Most of the schools that I attended had excellent programs and instructors. Unfortunately, at one school this was not the case. The foreign language program there needed both better planning and better instructors. If I could, I would make changes in three major areas.
The first step would be to offer third and fourth year language classes. This particular school had no language programs above the second year level. Students who started language classes in the first year ran out of classes to take by the time they were halfway through the school. This was frustrating for those of us who loved learning languages. It also had bad effects when we tried to resume language studies in college after a two-year break.
Next, the foreign language program should be staffed with well-trained instructors. The current teachers in the program don't speak the languages well enough. In our classes teachers frequently made errors which the students repeated. If the teachers were well-trained, they would be good models for the students.
Finally, the materials in the language courses should be updated. They need to use modern technology. Even though the school has a computer laboratory, our language class never used it. We were limited to using the 'assigned textbook. If software was available, the students could search the Internet for current, real-life materials, such as newspapers from other countries.
Understanding people from other countries depends on being able to communicate with them. Poor language instruction makes this impossible. Improving the foreign language program would really make a difference to the students of the school.
Talking of making an important change in my school, I'd like to suggest that our education system put more emphasis on the development of learning skills and applications of theories into practice instead of simply learning knowledge from books. The proposal is based on the reasons as follows.
For one thing, overemphasis on academic learning poses a threat because of confusing the purpose of learning. As school credit is usually considered the major criteria of academic learning, in a credit-driven school, one may try hard to learn simply for learning's sake. In other words, college students tend to blindly cram their brains with numerous texts and formulas while do not have a clear idea of what they really want to learn, why they need to learn, not to mention how the things they are learning are useful to the reality. An example is way that common ESL students learn English: they may spend several years
in reciting grammar rules, but can hardly utter an English word in front of a foreigner.
Another reason that causes me to make the suggestion is the requirement of today's ever-changing knowledge economy time. With the increasingly accelerated pace of information explosion, one can hardly depend on knowledge from books that he or she has learned at school. Mastering learning skills and knowing how to apply the skills into practice are becoming indispensable than ever before. A recent survey conducted by educators’ shows that most students in our country lack the ability of using tools and solving problems compared with their counterparts in the United States. This informs us to take a serious look at our book-knowledge based education pattern.
In sum, it's high time for us to give a touch on our education pattern concerning the narrowness of book knowledge learning as well as the necessity of practical learning required by the contemporary world.
