Last night, as I was having trouble sleeping, a distinct memory popped up in my mind.
I was at a German lesson in college. We were reading some rules or doing exercises, when another teacher came to the classroom. She then started discussing something with our teacher in a foreign language. I don't even know which language it was, German or English, I couldn't understand a single word. That was so bizarre to my 17-year-old self - I mean, can you imagine, being able to actually speak another language?
This seems so stupid now. Of course you can speak languages if you actually learn them! But why do people leave school without a single piece of foreign language knowledge? Just from 5th to 9th grades of school, foreign language is studied for more than 500 hours! Where does all that time go? And people say it around the world: foreign language education in schools is just not great, sometimes completely useless. You could argue, of course, that people forget most of the things they were taught, except for things that they found useful in life or work. Personally though, I'd say I retain some basic knowledge from different disciplines. But for German, I can count from 1 to 12, and that's it. Hundreds of hours!
The thing is, even our teacher didn't know the language she was teaching us. How did it happen, you could ask?
I went to the village school. It was very small, around 60 students, and maybe 10 teachers. Almost every teacher taught several subjects. We were supposed to start learning English in the 5th grade, when the English teacher decided to leave. And the school couldn't find a replacement - not a lot of options when your village consists of 200 people, and most of them are farmers. Nobody would come from the closest city either: the school didn't even have a bus at that time, public transport had a terrible schedule, personal transport just didn't exist back then (at least not for teachers with their miserable salaries). But the school was obligated to provide an education. So, the decision was made: one of the teachers agreed to start teaching a language. A language she herself learned in school, which she couldn't even speak. She was basically learning it with us.
So, there you have it, my reason for having a bad foreign language education. Of course, I always had zero interest in learning German, but it's nice have something else to blame.
This is very good, completely clear and comprehensible with only a few pretty minor errors. Keep up the good work!
Each time I hear there are no proper opportunities or the education (in general not just for languages) is not good, it makes me sad.
It would be really wonderful if we could encourage more language learning and develop institutions to ensure the education is better or that there are facilities to make learning on your own easier and cheaper.
Honestly, my language teachers apart from my Italian one were not very good, but I grew up surrounded by Spanish so not having a good Spanish teacher was not a huge problem for me.
There are free grammar books online and with the increasing language community, many youtubers and bloggers offer advice on how to learn languages better from their experience.
I hope for the languages you are pursuing that you have the adequate support and the determination and discipline to continue learning them.
Languages are super important and honestly it would be so much better if we ourselves can communicate with one another rather than resorting to new technology that translates for us. It robs us from human connection.
In the title, change "in the school" to "At School." Most school-related things are described as "at school." For example, "We're not sure if what we learned at school will help us in our future careers."
Great post - really impressive work!