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My experience in American universities was that native English speakers in the U.S. don't actually speak English well enough to follow high-level technical disc

by smeej 2y ago

My experience in American universities was that native English speakers in the U.S. don't actually speak English well enough to follow high-level technical discussions of just about any topic. It was depressing. In graduate school--where everybody already had at least an undergraduate degree--one of my professors finally got so frustrated she paused the course for three weeks to teach the class how to write a 5-paragraph essay, with introduction, three points, and a conclusion. Many students were surprised that this also helped them understand the structure of articles they were reading. I have distinct and clear memories of the day in 5th grade when the middle school language arts teacher came to our class and spent an afternoon teaching this topic. She said we would never make it through middle school without it. We were 10 years old. It took hours, not weeks. I don't doubt the problem is even worse among people who have not grown up with the language, but I've met plenty of people who were very technically proficient in their field and had a lot to contribute, though they needed translators, and way too many people who had nothing to contribute who had spoken English from early childhood.

carlmr 2y ago
>one of my professors finally got so frustrated she paused the course for three weeks to teach the class how to write a 5-paragraph essay, with introduction, three points, and a conclusion. Our teachers in school went through massive amounts of grammar rules, literature and poems. They never taught us how to write in a simple structured way. Only when I studied for the GRE did the learning material really break down the process into simple steps. I think it's kind of a problem that some teachers can't or won't touch these basic topics, maybe assuming other teachers already did.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  It is strange how High School does not teach these skills. Structured writing of different types would be useful in most office jobs. And you only really need to teach a handful of structures to prepare people for most things. After that you can teach grammar and then art...
  - carlmr 2y ago
    Exactly, also if you don't know the basics it's hard to build advanced writing skills on top of nothing.
- alistairSH 2y ago
  That must be highly localized. We were taught essay structure in middle school. And they was reinforced through high school English, history, and other courses. I grew up in northern VA (DC suburbs) and was in honors/gifted classes from 3rd grade on.
  - carlmr 2y ago
    I don't think that it wasn't part of the lesson plan, I think it's more of a "fell through the cracks" problem. We had a lot of old teachers that were sick a lot. I think the substitute teachers didn't always follow up on all the planned lessons. In chemistry we had a substitute teacher the whole year in 10th grade. In 11th grade our new teacher noticed we were missing some fundamentals. Turns out we weren't taught any of the 10th grade material. She then did a 3 month crash course on 10th grade material. With the right foundation it was really easy afterwards. Having done some Math and Physics tutoring, I never tutored a kid that really _couldn't_ do math or physics. It was almost always that they lacked some fundamentals and thus couldn't learn any of the advanced material, because they lacked a mental model to grok the information.
nicbou 2y ago
I had the same experience in engineering school in Canada. People born and raised in the Belle Province could not write in French at all. They made the French equivalent of 'your'/'you're' mistakes in reports and even employer-facing work. Their writing was elementary, to put it mildly.
AlienRobot 2y ago
Funnily enough, one of my pet peeves is how many articles you see around, perhaps written for "SEO," that always end in a "conclusion," as if the author was still writing in the same essay format they were required in school. Reviews, listicles, etc. Always ending with "conclusion" as if that was mandatory.
- smeej 2y ago
  This was actually part of the 5th grade lesson: "Eventually, you will be able to move past this format. Your writing will improve beyond it. But you won't know when to break the rules until you know how to write within the rules, so for now, follow the rules."
bluetomcat 2y ago
A well-educated non-native English speaker will have a different kind of exposure to the language, mostly through reading. They won't always be able to articulate themselves smoothly in everyday social situations, but they can usually write cohesive text that's mostly grammatically correct and semantically-sound. At least this has been my case as a non-native English speaker. I usually feel awkward in a conversation among native speakers. I can't always "get" their humour and cultural references and sometimes I need longer pauses to find the most appropriate next word. This makes me feel uncomfortable and turns me into a passive listener. When writing text however, these pauses are not visible and I tend to write only the stuff that has informational value, without all the wordplay and wittiness.
jillesvangurp 2y ago
The ability to write coherently is actually a skill that transfers well between languages. A lot of people learning English as a second or third language actually can't express themselves in their native language that well either. The skill here is learning to write, not to write English. I was lucky to have a good teacher in high school teaching the basics of writing properly (in Dutch). I paid attention and figured out pretty quickly that writing follows rules and that anything you do structurally wrong you can learn to do structurally right. Later when doing my Ph. D., I had to learn to write in English. Same thing. Same rules. Different grammar and vocabulary. And a bit more scrutiny from your peers who will tell you when you are being incoherent, waffling, etc.
tetris11 2y ago
This is everyone though. Some people are natural communicators who can make everyone feel at ease in a room whilst saying nothing of value, and others provide pure factual content in the most unintelligible manner. There are those who can converse with incomplete information, building off the emotional content of the conversation, and those who can only deal with specifics and abhor any uncertainty or generalisation. I guess what I'm saying is, we all put our minds to work in different ways and are all experts in our own particular niches. Those who can communicate their ideas better tend to be branded more intelligent, whereas those who can put their mind directly to action with little outside input might not be seen so favourably.

by smeej 2y ago

carlmr 2y ago

>one of my professors finally got so frustrated she paused the course for three weeks to teach the class how to write a 5-paragraph essay, with introduction, three points, and a conclusion. Our teachers in school went through massive amounts of grammar rules, literature and poems. They never taught us how to write in a simple structured way. Only when I studied for the GRE did the learning material really break down the process into simple steps. I think it's kind of a problem that some teachers can't or won't touch these basic topics, maybe assuming other teachers already did.

Ekaros 2y ago
It is strange how High School does not teach these skills. Structured writing of different types would be useful in most office jobs. And you only really need to teach a handful of structures to prepare people for most things. After that you can teach grammar and then art...
- carlmr 2y ago
  Exactly, also if you don't know the basics it's hard to build advanced writing skills on top of nothing.
alistairSH 2y ago
That must be highly localized. We were taught essay structure in middle school. And they was reinforced through high school English, history, and other courses. I grew up in northern VA (DC suburbs) and was in honors/gifted classes from 3rd grade on.
- carlmr 2y ago
  I don't think that it wasn't part of the lesson plan, I think it's more of a "fell through the cracks" problem. We had a lot of old teachers that were sick a lot. I think the substitute teachers didn't always follow up on all the planned lessons. In chemistry we had a substitute teacher the whole year in 10th grade. In 11th grade our new teacher noticed we were missing some fundamentals. Turns out we weren't taught any of the 10th grade material. She then did a 3 month crash course on 10th grade material. With the right foundation it was really easy afterwards. Having done some Math and Physics tutoring, I never tutored a kid that really _couldn't_ do math or physics. It was almost always that they lacked some fundamentals and thus couldn't learn any of the advanced material, because they lacked a mental model to grok the information.

nicbou 2y ago

I had the same experience in engineering school in Canada. People born and raised in the Belle Province could not write in French at all. They made the French equivalent of 'your'/'you're' mistakes in reports and even employer-facing work. Their writing was elementary, to put it mildly.

AlienRobot 2y ago

Funnily enough, one of my pet peeves is how many articles you see around, perhaps written for "SEO," that always end in a "conclusion," as if the author was still writing in the same essay format they were required in school. Reviews, listicles, etc. Always ending with "conclusion" as if that was mandatory.

smeej 2y ago
This was actually part of the 5th grade lesson: "Eventually, you will be able to move past this format. Your writing will improve beyond it. But you won't know when to break the rules until you know how to write within the rules, so for now, follow the rules."

bluetomcat 2y ago

A well-educated non-native English speaker will have a different kind of exposure to the language, mostly through reading. They won't always be able to articulate themselves smoothly in everyday social situations, but they can usually write cohesive text that's mostly grammatically correct and semantically-sound. At least this has been my case as a non-native English speaker. I usually feel awkward in a conversation among native speakers. I can't always "get" their humour and cultural references and sometimes I need longer pauses to find the most appropriate next word. This makes me feel uncomfortable and turns me into a passive listener. When writing text however, these pauses are not visible and I tend to write only the stuff that has informational value, without all the wordplay and wittiness.

jillesvangurp 2y ago

The ability to write coherently is actually a skill that transfers well between languages. A lot of people learning English as a second or third language actually can't express themselves in their native language that well either. The skill here is learning to write, not to write English. I was lucky to have a good teacher in high school teaching the basics of writing properly (in Dutch). I paid attention and figured out pretty quickly that writing follows rules and that anything you do structurally wrong you can learn to do structurally right. Later when doing my Ph. D., I had to learn to write in English. Same thing. Same rules. Different grammar and vocabulary. And a bit more scrutiny from your peers who will tell you when you are being incoherent, waffling, etc.

tetris11 2y ago

This is everyone though. Some people are natural communicators who can make everyone feel at ease in a room whilst saying nothing of value, and others provide pure factual content in the most unintelligible manner. There are those who can converse with incomplete information, building off the emotional content of the conversation, and those who can only deal with specifics and abhor any uncertainty or generalisation. I guess what I'm saying is, we all put our minds to work in different ways and are all experts in our own particular niches. Those who can communicate their ideas better tend to be branded more intelligent, whereas those who can put their mind directly to action with little outside input might not be seen so favourably.