am agree, I am not agree & Vinter is nearly finished" "I vill go, in two week & many other basic errors. She wrote Bugler on the white board
A bit unfair to judge the whole education system on one teacher though- but yes- see my posts above.
RAV is probably using some unqualified person to save money
How she qualifies as an English teacher beats me.
The Swiss use of language is often quite sloppy, when I was first in CH Migros ran a huge advertising campaign for Ladies 'Body Bags' of course they meant 'Shoulder Bags'. I did write a letter to Migros in English, however never got a reply
Almost as bad as most english speaking countries
Fatmanfilms, that is really amusing. I have a friend, a native English speaker, who used to work for Migro, running their English language program. She was let go when a new director was hired who wanted to have her own people around her. And my friend's replacement (whom she was required to train in, of course)? A Swiss, whose English was not up to a professional level. Go figure.
My too cents on Scandinavia:
They learn English, German and French with the same methods, widely with the same teachers... the result is puzzling: They amaze the world in English, just come by in German and suck big time at French. I know, I was trained there. The difference of level English vs. French has nothing to do with teaching, but with culture and willingness, coolness and status symbols. Nothing a teacher can have an influence on.
Why?
Because teaching only gives the tools to suceed, but one must actually suceed on one own's. I learned English in the infamous French high school and here am I. A contrario, I did not meet one French teacher in Norway who spoke without awkward mistakes for somebody supposed to teach. The learner makes the difference, not the teacher alone.
Furthermore, the pedagogical movement considered in the 80ies and 90ies in Scandinavia, that the most important is how to teach, not what, and that a tracher is a pedagogue, not an academic genious. England has, as far as I know, the same problem. As bilingual, I can tell you that none of my German teachers in France had this weakness. They taught me German grammar and advanced reading, very academic indeed but they were able to speak the language perfectly.
... just love the Freudian slip
Agree with much of what you say. But surely you do know that French teachers get promotion and increased salary based on academia and not the ability to teach. Their methods are excellent for the most academic and motivated students, the Elites- but not for the majortiy of students. And communicative and debating skills are non-existent- sadly. You are bilingual and a keen learner- so their methods suited you- but the great majority of students are not, and they were and are totally put off learning, which I find tragic. My eldest brother is an academic genius in physics and computer languages (he was instrumental in some of them in the early 70s) that does NOT make him a good teacher - at all. He could not teach for toffee, and would hate it too. BTW, it is the same with other kind of teaching in France, like skiing- where the most senior ski instructors with the higher salaries are good racers- with absolutely no pedagogical ability or psychology at all. It is a difficult balance- pedagogy and good psychology without excellent skills are indeed not good, but genius without a desire and the ability to teach and the skill and talent of imparting knowledge a disaster too- at least for the vast majority of students.
Don't get the closet bit - I did write "closest", or ??
They were/are lovely people, don't misunderstand me, but there was always a comment "in Switzerland..." (Then again, they did choose to make their life in the US but send the children to CH for summer holidays with Grossi, why not ) There are so many ways I can remember in which they "adapted", and in which we absorbed their culture, while trying to decipher the Swiss-German intermixed with French flying about. It would take me a novella to do justice to all the positive aspects of our friendship, across several generations. It was the home of choice for doing our homework as my mother was always working odd hours as pediatric cardiac OR nurse, my friends Swiss mother on the other hand was ever-present with snacks of mousse au chocolat and tempting vibations to keep our teenage brains alive. I often think of their family as inspiration for my own daily life.
The danger of forum writing (although some, like Swisspea, always seem well-worded on the spot) is that one thinks faster than one can write, minus the benefit of the ongoing background discussion that puts thoughts in context. I think it is human nature to find satisfaction in categorising things - thus whole countries become a concept or type. This is probably why I find my life most satisfying someplace where I am not expected to fit in a box, I am just me.
I like to think that everywhere there are people good at different things, and regardless of where one is from by birth or education, if there is an interest or incentive, most anyone can learn anything, more or less
My grandparents immigrated from Sweden; while they spoke Swedish together they refused to teach it to my father. Even though they barely spoke English themselves, that was the only language they spoke with their child. Learning Swedish was actually forbidden.
My grandparents meant well - they wanted their son to have opportunities denied to them, which meant turning him into an All American Boy. Cutting ties with the old country was the fastest way to achieve that.
So the family language was lost in one generation. Not an uncommon story during the 20s and 30s.
I'll see your 'La Bamba' and raise you 'L'amour est un oiseau rebelle'.
For some reason our middle school French teacher thought starting the lesson with sing-along arias a good way to inspire a love of French culture. Decades later I still can't sit through a performance of Carmen without wincing.
You wrote they were "closet alcoholics" and I'm so funny that I wrote there was no closet, ie. they are openly alcoholic. But I was just playing on the whole stereotype thing. Sigh. It's not funny if you have to explain it. LOL.
Oh. I didn't mean to contradict what you said. I was just saying that the Swiss family we had in my home town weren't like that. They never really talked about Switzerland to be honest. So I have no idea, at least from them, what to expect, except very nice pleasant, friendly people.
Of course, my impression of actually Swiss people in Switzerland turned out to be that though they are polite and very nice, I don't find them particularly friendly unless they have lived overseas or unless you've met them a few times.
Your teachers were much more ambitious than mine! But seriously, what's with the plucking the bird song!? I hated the thought of it. And it's sung so happily.
Yea, but my point is that it is not an either or situation but a sowohl als auch (some readers will recognize an allusion to Kierkegaard), and I don't mind insisting on good pedagogical skills as long as the language tracher actually speaks the language properly. That's non negociable to me and you can add any other requirement of your choice, I don't mind.
they speak English for the same reason my grandparents from Sweden and Germany spoke English - it is a language that represents opportunity. I don't mean that in any "English is better" way at all, only as a simple statement of fact, since English is spoken much more broadly by more people, is the primary language for a number of the world's largest employers, is the primary language of the entertainment of choice of many western youth, etc.
survey the German and Swiss students at ETH, for example, and I suspect you will find that their German and English is excellent but their French, Spanish or Italian is about the same quality as a typical university student in the US who studies those languages as a "second language". it is simply not apples to apples to compare English skills to German skills, because the drivers for learning the languages are not the same.
It is hard to draw conclusions, Ireland is unusual in that it is probably the only English speaking nation, where English is officially not the first language! As a result learning Irish is part and parcel of school life from day one. A good mark in national exams at 18 or so is required if you want to go on to college, join a branch of the public services etc. So you have exposure from an early age and it is an important to early career success and yet I do not think we have much of an advantage over people from the UK or the USA, when it comes to learning other languages.
Really? I know about the necessity to study Irish in school and to get to uni, but I thought English was the more widely spoken language (by far).