Should English be an optional subject not a compulsory one?

cocoshovel

The Scientician wrote: »

I mean Mandarin is going to displace it as the lingua franca of global commerce at some stage this coming century so it just seems like a waste of time.

Mandarin is never going to displace English or any other language. Why are people saying this lately? You would have to be a complete moron to actually think this. Sure its becoming more popular as China grows but it never will displace English in my opinion.

Solair

I don't really think that texting is the origin of the problem. In fact, textspeak is now quite obsolete and was only used in the days of non-predictive text and non-QWERTY keyboards.

Smartphones have almost completely replaced traditional mobiles and they all prefer fully formed sentences and proper words!

If anything, their predictive text functions should encourage users to learn how to spell correctly!

All I know is that the standard of written English of Irish students in first year at university compared to the American counterparts is absolutely atrocious. It is not just science-oriented students who are having problems either.

To be honest, spelling errors are the least of my concerns, and spell-checkers will usually eliminate them anyway. What worries me is that students (and other adults) are just incapable of writing coherent text.

The common problems that I have come up against both in an academic environment and also in the workplace are:

1) Inability to form sentences correctly or succinctly. This typically means that adult writers produce long, meandering sentences with no punctuation. Text often uses no paragraphs or uses them completely inappropriately.

2) Poor grammar / syntax errors. This usually includes things like; misuse of apostrophe to show possession, verbs, adjectives and nouns do not agree.

3) Tone / inappropriate level of formality. E.g. business letters that are full of colloquialisms and contractions.

4) This is perhaps the most worrying one. People often have no idea how to structure a basic essay, academic argument or even a business letter. This should be covered in any essay writing programme at second level!

I went through Irish secondary school in the late 90s and came out with an A in English having only ever written one essay in class! The teacher spent two years making us learn his notes on Shakespeare and various incredibly dull poems off by heart and doing sample questions!
I left hating the subject instead of gaining any appreciation for language and literature and only regained an interest in university through participation in student societies!

I find that the usual reaction in Ireland to any criticism of the teaching profession or the school system is that you are attacked and that they just keep repeating a mantra that it is wonderful.

Sadly, the reality of the situation is that it is failing tens of thousands of students every year who are coming out into the real world with pathetically poor English language skills that will be a handicap to them throughout their working life!

There is nothing particularly dumbed-down about an English language course. A proper language course, which is not focused on literature analysis, is an extremely challenging and worthwhile experience for most students. The problem is that the Irish system is totally focused on a very narrow area of classical literature and seems to think that literature analysis is English teaching! It would be like teaching art by studying Renaissance painters and never teaching students how to use a paintbrush, pencil or chisel!

In this area, the US education system is FAR stronger and is producing people who have excellent language and communication skills. I find sometimes that the Irish system is fixated on the Leaving Certificate and has completely lost its focus on providing education because the exam is measuring all the wrong things.
Basically, the LC is just a test in the recall and regurgitation of learnt-by-heart data. So, I really think a high points score is quite meaningless in most subjects.

Students should be coming out of the Leaving Cert English programme with good writing skills, good communication skills and a nice, rounded introduction to a broad range of drama, literature and mainstream media use of the language.

Perhaps something like this:

English.
Core Module : English Language (Compulsory)
Electives:
Drama
Media Studies
Creative Writing
Literature Analysis (Classics)
etc.

Mardy Bum

Solair wrote: »

I don't really think that texting is the origin of the problem. In fact, textspeak is now quite obsolete and was only used in the days of non-predictive text and non-QWERTY keyboards.

Smartphones have almost completely replaced traditional mobiles and they all prefer fully formed sentences and proper words!

If anything, their predictive text functions should encourage users to learn how to spell correctly!

All I know is that the standard of written English of Irish students in first year at university compared to the American counterparts is absolutely atrocious. It is not just science-oriented students who are having problems either.

To be honest, spelling errors are the least of my concerns, and spell-checkers will usually eliminate them anyway. What worries me is that students (and other adults) are just incapable of writing coherent text.

The common problems that I have come up against both in an academic environment and also in the workplace are:

1) Inability to form sentences correctly or succinctly. This typically means that adult writers produce long, meandering sentences with no punctuation. Text often uses no paragraphs or uses them completely inappropriately.

2) Poor grammar / syntax errors. This usually includes things like; misuse of apostrophe to show possession, verbs, adjectives and nouns do not agree.

3) Tone / inappropriate level of formality. E.g. business letters that are full of colloquialisms and contractions.

4) This is perhaps the most worrying one. People often have no idea how to structure a basic essay, academic argument or even a business letter. This should be covered in any essay writing programme at second level!

I went through Irish secondary school in the late 90s and came out with an A in English having only ever written one essay in class! The teacher spent two years making us learn his notes on Shakespeare and various incredibly dull poems off by heart and doing sample questions!
I left hating the subject instead of gaining any appreciation for language and literature and only regained an interest in university through participation in student societies!

I find that the usual reaction in Ireland to any criticism of the teaching profession or the school system is that you are attacked and that they just keep repeating a mantra that it is wonderful.

Sadly, the reality of the situation is that it is failing tens of thousands of students every year who are coming out into the real world with pathetically poor English language skills that will be a handicap to them throughout their working life!

There is nothing particularly dumbed-down about an English language course. A proper language course, which is not focused on literature analysis, is an extremely challenging and worthwhile experience for most students. The problem is that the Irish system is totally focused on a very narrow area of classical literature and seems to think that literature analysis is English teaching! It would be like teaching art by studying Renaissance painters and never teaching students how to use a paintbrush, pencil or chisel!

In this area, the US education system is FAR stronger and is producing people who have excellent language and communication skills. I find sometimes that the Irish system is fixated on the Leaving Certificate and has completely lost its focus on providing education because the exam is measuring all the wrong things.
Basically, the LC is just a test in the recall and regurgitation of learnt-by-heart data. So, I really think a high points score is quite meaningless in most subjects.

Students should be coming out of the Leaving Cert English programme with good writing skills, good communication skills and a nice, rounded introduction to a broad range of drama, literature and mainstream media use of the language.

Perhaps something like this:

English.
Core Module : English Language (Compulsory)
Electives:
Drama
Media Studies
Creative Writing
Literature Analysis (Classics)
etc.

All the issues you raised can be dealt with by teachers both during the essay writing process and after by correcting the essay and giving feedback on it. The only way to get students to think critically is to make them engage with texts. Critical thinking is severely lacking and if this was encouraged it would eliminate the rote by learning problem. The larger issue is young people do not want to read books now at all because they can spend their time endlessly perusing facebook, twitter or boards or other mindless sites on the internet.
I can guarantee you if you had a better experience of English class in secondary school you would not have the same views.

Lord TSC

I find sometimes that the Irish system is fixated on the Leaving Certificate and has completely lost its focus on providing education because the exam is measuring all the wrong things.
Basically, the LC is just a test in the recall and regurgitation of learnt-by-heart data. So, I really think a high points score is quite meaningless in most subjects.

See, this is what I was referring to up above.

The English curriculum covers everything you stated in your post you wished it did. If you look at what teachers are asked to cover, then all you listed is actually noted in the handbook, and the purpose of studying the texts and literature is to cover all the aspects of the English language in the process of providing abilities in critical thinking. Again I admit, maybe it was because I had a fantastic array of teachers from TY to Sixth year, but we covered all the critical thinking, formation of analysis, essay writing and so forth in our LC classes. I had a teacher during those years who actively taught and encouraged us to write in a third level manner, and as a result, I got the A. It can be done, and it's not fair to nessecarily blame the subject if a lot of teachers fall back on a lazy method of not working towards the best education but towards the best points total possible (though, to me, they are not mutually exclusive).

The problemis the clash of what the curriculum is (and what teachers are being asked to teach) and what the exams are rewarding (and thus what teachers are having to teach); with what a teacher will want their class to achieve as opposed to what parents, society, exam correcter et al. will want students to achieve.

Again, maybe I just had good teachers. But for me, basic spelling and punctuation was covered in primary school, and by the time I reached secondary school, there was little need to go back over that. The core problems people have with the English language (spelling, grammar, punctuation) should all be well covered by second year, and if a student is still struggling with those basics, then you can hardly blame the curriculum or the variety of teachers they would have had up to that stage. By the time students reach the Leaving Cert stage, it shouldn't be up to the teachers they have then to go back over the basics, except when correcting essays, and even then it should be on an individual stage rather than a class one; a quick note on the side of the page that you misspelled a word while discussing your texts of choice, and a commitment from the student to try and not make the same mistake in the future.

And, if at that stage a student is still struggling with the basics, perhaps the attention needs to be shifted away from the teacher and the class and onto the student, and the question asked if he or she can deal with Honors Level English for the exam stage. For many a student, the chance to advance to Shakespeare or other literary pieces should be the reward for slogging through the basics, and it's not fair the suggestion be made that because some have trouble with the basics, all should be shielded from the advanced aspects of the courses (and that goes for every subject).

The King of Moo

I think the main reason for the poor level of written English is the fact that we barely teach grammar and punctuation in school at all. Countries where English is learned and spoken as a second language tend to have a better grasp of their native tongue's grammar than we do of English. Hell, most high-level non-native English speakers have better English-grammar ability than the average Irish person.
Learning a second language from a young age makes one more able to see one's native tongue as a non-native speaker would, becoming more aware of the grammatical rules (though every language still has its equivalent of "you're/your" mistakes that lots of people make).
Though we learn Irish from the age of 4 or 5, we don't learn it truly as a second language, and we therefore never really step back and look at how English really works, and therefore don't put much emphasis on grammar in school, leading to adults unable to string a coherent sentence together. Txtspeak exasperates the situation but I don't think it's a cause.

I also don't believe grammar and literature should be separated and literature made optional (I don't think grammar should need to be taught at secondary level: we should have a firm grasp of it well before leaving primary school).
Maybe reduce the level of literature for ordinary level English or simplify it, but I think students should be exposed to some of the great works of literature as part of their education, and I believe studying literature in school is one of the best ways to develop critical thinking, which is always useful.
Students just need good teachers who can show them how four-hundred year old drama can still be relevant.

mike65

American English should be compulsory as judged by the number of people who can't spell programme correctly.

Fluorescence

The King of Moo wrote: »

I also don't believe grammar and literature should be separated and literature made optional (I don't think grammar should need to be taught at secondary level: we should have a firm grasp of it well before leaving primary school).
Maybe reduce the level of literature for ordinary level English or simplify it, but I think students should be exposed to some of the great works of literature as part of their education, and I believe studying literature in school is one of the best ways to develop critical thinking, which is always useful.
Students just need good teachers who can show them how four-hundred year old drama can still be relevant.

The best thing about literature is that the more of it you read, the better your own grasp of English becomes. That's a very strong reason to continue studying literature on its own.

Roar

me fail English? That's unpossible!

The King of Moo

fluorescence wrote: »

The best thing about literature is that the more of it you read, the better your own grasp of English becomes. That's a very strong reason to continue studying literature on its own.

Absolutely, even in the basic sense that it improves vocabulary, but also that most published works will contain good grammar and punctuation (even if the writer didn't have a good grasp of either, the editor would fix it, though I've noticed some very lax editing in recent books) and the students will pick that up unconsciously.

Solair

Well whatever is going on in our secondary schools, the system is NOT working and it is clearly observable if you compare US students and Irish students at the same stage in 1st year in university.

Maybe my English teacher was useless, or other posters were exemplary, but we wrote one essay in 2 years of the senior cycle. Almost no feedback was provided on it either. All he did was make us do exam questions over and over and over. I did all my creative writing work myself, using books I found around the house / online.

If all of the points I highlighted are not in the curriculum, then it is not being followed and the school inspectors need to be called to task.

Children do read when the right content is presented to them. For example, the Harry Potter series gained cult following. Some of my younger cousins were actually learning to read specifically so they could read those books!

Fluorescence

Solair wrote: »

Maybe my English teacher was useless, or other posters were exemplary, but we wrote one essay in 2 years of the senior cycle. Almost no feedback was provided on it either. All he did was make us do exam questions over and over and over. I did all my creative writing work myself, using books I found around the house / online.

Your teacher was appalling if that is true. We wrote essays every week, and that was the norm from what I could tell speaking to friends from different classes and schools.

The King of Moo

Solair wrote: »

Well whatever is going on in our secondary schools, the system is NOT working and it is clearly observable if you compare US students and Irish students at the same stage in 1st year in university.

If all of the points I highlighted are not in the curriculum, then it is not being followed and the school inspectors need to be called to task.

Children do read when the right content is presented to them. For example, the Harry Potter series gained cult following. Some of my younger cousins were actually learning to read specifically so they could read those books!

I think a lot of it comes down to teachers as well as choosing the right content, something I've realised from my own teaching of the English language to teenagers, and from noticing the difference between my good and bad teachers when I was at school.

Half the battle with teaching teenagers is getting them enthusiastic about what you're teaching, and half of that battle is showing them how enthusiastic you are about it.

That doesn't mean you have to force it (they know when you're faking!), just let your own love of what you're teaching shine through (and if you don't love at least the general subject you're teaching, you should be doing something else).

Teenage students pick up on their teachers' energy. If you don't appear enthusiastic about what you're teaching, why should they?

But if you clearly love the works you're teaching, that can be infectious.

The difficulty with teaching literature is that many students will be automatically set against it, so you have to show them how a four-hundred year old play can still be relevant. So with Shakespeare, for example, you could start by showing them how many modern, relevant, youth-oriented adaptations of his work there are (Romeo+Juliet, Ten Things I Hate About You), how many modern words and phrases were coined by Shakespeare ("lily-livered" was the one that really surprised me), and using a small example or two to show that his language is basically the same as ours.
A complete list of Shakespeare's knob jokes would also help.

Choosing the right works of literature is also key. I studied Catcher in the Rye in first year in college, but it would have been much more relatable in Leaving Cert.
And to use Shakespeare as an example again: my introduction to him was The Merchant of Venice in Junior Cert which I personally enjoyed overall but didn't really love because as a comedy it wasn't funny and the themes weren't hugely relevant to me. Some other classes studied Julius Caesar which I would've much preferred.
In Leaving Cert I studied Hamlet which has a much broader appeal (and a ghost) and was taught by a teacher who loved it, and I thought it was the greatest thing ever.

I think if the curriculum's not too different from how it was twelve years ago, then it's pretty much ok.
And there are some great teachers out there.
But there are also some who see teaching as just a job, not something they really want to do, and who probably felt bored reading old works of literature in school themselves. Or they might have loved teaching once but are now jaded.
It's pretty much impossible for someone like that to get kids interested in reading, unless the kids are already interested.

Lord TSC

Maybe my English teacher was useless, or other posters were exemplary, but we wrote one essay in 2 years of the senior cycle

I'd say your teacher certainly wasn't doing their job then; realistically, students should be writing multiple essays per topic, especially (for example) when doing past papers, since most of Paper 2 and a large chunk of Paper 1 is essay-based. In order to prepare, you should be writing dozens of essay answers (at least at higher level).

Solair

fluorescence wrote: »

Your teacher was appalling if that is true. We wrote essays every week, and that was the norm from what I could tell speaking to friends from different classes and schools.

Thinking back on it, it was pretty dire!
We rarely got homework, and what little homework we did get was almost never returned!
He'd spend all his time ranting and raving at students and cracking bad jokes.

We didn't have the cop on at the time to really push it with the school, but thinking back on it, we really should have.
There were regular jokes, loaded with really crude innuendo, insults about people's sexual orientation, jokes about the their mom's being hookers... you name it!

Some people got grinds, the rest of us couldn't afford it and requests to do something about it were totally ignored by the principal.
So, we just got together and broke the course down ourselves and spent hours in the school library doing our own thing.

Basically, we had to teach the programme to ourselves. Thankfully there were a few people in the group who were mature enough and sensible enough to take the university-style approach and just get on with it, but we had basically no support from the teacher at all.

To me, now, as an adult, it just underlines that there is absolutely no quality control in most schools. If that happened in the private sector, or even any other aspect of the public sector, you'd be fired.

I'm not for a moment saying that all teachers are like that, we'd some other teachers who were fantastic. But, bad apples like that give the profession a bad name, particularly if nothing's done to reign them in or get rid of them.

JohnMarston

Absolutely, english should be compulsory, its an international language.

Could you imagine only being taught irish in school?

Lord TSC

The King of Moo wrote: »

So with Shakespeare, for example, you could start by showing them how many modern, relevant, youth-oriented adaptations of his work there are (Romeo+Juliet, Ten Things I Hate About You),

I actually did this with my junior classes during my Dip, but instead of Ten Things, I used Twilight. Was amazing how many of them were interested in watching R&J and discussing it when I started the study off with a discussion of the Twilight Saga and how it owes Shakespear so much :P

I know people, myself included, may give out about the literary credibility of those books, but my attitude was if the kids were reading it, they were at least reading something, and it serves as a good starting point to introduce them to Shakespeare.

The King of Moo

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

I actually did this with my junior classes during my Dip, but instead of Ten Things, I used Twilight. Was amazing how many of them were interested in watching R&J and discussing it when I started the study off with a discussion of the Twilight Saga and how it owes Shakespear so much :P

I know people, myself included, may give out about the literary credibility of those books, but my attitude was if the kids were reading it, they were at least reading something, and it serves as a good starting point to introduce them to Shakespeare.

Yeah, I think the older the literature you're teaching, the more you need to ease students into it, and teen fiction can be like a gateway drug leading to regular use of proper hardcore literature!

The beauty of some of the great works of literature, even going farther back than Shakespeare to the classical period, is that they're touching on universal truths about humanity that will always be relevant, and therefore recur either indirectly or through direct adaptation, in modern works. Once you get them past the setting and language by showing them that there's more to it than that, they'll hopefully be able to recognise their greatness.

starlit

English should stay compulsory as you have more people speaking that language. It makes sense, otherwise how would you learn to read and write in your own language like?? Don't get me started on grammar! I think if anything that is one of the main things that should make English compulsory to learn grammar!

Hayte

If you think the standard is low at secondary school level you should see how bad it is in full time employment.

If its handwritten (as opposed to typed), theres a 99% chance it is almost completely illegible to everyone except the writer. Half the time the writer can't even read their own handwriting when asked to "translate" it. Most of the time I can't tell you if there are spelling mistakes or not because its just a squiggle.

With typed text, spelling mistakes are still common, even with a spellchecker to catch fudged keystrokes. That is mostly down to winging out first drafts at the last minute, leaving no time for proof reading.

Nothingbetter2d

wrong the new languange for the future will be kiddie script text

so be4 u start 2 learn mandarin... learn 2 spk kiddie script txt.

spurious

The fundamentals of spoken and written English (syntax and grammar) should be compulsory for all, but I think Literary Analysis should be an optional (other) subject.

Chainsawpanda

If I could give my two cents as a Junior Cycle student, I would say that English should definitely be compulsory.

In my class we only ever seem to go over the basics of spelling and grammar repeatedly, almost every other day. Despite this however I've loved Shakespeare and think that the bard or any other 'classic' author or playwright should be compulsory. As long as it's taught well (it wasn't for me) the students should understand and learn to like it. The amount of double entendres and hidden meanings compacted into a couple lines of Shakespeare's work is outstanding.

Obviously reading classic novels and plays may help a student's grasp of the language and for this purpose they are extremely useful. In conclusion, if the teacher can express his/her passion or love for the language and the texts with a concise look at grammar, spelling, punctuation etc; then the subject can be made both enjoyable and an encouragement for critical thinking and analysation.

tfitzgerald

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

wrong the new languange for the future will be kiddie script text

so be4 u start 2 learn mandarin... learn 2 spk kiddie script txt.

I agree with this statement the English language the way it's written anyway is changing and it's down to text speak . I was looking at a text my daughter sent me the other night and I could hardly read it .

Mike 1972

All subjects should be optional after Junior cert given that school attendence itself is optional at that age.

Canard

I dont see why it shouldnt be optional really. I really love it but a lot of people dont. I'm in 6th year and some people in my class ask our teacher to bring in sheets explaining things that, if you somehow managed to get to 6th year without ever realizing, a quick google search could tell you - e.g. your/you're and things like that.

It all depends on the teacher. My Junior/Senior cycle teachers are polar opposites. I detested JC English and learned sweet FA in the 2 years I had her, yet for LC English we've done interesting and popular comparatives with Hamlet, enjoyable as it is, made more enjoyable by relating it to 17/18 year olds. I also enjoy the poetry section but maybe thats just me. :P

Also I often see things like "Wet Paint Do Not Touch Wall's" and I cringe. That is why English needs to be taught.

SeanW

spurious wrote: »

The fundamentals of spoken and written English (syntax and grammar) should be compulsory for all, but I think Literary Analysis should be an optional (other) subject.

QFT! That's my position too, fluency with English including reading and writing should be guaranteed. Poetry, plays and the like should be optional IMO. E.g. the student might have better aptitutes or interest in something else, and I'd encourage that.

RichieC

we dont need yer dang book learnin!!!

deise go deo

SeanW wrote: »

QFT! That's my position too, . Poetry, plays and the like should be optional IMO. E.g. the student might have better aptitutes or interest in something else, and I'd encourage that.

Litreacy is one of the areas in the education system there are problems with, why would you say ''fluency with English including reading and writing should be guaranteed''? It clearly is not the case now, what would you do in order to guarantee it after English is made optional?

44leto

English should be kept compulsory. Although I regard my written use of the language from apalling to cringe worthy. Although functional I really wish it was better.

But that is not what I got from myEnglish education, I am very well read, I love poetry, Shakespeare, English lit in general, I think my appreaciation of these things has enhanced my life. I got this from the rudiments of the school curriculem.

I am scribbling this out on my phone, so no spellcheck...gulp..

But the whole internet is now a literal world. English is needed more then ever.

SeanW

deise go deo wrote: »

Litreacy is one of the areas in the education system there are problems with, why would you say ''fluency with English including reading and writing should be guaranteed''? It clearly is not the case now, what would you do in order to guarantee it after English is made optional?

Learning poetry doesn't help. If a student is only semi-literate or is not fluent with English, then remedial classes would be necessary (and compulsory) as a fallback position.

But literature and the like should be optional IMO.

pragmatic1

RichieC wrote: »

we dont need yer dang book learnin!!!

Yeah books are for queers.

Washington Irving

People think English should be compulsory in order to learn correct grammar and spelling, but you aren't taught this anyway. You're expected to already know it. It's all just poems, plays, novels, essays etc.
It should be compulsory up to Junior Cert, along with Irish, imo

Mardy Bum

SeanW wrote: »

Learning poetry doesn't help. If a student is only semi-literate or is not fluent with English, then remedial classes would be necessary (and compulsory) as a fallback position.

But literature and the like should be optional IMO.

I an understand that someone who is only learning the language should not be forced to analyse poetry however for those who are competent at the language there should be something else to the class.

For instance what you are implying by stating literature should be optional is that somebody who is learning English from the moment they are born should be taught how to spell and construct sentences daily in class from the ages of 13-18? How does one examine somebodies English then?

In the higher level exam will there be questions like; Which of the following specifies the ownership or possession of an object : there, their, they're.

I would pity someone who would find something like this difficult and be embarrassed to have to do an exam like this. Its the sort of thing that you would learn if you were learning a foreign language not your own language. People should be competent enough to be fit to engage with a text otherwise it will just continue the dumbing down of subjects which is already rampant.

The Scientician

Saul-Goode9 wrote: »

People think English should be compulsory in order to learn correct grammar and spelling, but you aren't taught this anyway. You're expected to already know it. It's all just poems, plays, novels, essays etc.
It should be compulsory up to Junior Cert, along with Irish, imo

Yeah I'd like to see English thought at an early age in a structured way that would have a knock on effect of helping kids learn other languages. I bet a lot of people learning Irish/French/German etc. are unclear about the tenses, participles etc. because they're not typically described in English. Well they weren't fadó, fadó. Has that changed?