ATAR Notes: Forum
National Education => General National Education Discussion => Topic started by: amirite? on January 01, 2010, 11:51:33 pm
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How can it NOT be unfair having a person born in Australia, the son of 2 German migrants and thus fluent in both German and English, study German as one of their VCE subjects? Discuss.
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IMO that is like saying it is unfair that someone studies specialist maths because their parents are both nuclear physicists.
They are just lucky, there is nothing you can do. The only unfair part of the system is scaling above 50. It needs to be scrapped.
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I was going to mention that, people in this fortunate situation also get extra marks on their study score.
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Life's not fair, VCE is not fair.
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That is true. Life's unfair, I guess. And stonecold raised a very good point, that is just like saying you are good at physics or something just because your parents happen to be Albert Einstein. Its not the fact that your parents are smart that automatically makes you smart, its the fact that they have a good learning environment and they are exposed to those sorts of things more. They put in the hardwork as well. The only disadvantage is that you won't be able to have as much exposure as people in that or likewise situations.
But I personally don't solely agree with the fact that scaling over 50 is unfair. VCAA do it by normal distribution. If it is an extremely hard subject, such as Latin, it is only fair if they give that much more advantage to that of a 50 in further maths (not saying this is a easy subject but it is definitely less difficult than that of Latin - I know this is debatable, but this is believed by a vast majority of public discourse). But I understand the fact that some subjects are not offered at certain schools, and some people get that advantage because they are good at languages, etc. etc., but to propose as system that is 100% fair to everyone is just impossible. If we drag Latin's scaling from 55 to 50, there would be opposing sentiments. If we leave it there, similarly, other would disagree.
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It is unfair, and I believe there should be a distinction made. Unfortunately there generally aren't enough students doing LOTE to make this distinction though - the cohort would be made too small. I believe VCAA is considering making separate streams based on your heritage for some Asian languages though, which would combat this.
But for languages such as German, where the number of background speakers is insignificant, it's still very possible for students with no background in the language to score well. It is only in subjects dominated by background speakers (Chinese, Vietnamese) where it would be very, very, very difficult to score well.
The only unfair part of the system is scaling above 50.
an incentive isn't an incentive if it's fair.
...I may be slightly biased
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How can it NOT be unfair having a person born in Australia, the son of 2 German migrants and thus fluent in both German and English, study German as one of their VCE subjects? Discuss.
As everyone has said, it's a lucky situation to be in. Most of the asian languages are dominated by asians in this situation.
Sucks to be me though, I am the son of German migrants and I didn't get tought German, they wanted to integrate into society so they scrapped their heritage and completely immersed themselves.
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Yes, I agree that it would be a big disadvantage to non-background speakers, but the point stonecold raised must be reiterated. Is that to say that we should stream students with a background of nuclear scientists in one section, or a background of geographers in one. You're forgetting that background students also have that kind of disadvantage when doing English. If one is doing Chinese SL, they will be doing some sort of English subject that all English-speaking folks do. Should we streamline this as well? I know that there are ESL courses, but the category doesn't include people who grew up here with a separate language background, just like Chinese SL is vs. Chinese FL. Even the distinction between SLA is huge!
Sucks to be me though, I am the son of German migrants and I didn't get tought German, they wanted to integrate into society so they scrapped their heritage and completely immersed themselves.
Another good point. Not all sons and daughters of Australian Born- (insert language here), necessarily have that advantage. Its all based on exposure. Hence, why it is really difficult to stream subjects while maintain fairness.
EZ Edit: Fixed double post. =)
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"I believe VCAA is considering making separate streams based on your heritage for some Asian languages though, which would combat this."
so, like chinese for non-asians?
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I believe VCAA is considering making separate streams based on your heritage for some Asian languages though, which would combat this.
[Please note this post in the way its intended im not trying to be racist or anything.] I believe that is a good idea, to an extent. Of course, children of migrants who speak a particular language will be much better at that language than the average joe, it just makes sense. I believe this might discourage people from studying a language they otherwise wouldn't of studied.
[Theyve cleaned this up majorly since i left, so that you can pick a language after only doing 1 year of it.]For example, at my school Yr 7 & 8 we did Chinese for 1 semester and Italian for the other. In year 9 we got to pick between them and study only one for a full year. For year 10 we got a choice between a language or economics, i chose economics. Partially because of this reason, i knew it would be futile to continue it in VCE (me being a white guy, who had never spoken mandarin before) my chinese teacher was on my back about it to, because i actually did pretty decently, i actually felt kind of bad telling him why i chose economics.
Ignoring the fact i probably wouldnt of done VCE chinese anyway but i think this is a very good point.
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"I believe VCAA is considering making separate streams based on your heritage for some Asian languages though, which would combat this."
so, like chinese for non-asians?
there aren't too many details yet, but I was reading on the VCAA site a paper on a proposed "heritage" level of LOTE, where you can be born here buy have a Chinese family background. I'm not sure how this would be enforced, but I do think it would be a good idea. Currently, a non Chinese person doing Chinese sl at vce level would get destroyed (heck, it's even difficult for Chinese people born here to get 40+)
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I believe VCAA is considering making separate streams based on your heritage for some Asian languages though, which would combat this.
[Please note this post in the way its intended im not trying to be racist or anything.] I believe that is a good idea, to an extent. Of course, children of migrants who speak a particular language will be much better at that language than the average joe, it just makes sense. I believe this might discourage people from studying a language they otherwise wouldn't of studied.
[Theyve cleaned this up majorly since i left, so that you can pick a language after only doing 1 year of it.]For example, at my school Yr 7 & 8 we did Chinese for 1 semester and Italian for the other. In year 9 we got to pick between them and study only one for a full year. For year 10 we got a choice between a language or economics, i chose economics. Partially because of this reason, i knew it would be futile to continue it in VCE (me being a white guy, who had never spoken mandarin before) my chinese teacher was on my back about it to, because i actually did pretty decently, i actually felt kind of bad telling him why i chose economics.
Ignoring the fact i probably wouldnt of done VCE chinese anyway but i think this is a very good point.
lol dw i would have loved to do VCE chinese but its crazy for a white guy to go up against a cohort full of ethnic chinese (particulary as VCE just ranks everyone agains eachother :P )
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Sucks to be me though, I am the son of German migrants and I didn't get tought German, they wanted to integrate into society so they scrapped their heritage and completely immersed themselves.
Isnt it ironic that you chose to study French too. xD
Brightsky - Your points arent wrong, they too are unfair, but at the same time they arent relevant. The person in my hypothetical, and the people I am highlighting, are the people who speak English and German/x each as good as the other.
Also its "hence" or "why" never both. Call me petulant but I see this mistake too often, when teachers say it I shit bricks, and I wont stand by and watch it spread. :P
TrueTears - its good to have both sides of the argument...
Its easy to say its unfair and that life is unfair but that doesnt make it acceptable.
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Not sure if you guys already know but in HSC. If you speak the LOTE at home thats another subject. They still have first and second language LOTE's with that added.
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Not sure if you guys already know but in HSC. If you speak the LOTE at home thats another subject. They still have first and second language LOTE's with that added.
i think there is also a stream for if u havent studied it proir to year 11 or something
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Sucks to be me though, I am the son of German migrants and I didn't get tought German, they wanted to integrate into society so they scrapped their heritage and completely immersed themselves.
Not meaning to start a new debate here, but that's really unfortunate. We live in a multi-cultural society and EMBRACE other cultures. Although you said "integrate" it seems more like ASSIMILATE.
Integrate means preserving your culture but also adopting some of the culture of here.
German culture is absolutely amazing, and would have been good if you had kept it, the language and so forth.
But yeah not my place ><
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Sucks to be me though, I am the son of German migrants and I didn't get tought German, they wanted to integrate into society so they scrapped their heritage and completely immersed themselves.
Isnt it ironic that you chose to study French too. xD
Brightsky - Your points arent wrong, they too are unfair, but at the same time they arent relevant. The person in my hypothetical, and the people I am highlighting, are the people who speak English and German/x each as good as the other.
Also its "hence" or "why" never both. Call me petulant but I see this mistake too often, when teachers say it I shit bricks, and I wont stand by and watch it spread. :P
TrueTears - its good to have both sides of the argument...
Its easy to say its unfair and that life is unfair but that doesnt make it acceptable.
Lolol, I see what you mean. But I believe I'm making a perfectly pertinent and parallel example in the field of maths/science. Language is knowledge, and so is maths/science. The person in question knows two languages just because he has another language background. He is exposed to it more often. Others can be like that too, we just don't have the environment readily made for us, but rather need to seek it. There are people that have lived 40 years without knowing a single word of Chinese, but decide to settle in a Chinese speaking environment to learn that language, and after a few years he/she is perfectly fluent in the language. The streams of languages are divided into SL, (SLA), and FL for that reason, and people who fit into the related categories have a set standard of exposure to the language. I understand that for some, trying to expose yourself to the language is hard, but that doesn't entirely justify a whole new category. If that should happen, it would only be fair if they made another such category in English as well. If VCAA were to take all this into account, there would be like 10 categories (probably more) for each subject (streaming students that have been exposed to the language for say 3 months, then streaming students who have been exposed for 6 months, etc. etc. to a few years, or their whole life, just to make it "fair" which is entirely impossible taking into account the current count for numbers in each LOTE. I know I probably sound a bit rash, but you must take yourself into the shoes of someone who are in a position like that. They are good at both languages because they are genuinely exposed to them day and night, and also because they put in the effort to learn the language. You must realise that learning a language doesn't just mean listening to the language 24/7. I know many that are fluent in LOTEs because of related backgrounds, but cannot read or write in them.
Hope I make at least some sense.
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^ I see what you mean, but the vast majority of people cannot catch up to the level of a background speaker (particularly with the current LOTE teaching system). In the interest of encouraging more students to pick up a LOTE currently dominated by background speakers (as scaling incentive alone doesn't seem to be enough), I think having a heritage stream would be beneficial, as is done with Monash Uni Japanese Extension program.
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About white guys doing Chinese - a white guy (not even half or 0.00001% Asian) got 38 for Chinese SL at my school and he beat everyone else including background speakers save for one who attained 45. On the other hand there was a background speaker who attained 27.
Also, I'm a second generation Australian doing LOTE and it's really not that big of an advantage as some of you guys seem to make it. It still requires a large amount of work and preacquired ability to get 40+, and my English is so much better than my Chinese that I'm speculating that it'll be my 7th subject despite its mark up and my apparant background advantage.
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^ I see what you mean, but the vast majority of people cannot catch up to the level of a background speaker (particularly with the current LOTE teaching system). In the interest of encouraging more students to pick up a LOTE currently dominated by background speakers (as scaling incentive alone doesn't seem to be enough), I think having a heritage stream would be beneficial, as is done with Monash Uni Japanese Extension program.
I think with the exception of Chinese (which is only as it is because hardly anyone non-Chinese does the subject) and a handful of others (which aren't popular at all state-wide except at language schools), the VCE curriculum is "limited" enough for people to catch up to background speakers. If you look at results for French, German, Japanese and so on, the 45+ scores aren't dominated at all by background speakers; there is a larger percentage of them, perhaps, but it's not "frightening" to the extent where another streaming system is necessitated for them.
Also, as kyzoo alluded to, background/heritage speakers aren't always going to do well. Furthermore, what about people who border in on being "heritage", but have no advantage whatsoever to speak of?
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^ I see what you mean, but the vast majority of people cannot catch up to the level of a background speaker (particularly with the current LOTE teaching system). In the interest of encouraging more students to pick up a LOTE currently dominated by background speakers (as scaling incentive alone doesn't seem to be enough), I think having a heritage stream would be beneficial, as is done with Monash Uni Japanese Extension program.
I think with the exception of Chinese (which is only as it is because hardly anyone non-Chinese does the subject) and a handful of others (which aren't popular at all state-wide except at language schools), the VCE curriculum is "limited" enough for people to catch up to background speakers. If you look at results for French, German, Japanese and so on, the 45+ scores aren't dominated at all by background speakers; there is a larger percentage of them, perhaps, but it's not "frightening" to the extent where another streaming system is necessitated for them.
Also, as kyzoo alluded to, background/heritage speakers aren't always going to do well. Furthermore, what about people who border in on being "heritage", but have no advantage whatsoever to speak of?
Great points again! The VCE Chinese exam is hardly equivalent to Year 3 or 4 Chinese in China. Writing 200 - 250 words in Chinese in not hard provided that you know your vocab, grammar and structure. It gives you very limited space to excel in your writing, and this is especially so in the translation and short answer sections where there is only a right or wrong answer.
But this is different in SACs and oral though, it's really hard to espouse a precise Chinese oratory if you're background isn't Chinese.
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About white guys doing Chinese - a white guy (not even half or 0.00001% Asian) got 38 for Chinese SL at my school and he beat everyone else including background speakers save for one who attained 45. On the other hand there was a background speaker who attained 27.
Also, I'm a second generation Australian doing LOTE and it's really not that big of an advantage as some of you guys seem to make it. It still requires a large amount of work and preacquired ability to get 40+, and my English is so much better than my Chinese that I'm speculating that it'll be my 7th subject despite its mark up and my apparant background advantage.
The reason why it's not such a big advantage in Chinese SL is because it's flooded with second generation Australians. Practically everyone already has a Chinese/Asian background, so to get 40+ you'd have to be somewhat insane. There even a big gap in SLA since some barely don't qualify to be in SL, while others speak Chinese better than they speak English.
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Perhaps for the mainstream languages where the number of background speakers is not significant compared to non background speakers (how many Japanese people do you know?) it isn't necessary for a separate stream. But for Chinese in particular, I do think a separate stream would encourage many more non background speakers to take the subject.
Currently, being of Chinese background doing Chinese SL doesn't give you an advantage over the rest of the cohort - because practically all the students are of Chinese background anyway. A non-background speaker breaking into a cohort such as this is quite a daunting task, and would put most students off studying it at VCE level.
There are always going to be exceptions for everything though, but my main point is on bringing in more average, non-background students into studying a LOTE, particularly a language like Chinese, where the cohort is basically consisted of background students.
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Great points again! The VCE Chinese exam is hardly equivalent to Year 3 or 4 Chinese in China. Writing 200 - 250 words in Chinese in not hard provided that you know your vocab, grammar and structure. It gives you very limited space to excel in your writing, and this is especially so in the translation and short answer sections where there is only a right or wrong answer.
But this is different in SACs and oral though, it's really hard to espouse a precise Chinese oratory if you're background isn't Chinese.
It's all relative; when everyone is Chinese and you're not, it will be much harder for you to be higher in the cohort. LOTE can be pushed further than the syllabus; most apparent during the Oral Examination and the essay.
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im sorry, but i still have to agree with smrandmazn about the heritage stream
while it is possible for anyone to do well in a LOTE subject regardless of background the amount of effort it takes for person A to get 40 and person B to get 40 is worlds apart
i know of white people who have done asian LOTEs and done well, but they had to do SO MUCH work compared to others with bachground in the language that its just crazy
but this is just my opnion and i do realise that its not always the case
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Not sure if you guys already know but in HSC. If you speak the LOTE at home thats another subject. They still have first and second language LOTE's with that added.
i think there is also a stream for if u havent studied it proir to year 11 or something
Yeah, I came from NSW last year and was devastated when I couldnt pick up Japanese for year 11 because we only studied LOTE in year 7/8.
In the HSC, you can pick either Beginners or Continuers course.
I'm pretty sure you could pick Beginners no matter how good your language was which probably meant a free 100%
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Not sure if you guys already know but in HSC. If you speak the LOTE at home thats another subject. They still have first and second language LOTE's with that added.
i think there is also a stream for if u havent studied it proir to year 11 or something
Yeah, I came from NSW last year and was devastated when I couldnt pick up Japanese for year 11 because we only studied LOTE in year 7/8.
In the HSC, you can pick either Beginners or Continuers course.
I'm pretty sure you could pick Beginners no matter how good your language was which probably meant a free 100%
do they check into your education background before doing begginers? it would seem its full of "good" students just going after an easy A+
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^ Your parents don't affect your English at all.
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^ Your parents don't affect your English at all.
how so?
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^ Your parents don't affect your English at all.
how so?
My parents are migrants and are still unable to hold a conversation using basic English yet I've managed to excel in it. If you're born here, you're going to be exposed to English from a really young age anyway. Having parents who aren't able to communicate with you in English only allows you to simultaneously learn 2 (or more) languages.
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^ Explanation done for me. +1 for outsourcing xD
My parents can hold up a conversation, but it's very broken English. Even though I am purely exposed to Chinese at home, my English still looks down on my Chinese as if it were a tiny ant crawling on the ground.
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lol this all contradicts what a lot of my asian friends have been telling me for a while now, but i choose to believe people on VN lol
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Yesh I was born in Vietnam, speak Vietnamese at home, yet still suck incredibly at it.
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lol this all contradicts what a lot of my asian friends have been telling me for a while now, but i choose to believe people on VN lol
The children of migrants don't pick up their parents' accents - peer influence is more significant.
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My parents (1st generation immigrants) only speak Chinese at home but I did moderately well for VCE English. Remember that outside of the home we are constantly exposed to English and only English - road signs, strangers, advertisements, (most) friends etc. all bombard us with English. That little bit of Chinese at home doesn't stand a chance.
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It's not quite that unfair for non ethnic speakers to do a chosen language. I know a vietnamese guy that did chinese. You know what he did? He went to chinese school when he was younger. The point is most ethnic speakers of a chosen language actually go to weekend schools to study the language from a young age, and yes i've seen white people with no background to that language go to weekend school. Yes speaking at home may give an advantage for the accent in oral exams (no they do not make it up, ethnic speakers memorise too) and make it easier to do listening comprehension but it does not severely disadvantage. Correct me if i am wrong but i have also heard that examiners will be more lenient to non ethnic's (in the chinese exam anyway, for example there was a black kid in the oral exam for Chinese)
Also many asians including myself speak english as a second language, yes i didn't understand english in kindergarten or prep. My english tutor has told me that she finds that her asian students never seem to understand proverbs, while white kids will have heard all or most of the proverbs fro a young age from her parents. Coming from a mostly Asian school as well, i have noticed that the white people do generally excel at English (and i mean out of the top english/literature students most will be white kids). People get English tutors do they not?
Yeah everyone is forced to do English at a young age but isn't that why English is a compulsory subject? LOTE is optional so those that choose to do a LOTE and is not an ethnic speaker, should have gone to language school at a young age, or get one now so not to complain. A White kid that does chinese language school will excel at it if he/she is interested at a young age to learn about it. Yes he/she will do better than an ethnic chinese speaker (who speaks at home) that did not go chinese school.
Ok.. i only planned to write a few lines O_o
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If the system/schools had more money generally, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have FL and SL (or similar) streams in all the languages, which would be better for people who can speak a language well because instead of learning basic grammar and such, they could actually use VCE to improve their skills.