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[spork]

People in the humanities and social sciences claim their courses are necessary because they make students better thinkers and communicators, but they don't supply evidence of this, packaged appropriately, to the correct people. Given the data in Academically Adrift, there might not be any evidence. Faculty have only themselves to blame.

[mystictechgal]

FWIW, I think that one thing we do not take into consideration when comparing the teaching of English in foreign countries with the teaching of foreign languages here is the fact that there the students still have some options of practicing their English language skills outside of the classroom--and I don't think we take it anywhere near as seriously. That's not, I think, as true in other countries.

I know that anecdote =/= data, but I will offer a couple, anyway. I'm in the US and I took French as a required part of my curriculum from K-6 and then continued in MS, in a new school system where a foreign language was not a part of the curriculum until that point in time. At no point did I really have a way to practice the language outside of the school setting--even within it, we didn't use it outside of French class unless we'd misbehaved and had to write our apology to the teacher in French, and my MS classes were woefully inadequate. I've lost most of it by now, but when exposed for awhile some of it comes back, and it does seem to make it easier for me to learn enough of a new language to make travel easier. But, unlike many living here I have travelled. As a population we really don't as much as we should.

Perhaps because English is the lingua Franca I have met many people in other countries who are quite proficient, possibly because they use it outside their classes, if for no reason other than to deal with foreign visitors. On my trip to Hungary, for instance, I met a young man in his family's business--9th grade IIRC--who spoke beautiful English. Better than many I've met who have grown up here. He apologized for his lack of fluency and when my husband and I told him that he was doing very well, indeed, asked if we'd be willing to accompany him to class the next day to talk with his teacher, because he was currently earning a D in his English class. His teacher didn't think he was fluent, at all. We would have done it, too, if for no reason other than to see how well his higher scoring classmates were doing. His grammar, vocabulary, syntax, pronunciation, and fluency were quite impressive for someone earning a D. I think it's quite possible that he would have been earning an A in English classes here. Unfortunately, my concert schedule didn't permit. I still wish that it had. I think it would have been an eye-opening experience.

We don't get a chance to practice foreign languages--among other things, we can drive drive 3000 miles and never need another language--not something that can happen in Europe, and as a society we don't take the teaching or learning of them particularly seriously. That's not true, elsewhere.

[watermarkup]

People in the humanities and social sciences claim their courses are necessary because they make students better thinkers and communicators, but they don't supply evidence of this, packaged appropriately, to the correct people. Given the data in Academically Adrift, there might not be any evidence. Faculty have only themselves to blame.

See here:

Students majoring in liberal arts fields see "significantly higher gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills over time than students in other fields of study." Students majoring in business, education, social work and communications showed the smallest gains.

[spork]

Thanks for the above.

I thought about starting a new thread, but reconsidered:

Larry Summers demonstrates his idiocy

And so does the editor of the Room for Debate feature for not including a single CEO who might have a lot more credibility than the authors and educators who were included.