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2006-06-22 Home Front: Culture Wars

Federal Grants To Teach Elementary Students Chinese

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Posted by Anonymoose 2006-06-22 10:31|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 My Gwad, they can't and won't teach effective English, what gives you any indication that those same teachers can handle Chinese?

$23 million dollar NEA pork. When the dust settles in 50 years, the sober minds that write history are going to peg GW as a Roosevelt-Truman-Kennedy Democrat.

Posted by Whinetle Grush9406 2006-06-22 11:31|| 2006-06-22 11:31|| Front Page Top

#2 It's a brilliiant idea. The best age at which to start learning a foreign language is before fourth grade, that is before reading skills are totally mastered. Once a child can read, language acquisition takes place in the reading part of the brain, not the talking part of the brain. Also, the older one is when he starts learning another language, the harder to speak without the pronounciation and lilt of his native tongue, that is without a perceptible accent.

And Mandarin has the advantages of being about as far as possible from American English: it's tonal with five completely different words attaching to each syllable sequence depending on melody instead, the written language is made up of pictograms instead of letters, and the sense of time is very different (at least as far as I was able to grasp in the year I completely failed to master the language).

Key is, once a second language -- any second language -- is mastered, all subsequent languages are easier to learn... including the primary one. And the earlier the brain pathways are set up, the better.

What also pleases me is that it doesn't appear, in this article at least, that the federal grants are being used to force the littlest children in Arizona to learn Spanish. Either it's assumed they already know that language, or it hasn't occurred to them to teach the children the language of their invaders.

Posted by trailing wife 2006-06-22 13:33|| 2006-06-22 13:33|| Front Page Top

#3 WG, as a graduate of Arizona's public schools (kindergarten through AZ State...go Sun Devils!!) there are some districts there that do an excellent job in teaching languages.

My old district, Paradise Valley, isn't included in this grant, yet. But that's where I got my start learning Spanish, and yes, even some Russian (thanks Mrs Strunk, wherever you are.....and Mr Damore & Ms Quihuis, too!).

The difference with foreign languages and English classes is basically the BS factor. English classes can and will make you sit through all kinds of crap that will not make you a better speaker or writer. However, it's pretty freakin' obvious if you know your French or not when you try to converse in it.

Ironically enough, I got more and better grammar instruction in my foreign language courses than I ever did in my English courses. Those classes are the reason I don't sound like a completely ignorant git when I write (I might sound like an airhead, but that's a different problem).

Posted by Desert Blondie 2006-06-22 13:35|| http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com]">[http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com] 2006-06-22 13:35|| Front Page Top

#4 yeah, for one thing, you live in Fla and call yourself "Desert Blondie"... ;-)

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-06-22 14:25|| 2006-06-22 14:25|| Front Page Top

#5 Don't worry, we're working on it.

Posted by Halliburton Climatology Division 2006-06-22 16:06|| 2006-06-22 16:06|| Front Page Top

#6 Ok, ok, fine....Swamp Blondie it is! Sheesh, what a tough crowd! ;)

Posted by Swamp Blondie (formerly) Desert Blondie 2006-06-22 17:18|| http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com]">[http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com] 2006-06-22 17:18|| Front Page Top

#7 :-)~

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-06-22 17:24|| 2006-06-22 17:24|| Front Page Top

#8 One should note that the latitude florida is at it should be a desert but our geography makes us have convection thunderstorms,Florida winters are typicaly dry.

Posted by bruce 2006-06-22 17:39|| 2006-06-22 17:39|| Front Page Top

#9 Darn it, bruce, is there nothing the Americans can't screw up!

Posted by trailing wife 2006-06-22 18:41|| 2006-06-22 18:41|| Front Page Top

#10 Just make sure they can all pass a background check - and are interested in military things...

Future NSA linguists. Heh

Posted by Oldspook 2006-06-22 22:01|| 2006-06-22 22:01|| Front Page Top

23:54 3dc
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