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Subject: Why France is Pushing Its Students to Master English
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flywtihwing
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Why France is Pushing Its Students to Master English
The faces look a little nervous and the words are spoken a bit timidly —all rather normal for a group of French students learning to speak English. But the hesitant responses aren't coming in a classroom where foreign language instruction is another obligatory grind in a long day of courses. Instead, these 18-to-25-year-olds are paying up to $6,000 annually to master a language they all took for six years in high school before earning their Baccalaureate degrees and entering the job market.
"A lot of things in France have changed under globalization in order to keep us competitive, but teaching people English here has remained old-fashioned and inefficient," says Julien Petitpas, one of the 10 young adults who gather for 12 hours a week to improve their English at the Berlitz language school near the Paris Opera. "In school it's all structure, grammar and getting it right on paper and in your head before you ever speak — and even then, you don't do much of that. It just doesn't work."
He's not the only person who thinks so. Earlier this month, French President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled an "emergency plan" for teaching foreign languages in the nation's schools with the lofty objective that "all our high school students must become bilingual, and some should be trilingual." Why the panic? Because as Sarkozy noted, a nation that spends 5.8% of its annual GDP on education — the fifth highest percentage in the world — simply must do better than its current rank of 69th among 109 countries on the standardized Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). To that end, Sarkozy has proposed exposing students to more native-speaking English instructors, increasing contacts between French and foreign high schools and shifting the focus in schools from written foreign-language instruction to the more practical oral.
"A modern foreign language is meant to be spoken," Sarkozy said in his latest assault on the kinds of tradition-bound practices that he believes are holding the country back economically. "Pointing something that obvious out isn't futile in a country where Latin is an oral exam on the Baccalaureate while the leading modern language [English] is evaluated in written form."
Compelling teachers in France's notoriously rigid education system to change their ways and encourage students to speak more in foreign-language classes will be one challenge to overcome. Another is confronting the contradiction that comes with promoting foreign-language study among students and continuing France's long-standing policies aimed at protecting and promoting the use of the French language at home. The Academie Française began its mission of purging the French language of impurities — often words taken from other languages — way back in 1635. The key objective of the country's 25-year-old exception culturelle is ensuring that French-language music, film and other cultural products are not dominated by English-language imports. And a law passed in 1994 requires that French translations accompany any foreign phrases in state documents, business contracts and even advertising.
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http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0
,8599,1932422,00.html
2009-11-2 01:41 PM
#1
petera
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NWO
Sarkozy is a Zionist NWO operative.
2009-11-2 02:40 PM
#2
Exergy
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200 years from now, all of europe is going to be speaking some form of english
2009-11-2 03:17 PM
#3
emucentral
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QUOTE:
Originally posted by
petera
at 2009-11-2 16:40
Sarkozy is a Zionist NWO operative.
Thank goodness for that. Everyone else is, apparently, so it's good to see Sarky is not the odd one out !
2009-11-2 07:29 PM
#4
Dragon1949
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i'm don't know why,but i know one thing
Sarkozy is a hungry JEW.many people haven't notice that yet.
since Sarkozy is a jew,many motive/reasons behind the Story won't be so hard to understand.
2009-11-2 07:44 PM
#5
harmless
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QUOTE:
Originally posted by
Dragon1949
at 2009-11-2 19:44
Sarkozy is a hungry JEW.many people haven't notice that yet.
since Sarkozy is a jew,many motive/reasons behind the Story won't be so hard to understand.
since Sarkozy is a jew
since xyz is a German
since xyz is a Filipino
since YOU are a Chinese
What kind of stereotype racist stuff we have to endure here in this forum ?
My goodness !
Talking shyt from Morning till Night
and still waking up early morning with overflowing pampers.
I am dreaming of a generation who has abandoned racism for good !
[
Last edited by harmless at 2009-11-2 07:50 PM
]
2009-11-2 07:49 PM
#6
Dragon1949
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let's be fair
QUOTE:
Originally posted by
harmless
at 2009-11-2 19:49
since Sarkozy is a jew
since xyz is a German
since xyz is a Filipino
since YOU are a Chinese
What kind of stereotype racist stuff we have to endure here in this forum ?
My goodness !
...
i don't care "since Sarkozy is a jew" or " since xyz is a German, since xyz is a anglos"
in my eyes, u guiluos who works and live in china are all the same.a non-Han= Suspicion and mistrust，Remember that.
2009-11-2 08:01 PM
#7
liuyedao
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So many foreign losers pretending to be a chauvinist Han Chinese nowadays.
2009-11-2 08:08 PM
#8
seneca
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Sarkozy is not doing his nation any good by changing France's foreign language instruction policies; they have been fairly efficient until now. What had to change is the French mindset that was until recently characterised by a snobbish outlook towards other languages. In this respect, the French were as parochial and provincial as the English speakers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Except that the French have traditionally mastered one ortwo foreign tongues whereas the U.S. Americans almost never succeed in learning one, sometimes not even their first tongue correctly (witness George D Bush!).
If even the Berlitz methodology is praised as a "novel" approach then it can really only get worse before it might get better again. Francais: Vous faites fausse route en ecoutant aux americans!
[
Last edited by seneca at 2009-11-2 08:34 PM
]
2009-11-2 08:30 PM
#9
seneca
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QUOTE:
Originally posted by
Dragon1949
at 2009-11-2 19:44
Sarkozy is a hungry JEW.many people haven't notice that yet.
since Sarkozy is a jew,many motive/reasons behind the Story won't be so hard to understand.
For me, it will forever be extremely "hard to understand" the "motives/reasons behind this Story" because my mind is independent of yours and simply doesn't tick like yours.
I guess all non-Han people'sminds areticking that way, and even most Han people's - except yours.
2009-11-2 08:33 PM
#10
ragerancher
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The problem lies mainly in the French attitude that French is still a "superior" language. The fact that French is actually a minor language doesn't cross their minds. They are also far too rigid with their own language, as you mentioned, and refuse to let it adapt. English has taken on words from other languages and even ways of speak ("For sure" being and rendevous for example).
I see no reason to take a masters in English though. I've met Italian, Dutch and German people who study English at the equivalent of 6th form level (pre-uni). They speak perfectly fluently and don't really need a masters. A masters would go into all the fiddly bits of the English language that simply aren't used in normal conversation.
2009-11-3 07:04 AM
#11
yasawakic
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ragerancher
You cannot understand anything if you still think with these old stereotypes from 200 years ago....frenchies are not thinking their language is superior, they are just proud to talk a language that have influenced english for 700 years, as english just influence french for 150 years. Frenchies are no more arrogant with their language than any country. They jsut know that french was europe first diplomatic language, and try to keep this importance, it's just different with "superiority". People like you living in nowaday society always need to use "fight", "superior", "war", "domination", "punish", "revenge", to explain anything, and that's a good reason for you to learn french! French a minor language, certainely not! and even if it's "minor" as you say compared to english in many domain, many african countries will continue using french as an official language for centuries, and so the canadian quebec (canadian is developping french educationnal programm these years), and not to mention all other countries. And you know why french is a problem for people like you? because there are now those like
2009-11-3 08:55 AM
#12
yasawakic
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USA cultural lobbies like holliwood who would like to see all the world rush to see their garbage movies like 2012. Violence and sex, that's all what their show you. France cooperate with many 3 wolrd country to promote independent realisator: that's why every time you see a vietnam , cambodian, or african movie (do you even know who is ousmane sembene, rithy pan?) and , thanks , it let us a little oportunity to watch other things than US sh.t
French language has no pretention like US language has.
Cultural diversity is an ennemy for USA.
2009-11-3 08:59 AM
#13
liuyedao
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QUOTE:
Originally posted by
yasawakic
at 2009-11-3 08:59
Cultural diversity is an ennemy for USA. ...
Maybe you should explain to them, why they chose a black to be a president.
2009-11-3 09:25 AM
#14
tradervic
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Not going to touch this thread...
... given the craziness seen with the folks in Quebec and France about the naunces of the "colonial" vs. the "mother tongue".
It's like talking about the Hispanic languages vs. "the" Spanish language.
2009-11-3 09:39 AM
#15
emucentral
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QUOTE:
Originally posted by
tradervic
at 2009-11-3 11:39
It's like talking about the Hispanic languages vs. "the" Spanish language. ...
I was in Peru a couple of weeks ago, and I noticed that our Australian & Kiwi contacts (who lived in Peru), when speaking with the locals, referred to the language as Castellano, not "Espanol"
When you think about it, it does make sense, as Spain also is home to Catalan, Galician and Basque languages.
It would be like calling English "British", which then forgets the other 4 (or more) native languages used in Great Britain.
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Last edited by emucentral at 2009-11-3 12:19 PM
]
2009-11-3 10:15 AM
#16
flywtihwing
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QUOTE:
Originally posted by
ragerancher
at 2009-11-3 07:04
The problem lies mainly in the French attitude that French is still a "superior" language. The fact that French is actually a minor language doesn't cross their minds. They are also far t ...
per se speaking, the language is just a tool to communicate with each other. it not neccessary for the normal who can speak fluently to be a masters of english
2009-11-3 10:26 AM
#17
huang262
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QUOTE:
Originally posted by
yasawakic
at 2009-11-3 08:59
USA cultural lobbies like holliwood who would like to see all the world rush to see their garbage movies like 2012. Violence and sex, that's all what their show you. France cooperate with many 3 wo ...
In Hollywood, the bad guys speak with foreign accents, like French, for example.
2009-11-3 01:46 PM
#18
yasawakic
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Yes Huang, it's an honnor to be the bad guy in holliwood movies!
Also, I always noticed that anglo always says how bad is a foreigner english accent, as french speaken by an italian girl is so sensual! it says a lot about the spirit of these two languages...
We, the arrogant frog eaters, use to say "english is for business, french is for culture"..
2009-11-3 02:05 PM
#19
Exergy
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QUOTE:
Originally posted by
liuyedao
at 2009-11-2 20:08
So many foreign losers pretending to be a chauvinist Han Chinese nowadays.
Foreigners(from your point of view) can be Han Chinese, they simply cannot be PRC citizens. The poster I assume your comment is directed against is very likely from the Han ethnic group.
2009-11-3 02:23 PM
#20
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