Again, just hear me out before you grab your pitchforks. Speaking foreign languages is a skill that few Americans have and more Americans, in my view, should absolutely improve. The temptation to say Well, it should be required in schools is strong, I get it. However, the way foreign languages are taught in America is highly ineffective. So, while I lack the paper-credentials, I’m certainly no pundit, thus allow me to break down what isn’t working and what we can do about it.
By far, the biggest mistake that we make in the foreign language classroom is that students rarely get the chance to actually speak the damn language. Most foreign language classes in schools require students to write down verb conjugation tables and rote-memorize obscure grammatical rules (which to be fair, is important) for a significant percentage of the class time. The students hardly, if ever, get a chance to sound out the words, much less get to string together phrases or get real-time feedback on their speech patterns. Nobody expects calculus students to be able to figure out a double integral problem from a calculus book without practicing on a few problems in class, so why the hell do we expect foreign language students to be able to do it?
Whatever speaking they do get to do in class is sounding out basic phrases as class in unison, akin to a chorus. This is problematic since it can be nearly impossible for a single teacher to pinpoint pronunciation mistakes in a single student when they’re drowned out by 24 other students. No human instructor is capable of doing this in real-time for 25 individual students at once, they are only capable of doing so in aggregate. If the group as a whole generally sounds good, the teacher moves onto the next phrase.
The order in which words are introduced in foreign language classes is usually backwards as well. After basic greetings, the students are usually force-fed as many nouns as possible. These can be seemingly any random object; translations for ball, frying pan, pen, socket wrench, tennis racket, and so on. Unless you’re into playing tennis and plan on visiting a country that speaks that language and has a vibrant tennis culture, you’d be unlikely to use that knowledge in any realistic setting.
When I was in college (TRIGGER WARNING: a personal anecdote) I had some friends who were in a Spanish IV class. They mentioned on how they were translating one of Spain’s great literary authors from the 17th century. While I certainly do not want to dissuade anyone from a challenge, this isn’t helping anyone speak the language any better either. I’d bet my next paycheck that the text they were translating wasn’t at all representative of how modern-day Spanish speakers talk. The exercise wasn’t practical at all. Modern-day English speakers sound nothing like Shakespeare novels, so why do we think that this is an effective way to encourage people to speak a foreign language in the modern world?
Another commonly used tool in the classroom is to have students watch slow-speaking instructional videos in class. While slow-speaking videos is a good starting point for helping students develop an ear for the language, often the video-watching doesn’t go beyond that entry-level. Also, the amount of class time dedicated to this auditory method is usually fleeting. Assuming the entire 45-minute class time is used for this method meets five days per week, that is only three hours and 45 minutes per week of auditory input, which is not a whole lot of time to truly develop an ear for the language. The problem is further compounded since these videos are simply slow speaking, perfectly enunciating voice actors using robotic lines, which is not at all how most people talk.
Most foreign language classes place a heavy emphasis on written exams and assignments, to the detriment of speaking. Don’t get me wrong, being literate in a language is important; however, this shouldn’t come at the sacrifice of verbal proficiency. For all the trips to non-English speaking nations I visited, not a single local has cared about my ability to read their language beyond simple things like warning signs, restaurant menus and navigation posts. However, they have all cared that I was able to (or at least, made the attempt) to speak their language in a relatively correct manner.
“Geez Dan, you’ve done nothing but point out problems! Do you have any solutions?” I’m glad you asked, anonymous internet naysayer. I’ll add the caveat that every solution I’m going to pitch has been battle-tested by yours truly. I went from being a monolingual 23-year-old (I even failed 7th grade Spanish) to being able to hold a nearly hour-long conversation in Spanish in college, to speaking French in Montreal with relative ease, to getting free shots in Poland for being the only foreigner willing to attempt to order my drinks in the Slavic language. My ideas work, plain-and-simple. And I won’t even make you pay for them either! Today is your lucky day.
First, which is most obvious is to let the students talk! Actually talking is the only way they’ll get better at using the language in real-world settings (read: the entire point of the students being there in the first place). This will mean having to go slower and taking up more class time, and hence covering less material, but overall students will be better at actually speaking. Only after speaking, and sounding horrible at first, will the greater context of all of the verb conjugations and obscure grammar rules mentioned earlier finally sink in. Homework assignments should include an hour-long conversation on a conversation exchange website or on italki (if you can afford it) on a recurring basis.
Instead of placing such a heavy emphasis on collecting as many nouns as possible in a scattershot approach, focus more on the 100 most common action verbs of that language and ruthlessly drill it to mastery. After that, shift the students focus to the most common adjectives in the language. After that, directional/spatial words can be added. Getting these words mastered will be far more useful in forming coherent phrases than obsessing on how to say butterknife. Drill these words/phrases by using flashcards and impose a strict time limit of one second per word. Native speakers will expect you to be able to quickly formulate words, so this is a great primer for that. Once that becomes too easy (measured by less than 2% wrong while keeping the one-second-per-card tempo), increase the degree of difficulty by playing music while doing so. The real world is busy and chaotic, so it’s best to prepare for the real environment.
Auditory listening is a great tool, though the key difference is that it absolutely needs to be made for native speakers and made by native speakers, containing native speakers talking to each other. Luckily, we have plenty of podcasts nowadays that can be downloaded to your phone. Thanks to globalization and mankind’s insatiable thirst for content, there is certainly going to be an option available. You can listen during the commute, workouts, chores, or during any dead-time really. This would far exceed the number of hours you’d spend listening in class by a wide margin. It also has the benefit of being much closer to how natives speak than a few short videos that hold your hand.
Instead of written exams, we can move towards a five-to-ten-minute, one-on-one verbal conversation. This exam can be pass/fail or have a simple 5-point scoring system. The teacher and student can role-play different situations, such as a border crossing, ordering in a restaurant, asking for directions, buying something in a store, or real-life scenarios. The purpose of this is to simulate the real-world as much as possible. While students may not be as proficient in translating texts from centuries-deceased playwrights, I doubt that the customs agent in a foreign land will give a shit if they can do that be can’t understand Passport, please. Yes, I understand that a string of five-minute conversations will take more time than a written exam, but if we want to drill actual proficiency, then the time investment will be worth it.
As you can see, my bias is heavily towards being able to speak the language rather than being an Oxford scholar in the new language. We would be horrified if we heard someone say Yeah, I took three years of geometry in high school, but I still don’t know the Pythagoras Theorem, yet we are okay with the same levels of deficiency in speaking foreign languages. All of my proposed changes do not require any major up-front expenditures either. America is a diverse nation, and a dominant cultural and economic superpower. We’re quick to judge foreigners who come to our shores that struggle with English, yet we lose that moral high ground in other nations when we refuse to speak their language. It’s time we shape up already.
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