vce lote system completely screwed??

[mark_alec]

Forgive me for asking a stupid question but why exactly should people not be rewarded for being successful in their study of languages?

The issue is that people with a background in the language have an advantage which is not adjusted for in the calculation for scores - if you went to a non-English speaking country, you would excel in the English exams, even if you are only average or below average here.

[MrT011]

i guess there can appear to be some disadvantages for overseas students doing SL lote subjects which are really their first. They usually have problems in the english answer components of the written exam. Unfortunately, other than that, they'd be flawless in all other parts.. Especially the oral and essay lol

[Duck]

Forgive me for asking a stupid question but why exactly should people not be rewarded for being successful in their study of languages?

The issue is that people with a background in the language have an advantage which is not adjusted for in the calculation for scores - if you went to a non-English speaking country, you would excel in the English exams, even if you are only average or below average here.

I was being sarcastic. My point is that they have learnt to speak two languages and deserve to be rewarded for that.

[iffets12345]

Would this not affect every educational system in the world that has a multicultural society, it's not just VCE, everywhere you go people come from other countries and do subjects there. Sure, it's a bit bad that they don't have the numbers for FL but I mean languages were always shaky ground in education.
Are you going to hate on some of the international students for owning you in maths because some of them also finish high school in Asia before they come here (if you've noticed most chinese are 1/2 years older)?

C'est la vie, as you french people would know .  If she's really pro she'd pull you up anyways...

[mark_alec]

I was being sarcastic. My point is that they have learnt to speak two languages and deserve to be rewarded for that.

I'm not sure you're grasping the difference between "rewarding people for knowing things" and having a system that is fair.

If people happened to grow up in a country that speaks a language other than English (be it French, Arabic or Chinese), then they will be proficient at that language through *no* merit of their own. It is not fair to judge them against individuals who have only learnt that language in school.

[Duck]

I was being sarcastic. My point is that they have learnt to speak two languages and deserve to be rewarded for that.

I'm not sure you're grasping the difference between "rewarding people for knowing things" and having a system that is fair.

If people happened to grow up in a country that speaks a language other than English (be it French, Arabic or Chinese), then they will be proficient at that language through *no* merit of their own. It is not fair to judge them against individuals who have only learnt that language in school.

Living in Australia they would have to learn English. Explain to me exactly how one becomes bilingual through no merit of their own, I'd love to learn another language without doing any work.

[ninwa]

I dunno, judging from some of the bogans I see these days I would dispute that growing up in Australia alone makes anyone "proficient" at English

[onerealsmartass]

Ughh. Get over yourselves. If she does french SL then she's doing English first language, in which she has a disadvantage because English is her second language. As for those complaining about multilingual people getting an 'easy' 50, how dare they succeed in their education because they are more knowledgeable than us. It's not as if the purpose of assessment is to determine the most intelligent/knowledgeable students.

yeah my problem is that she is also doing esl :S
i was talking to my jap teacher about it in class and she said that theres not much we can do about it, it's vcaas fault...

[mark_alec]

Living in Australia they would have to learn English. Explain to me exactly how one becomes bilingual through no merit of their own, I'd love to learn another language without doing any work.

We are not talking about English.

And very easy. Just have your parents move you to another country when you are say 5 and expect to pick up the new language without much difficulty. Or live in a country (like many in Europe) which have multiple languages (e.g Switzerland - German, French, Italian).

[vexx]

Living in Australia they would have to learn English. Explain to me exactly how one becomes bilingual through no merit of their own, I'd love to learn another language without doing any work.

We are not talking about English.

And very easy. Just have your parents move you to another country when you are say 5 and expect to pick up the new language without much difficulty. Or live in a country (like many in Europe) which have multiple languages (e.g Switzerland - German, French, Italian).

If you are brought up speaking two language - it is the easiest way for you to learn two languages.
It is therefore a privledge to have your parents do the work for you, since you can become fluent with barely any work on your behalf, but your parents.
But when you are the age we are now, or older, it is actually faster for us to learn languages then when we are a kid, just takes A LOT of work to reach the same level - very taxing.

If we compare the two, where one has to work extremely hard to get the same - definitely unfair for that person if they are up against a fluent speaker.
Though, there is nothing to stop this occurring, as i'm sure even if there were rules, people could easily lie and just win.

[Cianyx]

How is your parents doing the work for you if you're the one learning the language(s). 'Work extremely harder'? It's probably the same amount of work but the work is constant, over a long stretch of time. I don't even know how you could quantify work.

Honestly, stop bitching and suck it up. Some people can write better essays as they grew up in an english-speaking home, some kids can ace every maths exam without doing any work, others might be good at other shit, I don't fault anyone but myself if I fail to perform better than them. To think everyone should starts off as a blank slate is pretty naive and annoying. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses, accept it.

[mark_alec]

Honestly, stop bitching and suck it up. Some people can write better essays as they grew up in an english-speaking home, some kids can ace every maths exam without doing any work, others might be good at other shit, I don't fault anyone but myself if I fail to perform better than them. To think everyone should starts off as a blank slate is pretty naive and annoying. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses, accept it.

This is not about strengths or weaknesses of individuals, it is about trying to judge individuals fairly - the point is that native speakers of any language have an advantage that isn't through their own merit.

[Cianyx]

How is it not through their own merits? That holds about as much water as saying that it's unfair that a kid has his mother read to him every night while a mother of an asian kid can't even speak english

[mark_alec]

How is it not through their own merits? That holds about as much water as saying that it's unfair that a kid has his mother read to him every night while a mother of an asian kid can't even speak english

Yes, it would be unfair to expect the "asian kid" to be fluent in English if they didn't grow up in an English speaking environment.

[Cianyx]

So in your perfect society, we should all have our heads cleaned out so that we could each have an equal footing in life?