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posted by martyb on Tuesday August 11 2020, @04:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the intelligence!=wisdom dept.

The Conversation:

The love of all things English begins at a young age in non-English-speaking countries, promoted by pop culture, Hollywood movies, fast-food brands, sports events and TV shows.

Later, with English skills and international education qualifications from high school, the path is laid to prestigious international universities in the English-speaking world and employment opportunities at home and abroad.

But those opportunities aren't distributed equally across socioeconomic groups. Global education in English is largely reserved for middle-class students.

This is creating a divide between those inside the global English proficiency ecosystem and those relegated to parts of the education system where such opportunities don't exist.

[...] It's unfortunate so many schools view an English-speaking model as the gold standard and overlook their own local or regional wisdoms. We need to remember that encouraging young people to join a privileged English-speaking élite educated in foreign universities is only one of many possible educational options.


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  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday August 11 2020, @06:14AM (4 children)

    by krishnoid (1156) on Tuesday August 11 2020, @06:14AM (#1034769)

    Rosetta Stone is currently offering a $200 lifetime subscription [rosettastone.com] to their 24 languages on the web and via their app. Dunno if it's a good way to learn, but considering how long they've been around, it's not *that* much for something you may want to try out later or over time.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 11 2020, @01:54PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday August 11 2020, @01:54PM (#1034902) Journal

    Pimsleur courses are awesome and spoken-only, so they're good for using while you're commuting or exercising. You can get their whole catalogue off BitTorrent.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @06:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @06:45PM (#1035084)

    slaveware

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @05:10AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @05:10AM (#1035404)

    It's not, the best way. Basically all the ways of learning that people charge for are bunk. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part they don't work. The only way to learn a language is to use the language and pick up the bits as you go. It's the only way that universally works for everybody across every socioeconomic group. Individuals who never learn any languages at all are exceedingly rare and are usually people who never encounter other people or have severe cognitive problems.

    The best way is essentially to learn the phrases for things like "How do you say ____" "Please repeat that more slowly" Please spell that for me" and the like. Over time, it builds on itself and you do learn. It's just not very fast and not very pleasant so people want a shortcut. Ultimately, if you learn 5 new words in the language a day, you're on pace to be completely fluent within a matter of a few years. And within 10 to 15 years have a level of knowledge about the language typical of a native speaker that's graduated college.

    The biggest problem with those programs though is that unless they involve talking with other people, there's a massive ledge that you eventually have to leap off of and hope that you've got enough language to manage.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @03:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @03:49PM (#1035588)

    Depending upon the language, you can get a lot of time with a native speaker for $200, especially if you're willing or able to help them with their language skills. I remember when I was working in China that the going rate for foreigner experts teaching English outside of the school was something like $17 an hour at the time. For the Chinese, you'd pay less, but you'd still be paying them enough money to make it worth their while and legitimately pay a decent wage. For that same $200 you could probably get a surprising amount of time from a typical Mandarin speaker.