Thursday night!… Time flies… I hardly saw the week goes by. Is it because now I spend more and more time training online and here?… I admit that sometimes I do lose track of time, thanks to my Google calendar that reminds me of where I am!… Okay I am exaggerating a little here… yet there are times I do forget what day it is. And, since I work on weekends, I do not see Fridays as the end of the work week… but tomorrow I decided to take a day off and take care of myself for a change. If I do not pamper myself, who will?…
That being said, I finally heard from Christie who got her results earlier this week. She got a B… I am sure she was very close to the C otherwise her results would have come in the day after her oral test. It took six days!… I guess someone listened to her tape more than once… before making their final decision. It is great that she got the required level for her job position, yet I know that she is a C… I often wonder if assessors are influenced by the actual level people are seeking. I have seen numerous candidates being assessed for a B level and then be taken in the fourth part of the test… on the other hand, none ever received a C… My question is: why?… If they were strong enough to be taken in the last part of the interview (which is for the C level), why do they always end up with a B?… In a way I think it is truly unfair to them… Some people will get a B while they are border line with the A and others will get a B rating as well while they are very close to the C (if not really a C!)… We can argue with the nonsense of both the written expression and the reading comprehension tests… yet they come with a score and people know if they are a weak B or a strong B… With the oral evaluation, no one has the means to know whether their performance was weak or strong. Perhaps it is time to introduce the B-, B and B+ notion!… Something that is in force in the school system! Oh well… anything that would make sense does not seem to be appreciated by the Public Service Commission of Canada. NEVERTHELESS…
Congratulations Christie!
Today I saw Marina for the last time before her oral interview in English next Monday. She was confident and calm… I am sure that, this time, she will go there and get her C… I will certainly be thinking of her and sending her positive vibes…
Good Luck Marina!
Now that I gave you an update on the latest developments, I would like to address a topic that kind of heated up a forum this week. I think that the individual who, a few days ago, started this thread only wished to provoke an interesting discussion among teachers and education professionals. I actually read all of the comments, but I did not want to get involved by giving my opinion… at some point I felt that the author of the thread and another person were in an open war. I have no problems with people voicing their opinions yet I do believe that people must remain civilized by not attacking each other. Personally I do have strong opinions and I am not afraid of publishing them… but I am always careful not to attack people personally… of course I do question (and yes sometimes attack) systems that seem obsolete or crooked… and I firmly believe that people like me are somewhat needed to uncover what is wrong with those systems. I am fully aware that I cannot change them… yet I like to picture myself as an eye opener. I consider that people need to know about systems flaws… if ever we want to see change happen, we first have to be informed.
De retour à mes moutons… je digresse ce soir!… Without getting too deep in the topic that was discussed, I will only say that it was about some language teaching method used in some organization in some foreign country. Apparently it would be a method that denies a couple of myths regarding the way adults learn a language… Adults cannot learn a language the way children do was among those myths (and the one that provoked quite a war). I am not an expert therefore I do not know whether adults can or cannot learn a language like children do… however I can state that adults do not learn the way children do… I do not think it is a matter of being able or unable, it is only a matter of how they learn. I do not care about researches and theories, I have seen enough adults (young and older) in my practice to see the differences. If adults and kids learned the same way, there would not be a distinction between pedagogy and andragogy…
This revolutionary method apparently works very well… once again I am not here to confirm or infirm that… I am no expert! BUT… I am incredibly skeptical… adults would learn a foreign language only by listening: for 800 hours, they would be compelled to silence… it would be similar to what infants go through before they can speak. Well… kids start speaking when they know how to make sounds other than cries and laughters… and even when they are only a few months old, they really want to form sounds (except that they cannot)… the minute they can articulate and produce sounds that are words, no one can stop them right? I can only imagine a group of adults not allowed to speak for almost seven months (assuming they are on full-time training)!… I am not here to argue about the results: apparently people learn how to speak the language this way!… It is probably some kind of brainwash… yet it is absolutely not the way children learn how to speak! Kids babble and talk all the time… surrounded by adults who correct them on a regular basis…
In a way I think it is kind of funny… although my students are reluctant to speak when they are beginners (it is more a matter of pride than anything else), if one day I would tell them that it is okay to not speak for the next 800 hours, I believe it would actually give them the little push they need to jump in the water and start talking… What adult would accept to keep silent for months?… maybe in some other cultures… but certainly not here! And… yes I do disagree with such method! Indeed I do disagree with much less drastic methods such as the ones used in the boot camps around here… Learning a language is about being allowed to express oneself, to make mistakes, to screw up tenses and having fun!
Règlements auxquels devront se soumettre ceux qui entreront céans:
6.
Ils discuteront sans colère ni passion
10.
Toute dispute devra rester à l’abri des indiscrets, et ce qui entrera dans une oreille devra sortir par l’autre avant de quitter les lieux
I Am incredibly Skeptical…
Thursday night!… Time flies… I hardly saw the week goes by. Is it because now I spend more and more time training online and here?… I admit that sometimes I do lose track of time, thanks to my Google calendar that reminds me of where I am!… Okay I am exaggerating a little here… yet there are times I do forget what day it is. And, since I work on weekends, I do not see Fridays as the end of the work week… but tomorrow I decided to take a day off and take care of myself for a change. If I do not pamper myself, who will?…
That being said, I finally heard from Christie who got her results earlier this week. She got a B… I am sure she was very close to the C otherwise her results would have come in the day after her oral test. It took six days!… I guess someone listened to her tape more than once… before making their final decision. It is great that she got the required level for her job position, yet I know that she is a C… I often wonder if assessors are influenced by the actual level people are seeking. I have seen numerous candidates being assessed for a B level and then be taken in the fourth part of the test… on the other hand, none ever received a C… My question is: why?… If they were strong enough to be taken in the last part of the interview (which is for the C level), why do they always end up with a B?… In a way I think it is truly unfair to them… Some people will get a B while they are border line with the A and others will get a B rating as well while they are very close to the C (if not really a C!)… We can argue with the nonsense of both the written expression and the reading comprehension tests… yet they come with a score and people know if they are a weak B or a strong B… With the oral evaluation, no one has the means to know whether their performance was weak or strong. Perhaps it is time to introduce the B-, B and B+ notion!… Something that is in force in the school system! Oh well… anything that would make sense does not seem to be appreciated by the Public Service Commission of Canada. NEVERTHELESS…
Congratulations Christie!
Today I saw Marina for the last time before her oral interview in English next Monday. She was confident and calm… I am sure that, this time, she will go there and get her C… I will certainly be thinking of her and sending her positive vibes…
Good Luck Marina!
Now that I gave you an update on the latest developments, I would like to address a topic that kind of heated up a forum this week. I think that the individual who, a few days ago, started this thread only wished to provoke an interesting discussion among teachers and education professionals. I actually read all of the comments, but I did not want to get involved by giving my opinion… at some point I felt that the author of the thread and another person were in an open war. I have no problems with people voicing their opinions yet I do believe that people must remain civilized by not attacking each other. Personally I do have strong opinions and I am not afraid of publishing them… but I am always careful not to attack people personally… of course I do question (and yes sometimes attack) systems that seem obsolete or crooked… and I firmly believe that people like me are somewhat needed to uncover what is wrong with those systems. I am fully aware that I cannot change them… yet I like to picture myself as an eye opener. I consider that people need to know about systems flaws… if ever we want to see change happen, we first have to be informed.
De retour à mes moutons… je digresse ce soir!… Without getting too deep in the topic that was discussed, I will only say that it was about some language teaching method used in some organization in some foreign country. Apparently it would be a method that denies a couple of myths regarding the way adults learn a language… Adults cannot learn a language the way children do was among those myths (and the one that provoked quite a war). I am not an expert therefore I do not know whether adults can or cannot learn a language like children do… however I can state that adults do not learn the way children do… I do not think it is a matter of being able or unable, it is only a matter of how they learn. I do not care about researches and theories, I have seen enough adults (young and older) in my practice to see the differences. If adults and kids learned the same way, there would not be a distinction between pedagogy and andragogy…
This revolutionary method apparently works very well… once again I am not here to confirm or infirm that… I am no expert! BUT… I am incredibly skeptical… adults would learn a foreign language only by listening: for 800 hours, they would be compelled to silence… it would be similar to what infants go through before they can speak. Well… kids start speaking when they know how to make sounds other than cries and laughters… and even when they are only a few months old, they really want to form sounds (except that they cannot)… the minute they can articulate and produce sounds that are words, no one can stop them right? I can only imagine a group of adults not allowed to speak for almost seven months (assuming they are on full-time training)!… I am not here to argue about the results: apparently people learn how to speak the language this way!… It is probably some kind of brainwash… yet it is absolutely not the way children learn how to speak! Kids babble and talk all the time… surrounded by adults who correct them on a regular basis…
In a way I think it is kind of funny… although my students are reluctant to speak when they are beginners (it is more a matter of pride than anything else), if one day I would tell them that it is okay to not speak for the next 800 hours, I believe it would actually give them the little push they need to jump in the water and start talking… What adult would accept to keep silent for months?… maybe in some other cultures… but certainly not here! And… yes I do disagree with such method! Indeed I do disagree with much less drastic methods such as the ones used in the boot camps around here… Learning a language is about being allowed to express oneself, to make mistakes, to screw up tenses and having fun!
Règlements auxquels devront se soumettre ceux qui entreront céans:
6.
Ils discuteront sans colère ni passion
10.
Toute dispute devra rester à l’abri des indiscrets, et ce qui entrera dans une oreille devra sortir par l’autre avant de quitter les lieux