The following appeared in an article in a college departmental newsletter
"Professor Taylor of Jones University is promoting a model of foreign language
instruction in which students receive ten weeks of intensive training, then go
abroad to live with families for ten weeks. The superiority of the model, Professor
Taylor contends, is proved by the results of a study in which foreign language tests
given to students at 25 other colleges show that first-year foreign language students
at Jones speak more fluently after only ten to twenty weeks in the program than do
nine out of ten foreign language majors elsewhere at the time of their graduation."
Discuss how well reasoned... etc.
My response:
The article concludes that the instruction strategy, which is followed by Professor Taylor, offers a superior model when compared to other colleges. The author bases his/her conclusion on a couple of arguments and assumptions, which I strongly disagree with. I feel that the argument presented is flawed and feel that the arguments presented are not convincing enough to arrive at the conclusion.
First of all, the article fails to present any information about the prior language knowledge of the students in Professor Taylor's program. As indicated by the article, students are sent to foreign families as part of the program. Thus, there is a possibility that the students, enrolled in Mr Taylor's program, were already interested in the specific language and culture and may have wanted to enroll in the program to get an opportunity to live in that culture of interest. In that case, these students will already have some exposure to the language. Clearly, comparing apples to oranges will not help here. The author needs to provide evidence about prior language knowledge of both groups in order to strengthen the conclusion.
In addition, there is another comparison flaw in the stated conclusion. If we analyze the conclusion carefully, we can see that the comparison is made between the first year students and the graduating students. In case the graduating students took their foreign language courses way early in their curriculum, they would have become rusty in their use of the language by the time of their graduation. Thus, it won't be fair to compare the two groups in this case.
Moreover, the term superiority has been losely connected to the idea of speaking a language fluently. I strongly disagree with this point. Although, spoken language is an important part of learning a language, I feel that it is equally as important to learn grammatical rules, write in the language's script and read books from that language. In fact, spoken language usually contains a lot of slang which are in total violation of the grammatical rules of the language. Thus, in a way someone who is fluent in speaking a language, might be as bad at writing it. So, it seems absurd to claim superiority in a language just on the basis of spoken language.
Overall, I think the argument has a lot of holes and weak areas in its argument. Specifically, illogical comparisons between first-year students and graduating students, failure to present information about prior language knowledge of the two groups and misuse of the term "superiority", are just few of the areas where the author needs to strengthen the argument.
"Professor Taylor of Jones University is promoting a model of foreign language
instruction in which students receive ten weeks of intensive training, then go
abroad to live with families for ten weeks. The superiority of the model, Professor
Taylor contends, is proved by the results of a study in which foreign language tests
given to students at 25 other colleges show that first-year foreign language students
at Jones speak more fluently after only ten to twenty weeks in the program than do
nine out of ten foreign language majors elsewhere at the time of their graduation."
Discuss how well reasoned... etc.
My response:
The article concludes that the instruction strategy, which is followed by Professor Taylor, offers a superior model when compared to other colleges. The author bases his/her conclusion on a couple of arguments and assumptions, which I strongly disagree with. I feel that the argument presented is flawed and feel that the arguments presented are not convincing enough to arrive at the conclusion.
First of all, the article fails to present any information about the prior language knowledge of the students in Professor Taylor's program. As indicated by the article, students are sent to foreign families as part of the program. Thus, there is a possibility that the students, enrolled in Mr Taylor's program, were already interested in the specific language and culture and may have wanted to enroll in the program to get an opportunity to live in that culture of interest. In that case, these students will already have some exposure to the language. Clearly, comparing apples to oranges will not help here. The author needs to provide evidence about prior language knowledge of both groups in order to strengthen the conclusion.
In addition, there is another comparison flaw in the stated conclusion. If we analyze the conclusion carefully, we can see that the comparison is made between the first year students and the graduating students. In case the graduating students took their foreign language courses way early in their curriculum, they would have become rusty in their use of the language by the time of their graduation. Thus, it won't be fair to compare the two groups in this case.
Moreover, the term superiority has been losely connected to the idea of speaking a language fluently. I strongly disagree with this point. Although, spoken language is an important part of learning a language, I feel that it is equally as important to learn grammatical rules, write in the language's script and read books from that language. In fact, spoken language usually contains a lot of slang which are in total violation of the grammatical rules of the language. Thus, in a way someone who is fluent in speaking a language, might be as bad at writing it. So, it seems absurd to claim superiority in a language just on the basis of spoken language.
Overall, I think the argument has a lot of holes and weak areas in its argument. Specifically, illogical comparisons between first-year students and graduating students, failure to present information about prior language knowledge of the two groups and misuse of the term "superiority", are just few of the areas where the author needs to strengthen the argument.
