With only 8 minutes left to spare in the day… Well, what can one expect? You know that Wednesdays stink for me this semester.

So says a Quebec language advisory board.  This is the type story that I’m sure a lot of my colleagues would point to and say, “You see!  Likewise, one can’t force US immigrants to learn English” – to which they’d be completely correct.  You can’t forceanyone to learn anything that they don’t want to.  However, immigration policies should ideally favor those potential immigrants who are most likely to want and try to integrate.  The desire to retain your own unique national character is not racist — it is merely part of human nature.  For those who suggest that to expect immigrants to try to integrate into the culture of their newly adopted home is racist, I have one question: is it also racist for immigrants to practice their own culture in the new land?  Seriously…  You can’t call one racist without decrying the other, because they both spring from the same thought.  Both the immigrant and the native are both engaging in a form of cultural chauvinism in assuming that what they do is “the way to do it” (and often the “best” way).  Both hold their own beliefs/values/practices to be more reputable.  So why don’t we every hear about the “racism” of those who move to another country and then publicly reject or even renounce its culture, language, and traditions?  Hmmmm…

Still, for disclaimer’s sake, the Quebec situation is a bit more complex than simple immigration woes.  While there are certainly immigrants everywherewho just don’t quite get the hang of the language of their host nation, the situation in Quebec is complicated by the side-by-side existence of English and French in Quebec.  Many new immigrants to the region (who are native speakers of a third language) are attracted to English study more than to French.  This is often simply practical, as many of them will have studied English for years in compulsory education before immigrating, but can also sometimes reflect the thought of English as the more commercially powerful tongue.  That, my friends, is why Québécois politicians want to foster compulsory French classes on immigrants via the Quebec identity act.

More from the Arrogant Polyglot.

Hmmm…  Increased federal spending in my area of expertise just makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over…  Keep shoveling that money boys… Keep shoveling that money! 

After all, “I feel the need….  the need for speed!”  just sounds dumb in Chinese….

Thereby disproving the “sunshine and lollipops” theory of immigration… 

Soapbox time: If you have kids, seriously give some thought before dropping everyone and moving to a foreign country.  The vast majority of immigrants both to and from Western countries are economic migrants, and when they come with kids, they run the risk of seriously traumatizing the li’l ones.  Simply put, integration is hard anyway, but when you’re a child, it can be overwhelming.  Sure, there are success cases, but there are also a lot of jaded children of immigrants out there.  Just be careful in the decision.  Don’t leap at the first thought of higher $$$ or the ability to stretch your meager savings into a permanent beach vacation.  Think about your child first — is the kid going to benefit from the travel experience, or by saddled with the burden of re-learning everything he/she thought he knew about language, culture, and “the rules of school.”

Great opinion column in The Korea Times.  The subject: why do language schools confuse “English speaking” with “white?”  Why indeed?  I’ve explained before my disgust with hiring practices in Taiwan, where high school dropouts could easily attain the title and status of “English teacher” whereas highly qualified Chinese Americans have to hunt vigorously for the same work.  The problem is region wide.  While I obviously hold nothing against foreigners teaching English in East Asia — that was me for years, after all — the abysmal hiring practices is leaving a stinky taste in everyone’s mouth.  The region needs to realize the diversity of America, and take advantage of the fact that many people with ethnic ties to their country have nonetheless grown up in the USA (or Canada, or Australia, etc.) and make perfectly serviceable teachers. 

An even better idea: hold fast to some actual standards in language teaching.  I would much rather have a highly proficient non-native FL teacher (i.e., someone actually trained in language pedagogy) teach my (as-of-yet-unborn) kids than leave them to a native speaker with dubious qualifications…  My own take — the region could actually do a better job with fewer but more qualified native speaker-teachers…

Arpan Sharma can speak in 11 different tongues and is only 10 years old.  GRRRRRRRRRRR…..  Don’t ‘cha hate it when you find people like that….

Not to dimenish his accomplishments, but the story hinges on a veeeeeeeeeery ‘elastic’ view of “speaking” a language.  The dead give-away is that he “taught himself five languages by using interactive, multimedia CD-roms.”  I’ve reviewed many a CD series, and well, you’re never going to find a one that can get you to high-level proficiency.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, one can only truly “acquire” language via personal interaction with other speakers.  It’s also quite likely that his language proficiency is entirely oral.  Literacy skills in any language take much more time to develop, as language literacy is not an innate human talent, but rather an “add-on” of sorts.  It’s likely that the boy has learned the rudiments — and can likely babble away in basic conversational matters — but mastery is another story.  Still, my hat’s off to the boy for demonstration of such tremendous self discipline and drive!

 Update: More on the Wunderkind…

Wow…  10 weeks gone by…  We’re rapidly approaching the end of the semester (beginning of December), whereupon I’ll try to give some sort of wrap-up evaluation of the first semester of language learning.  I’ve gotta say that “so far, so good.”  I’m really enjoying it, but it does get frustrating to be so limited in expressive capacity.  Language learning is nothing if not a true exercise in patience-building.  Speaking of expressive ability, we passed a milestone today in finally getting into formal learning on full conjugation (all persons) of verbs (though our teacher had let the cat out of the bag on this subject a couple weeks back), and now the book is starting to throw piles of verbs our way.  While I’m fully cognizant that the following statement puts me in a nerd category usually reserved for people with coke-bottle glasses and inhalers, I must say that I love learning verbs.  They actually excite me.  For my money, they have always been the most actionable vocabulary one can acquire, and the biggest (and fastest) facilitator of attaining actual communication skills in the foreign language.  Each new verb almost exponentially increases the number of sentences one can form.  If nothing else, it’s simply nice to be able to discuss more subjects/actions.  Until now, around 70% of our discussion has centered around “to be”-type sentences, which despite their high conceptual importance, get a bit monotonous.  Our textbook is kindov strangely arranged in terms of order of vocabulary presentation.  It teaches vocabulary from specific monologues, which results in us having learned words like “admissions office” and “The United Nations” before learning how to say “eat,” “speak,” “read,” etc.  It amazes me that, prior to Thursday, I was able to say, “Actually, my cousin Achmed is from Cairo, but he is an employee of the UN where he specializes in translation between Arabic and French,” but I couldn’t say “I eat bread”……

My high school Spanish teacher handed out a list of several hundred verbs out freshman year, and was continuously quizzing us on them (both meaning and conjugations) throughout our four years with him.  When I speak Spanish, I still can’t help but think of him as somewhat obscure (but contextually necessary) verbs pop into my head as I speak.  Good verb knowledge can help to “explain around” other vocabulary gaps.  I certainly look forward to mastering this new Arabic vocabulary. 

It’s been over a week since the last post, which is ridiculous even by my own incredibly lax standards.  Unfortunately, I think this is a harbinger of things to come, as it has been entirely been due to being buried up to my neck in pointless drivel schoolwork.  I had a major exam this last week which I had been stressing over for awhile (though, I’m pleased to announce that it was better than expected).  I also was correcting my own students’ essays throughout the weekend, and, sad to say, that will probably be the defining activity of this weekend as well.  Regardless, I should be back with some FL-learning posts next week… 

Being a polyglot pays…. Errr… It can potentially pay out… One of my friends in France always said that noone has ever been paid for merely speaking another language — you have to combine it with another skill. I’m living proof that combining language study with an education/pedagogy background doesn’t exactly cause gold to fall from the sky. I taught high school for 6 years for a pittance, and now I’m struggling through a PhD program with dreams of becoming a professor so that I can earn…. a slightly larger pittance. Obviously, academia is not the route for someone whose bottom line is the bottom line. Fortunately for the greedy-money-grubbers financially-motivated, there are career option where language skills will set you apart and up your pay substantially. Business management, finance, IT, etc. are all options where your language study can benefit your pocketbook. Even some “won’t-get-rich” jobs such as the military will, nonetheless, pay more for language skills.

But you gotta know which language to study. You’re not likely to get a pay bump for speaking Cebuano (unless you’re working in a very targeted field — or in Cebu). Click the link to see what’s in demand.

My own picks for what languages will pay out in the next 20-50 years (plz note that the list has a definite American bias):

1. English
2. Spanish: if you’ve been to the US in the last 10 years, you already know why…
3. Chinese: Mandarin is far and away the #1 choice, but other dialects can also help — Cantonese and Hokkien, especially.
4. Arabic
5. Farsi (Iran): Note: #s 4-5 are very much in demand due to reasons that should be obvious to anyone who’s watched the news in the last 6 years.
6. Japanese: their economy is down, but counting them out would be a mistake — regardless they’re still the #2 economic power in the world. Viva Toyota!
7. Korean: a surprisingly big economic punch for such a relatively small country
8. Russian: While I’ve taken shots at them – they are a contracting has been, after all — they’re still big boys on the world stage.

There are also some regional block languages which are worth studying if you know that you’ll be doing any sort of business in a certain geographic area. Some linguists have even raised the suggestion that, if for whatever reason, the “global economy” falters, and trade becomes regional again, English will be largely jettisoned for these block languages. They are:

1. English: North America, Western Europe, Australia
2. Spanish: South and Central America
3. Chinese: East Asia
4. Thai: SE Asia (this is one of the surprises, but Thailand’s booming economy has already cause the language to be widely studied in neighboring countries)
5. German: Central Europe — the Germanic “sphere” is much wider than most Americans assume, encompassing much of Hungary, the Czech Republic, etc.
6. Africa: Swahili — already something of a lingua franca in East Africa, and its influence is spreading.
7. Arabic: Middle East and North Africa (i.e., where it’s already spoken), but will also continue to be a good language of communication in ethnic communities in Europe.

These lists are obviously not exhaustive, but should give you some help in choosing which language will best help you to get the $moolah$…