The effect of high school on language learning
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The effect of high school on language learning
When we sign up to a course or class there is a mental predisposition before we even start. Instead of approaching the matter with a blank mind, we make up a story of how we imagine the learning process to be like, but also about the contents of the course. A teacher never encounters a neutral student like a blank slate.
There are many forces of influence that shape the future learning. And unless you are a lifelong learner, for most people learning belongs to a very definite period in their lives. It can be a challenge to detach ourselves from this previous experience.
Because our mind is never empty, we shape our future experience according to a past experience. If the course is sufficiently different from the usual high school subjects (for example, hang gliding) the chances will be higher of approaching the class in a more neutral way. There might not be a classroom, the teacher might be more informal and rather look like an instructor and the level of abstraction might be quite lower than in school. There will be less of a risk of reproducing past behaviours.
The case of language learning is much different and falls victim to many more influences that can be traced back to high school. Most learners will have had at least some type of experience dealing with a language class in a formal context.
The influences of this prior experience are quite numerous and can strongly determine the outcome of the language class. It ranges from the way we view our relation towards a teacher, how much work we expect to do, the function of the class and so many other factors such as a belief in what is achievable. It would be ideal if a teacher address these beliefs even before the first class formally start, but that would be perceived as unnecessary as well as un-business like.
If I told you point blank that tomorrow you’d must attend a language class in the next town, you probably picture a parking lot, a square building, a classroom, other students and a teacher. The imagination kicks in. You’ll probably also do the maths of how it will fit into your week, the type of activities you might do in class and you might even project yourself as a user of that new foreign language. You might even have a picture of the results you expect to achieve after the course if over. It’s your little vision board as a learner.
The mental picture you develop of your future success says something of similar results in the past and about your confidence. The less you expect to achieve, the more work the teacher will have to do to make you believe in yourself. The less trust you have in the teacher and their method, the less they will teach you. And the more high school shapes your view of what learning means, the less too you will perform.
High school and self-belief
High school has a considerable influence on our self-belief as learners, for both subconscious and practical reasons. It can even be a blend of the two.
An example of a practical influence is simply never doing well in languages or having a teacher we disliked. We leave high school with an impression of ourselves as learners or a distaste for that particular subject. This score as a human that we give ourselves also reaches into other facets of our person such our perceived attractiveness, our skill at socializing and our popularity.
The practical side of the experience can easily turn into something subconscious in the same way that a phobia operates. It becomes an idea larger than reason that has been adopted by our subconscious, or our full being. (for lack of a better word)
In moments of introspection, many adults will start their thoughts with “I was never (fill in the blank) in high school” as if we were somehow at our purest and most honest self and that high school acted as a sort of irreversible measure for our future life as adults. As if to say “they looked into my core being, I passed the trials and this is who I am”.
The measure of our academic performance is a score we achieved on a sheet of paper. It never takes into account the psychological factors surrounding school, such as the atmosphere, the other pupils, overcoming personal hardships, the daily repetition of undefined cyclic actions and the uninspiring factory-like buildings. It would be like saying “I was never good at football. By the way, did I mention that the pitch was covered in mud and that the coach beat us with ticks?”
The physical school places itself outside of the debate as an influence on our performance. Partly due to the unquantifiable nature of this influence, but also as a sort of contract that imposes itself on the participants. “We know school isn’t perfect but this is what you’re getting.” End of discussion.
Even the participants themselves find it hard to forgive themselves for their poor performance in school. It seems that only way to break the spell is to meet academic success at a later age in a different context in order to fully prove to ourselves that school was at fault, not us. Until then, a sense of unease usually endures when facing the challenge of learning at a later age.
A few subconscious factors
The subconscious ideas that school places in spite of itself in our minds are at the same time very visible and quite well hidden. It is a case of not seeing the wood for the trees.
The first is the glaring contradiction between school being measured in years while at the same time leading to very uncertain results. Years of maths, geography or chemistry classes still don’t make pupils experts in those fields. A pupil might take the highest level of foreign languages available on the curriculum and still not be able to converse with ease in French or Spanish.
Instead of questioning this, there is usually an acceptance. The subconscious conclusion we draw from this experience is that learning anything is hard and takes a long time. Proof being that you can study 10 years of maths while still not being able to deliver an impromptu lecture on maths to your parents.
In languages, this is exactly the same phenomenon. We conclude that we were taught by the best and that years were still not sufficient to reach that fluent level. Therefore, languages must be hard and necessarily acquired after many years of work.
Another subconscious belief that we develop in school is that knowledge and learning is best done in a specialized context. The figure of Martin Luther, translator of the Bible into ordinary German and figurehead of the Protestant reform should remind us of similar happenings in History. Why should the Bible only be interpreted by specialists who know Latin?, he questioned.
The third subconscious factor can be found in the person of the teacher who often acts as the guardian of knowledge and sets the pace of the learning according to their clock or calendar. As a leader of the knowledge, pupils invariably fall into the roles of followers or spectators. They overly develop caution at the thought of appropriating the knowledge.
The fourth factor of influence is being trained to fear the wrong answer. School does not usually reward creativity or finding alternate solutions to a problem. When they choose a language school as adults, it will be done based on what seems familiar to them (i.e. how much does it resemble high school?) and how right or wrong they might be when making that decision. How do we do that? We look at other people’s opinions or reviews and the cycle continues.
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Practical consequences
The consequences of high school on language learning are plainly visible to who is paying attention. My very first job teaching French in a language school showed me all I had to know within my first hour.
The students sat opposite me in a class just as they did in school. They assumed the role of those who would be led and taught. They never came with questions or references to their own independent learning. Their trust in me was complete and just as in school they did not project into the future. The class was now, almost as if designed to satisfy the present moment without looking at the end goal.
A geography class in school does not entertain the discussion of where the knowledge might lead to nor of its future use. The class of today is a self-contained moment that builds on the previous class and leads towards an exam or test. How this test fits into the larger science of geography and how we might use this knowledge is not usually discussed. Pupils do not know how much they know or even if their knowledge has any true value. Multiply this by as many subjects as there are, times the number of years and schooling takes on a different face.
In stark opposition to this mental training is the real-life necessity to be able to visualize in order to achieve our projects in a real world. The slightest idea first takes form in the mind before being put into actionable steps. How odd that school choose not to encourage such visualization.
The limitations of the self when learning a language as an adult can usually be found in a conditioning that gives the learner a measure of what is possible. Who would believe in learning a language in 6 months if school couldn’t do it in 6 years?
The unclear purpose of school over a period of more than 10 years leaves students with a necessarily biased notion of the best practices when it comes to education. The refusal of the education institutions to admit to their “babysitting” role for fear of diluting their mission further distorts our understanding of learning.
In clear terms, students do not experience “the best” that we could have put at their disposal. By design, school is purposed to be spread out until pupils reach the age of 18. If the age of majority was younger, so too would school be shorter. Until then, State education organizes schooling according to the calendar, the parents’ schedules and the age of legal majority. I does not do it the other way round by setting learning targets and fitting into the time to make it happen. It does not say “it would be nice if our students developed fluency in French within 4 years”.
In clear terms, as in most things in life its is the calendar that we’ve adopted as a society that acts as the organizational force in school, rather than the mission it pursues. School is purposed to be spread out until pupils reach the age of 18. If the age of majority was younger, so too would school be shorter. The same could be said of college degrees that follow the academic calendar.
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To conclude on High School
When I think of the work I do as a French tutor, I would find it a high challenge to pass on French to a satisfactory level while working in a school context.
Groups of 20 to 25 pupils (many of which are there against their will), early morning start, French class sandwiched between other classes and limited possibilities for conversation or phonetics. Taking the UK as an example, students have as little as 1 to 2 hours weekly. There are literally 30 hours of school plus weekends to forget what was seen during the last class.
The USA does better with 5 hours of foreign languages per week, depending on the district. As for the success of their more voluminous program, if anyone has ever encountered a non-Hispanic American speaking Spanish fluently may they raise their hand at once.
My very genuine question to anyone tasking me with teaching French would be “What do you realistically wish to accomplish? What outcome are you targetting?”
For all these reasons, it is regrettable that high school has appointed itself the task of being the introduction to foreign languages for many while staying silent on the results a pupil may realistically hope to achieve.
This part of the conversation is not only never asked by the students but also never volunteered by the school. To the students it is called a “foreign languages class” that is stuck in the present moment and repeated every week. It falls within a larger nonexistent conversation on the true purpose of any of their classes or their structure.
The school enjoys a role as a sort of undisputed authority on the subjects it teaches while avoiding to put into simple words any of its outcomes. “How good at geography or at Spanish will I get if I take this course for 4 years?”, we might ask.
The students and parents who fail to take a step back and open a meta-conversation as outside observers risk being swept up in the “here and now” and draw erroneous conclusions about effective learning practices. They might genuinely believe that 4 years of French or Spanish are barely enough to crack low conversation level while at the same time never hearing that schools were not equipped to bring better results.
The feeling of incompetence for languages multiplied by as many subconscious conclusions as there are variables that make up a school will give us adult learners who not only don’t believe in their ability, but were not taught to believe. What a shame.
