Native Speakers
- Thread starter rambam92
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littlebigpsycho
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if your raised by a mathematician teaching you from a young age is it unfair to other maths students?
i believe it is fair.
i believe it is fair.
sirfeathers
Member
I guess it kind of goes both ways: because on one hand it does always seem to give a competitive disadvantage to those who genuinely work hard in their second language. But remember that it is definitely a real achievement to reach real a level of real competency in two languages(which is what HSC languages test). Many of the sections like Reading/Responding are just as reliant on your English skills as on your German skills. While the harder part you is learning the German, the harder part for them is learning the English.
I did my HSC German in 2006. There were native speakers in my class but the weird thing was, they kind of bombed out on reading-responding sections because it's more like English that language. They will tolerate minor grammatical mistakes in writing, remember.
But I wish BOS had some kind of consistency. There are background speakers courses for Asian languages only. Admittedly, I do not have any level of proficiency in any Asian languages but I don't think you can sit there making judgements on the "difficulty" of a language: either you allow native speakers, or you don't.
I did my HSC German in 2006. There were native speakers in my class but the weird thing was, they kind of bombed out on reading-responding sections because it's more like English that language. They will tolerate minor grammatical mistakes in writing, remember.
But I wish BOS had some kind of consistency. There are background speakers courses for Asian languages only. Admittedly, I do not have any level of proficiency in any Asian languages but I don't think you can sit there making judgements on the "difficulty" of a language: either you allow native speakers, or you don't.
X
xeuyrawp
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Does the mathematician give you simple commands and pose questions to you in such language? Are your first words not in German, but rather "pi equals..."? Etc etc.littlebigpsycho said:
4unitfreak
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We had one native German speaker at our exams on Saturday, he's been living in Australia for 2 years. But on the flip side, he went to a massive party and got totally smashed the night before, so he wasn't really at an advantage.
native speakers arent always the best
they dont really learn german like we do - when u talk to some germans and ask them a grammar question they dont always know it - at least thats what ive found when ive been over here...
Its like native English Speakers get lazy so do native german ones - therefore they dont get all the questions right!
they dont really learn german like we do - when u talk to some germans and ask them a grammar question they dont always know it - at least thats what ive found when ive been over here...
Its like native English Speakers get lazy so do native german ones - therefore they dont get all the questions right!
katie tully
ashleey luvs roosters
Dude, do people with English as a first language excel at written English exams? I.e. on grammar, punctuation, comprehension, spelling?
No.
No.
Yeah, I spose it goes both ways, but I still think that native speakers do have a pretty big advantage, which isn't fair to the rest of us.
Ok, they didn't learn the grammar like we did perhaps, but in exams you generally don't have to know the specifics of the grammar, but how it works - things like word order, tenses, cases - which you'd learn from speaking. So they'd still have an advantage. Besides, they'd still have to have studied it in class, right? So they'd learn the same things as us, plus have the advantage of knowing all the vocab, tenses, cases, without having to think about it.
The english components of exams are pretty basic, don't you think? And you shouldn't assume that their english will be bad. I'm a native Turkish speaker, but my english is much better than most people in my school. I think if I did Turkish, after learning the things in class, I'd be much ahead of non-native speakers.
Basically native speakers do have an advantage, and it's up to them whether they use it or not. They could be lazy and fail, but if they're choosing to do German they'd probably excel in it - I think there should be a background speakers exam.
Well, I'm going to Germany for 10 weeks later this year - I'll let you know whether I think that gives me an advantage (hmmm, if so, that could end up being kinda hypocritical)
Ok, they didn't learn the grammar like we did perhaps, but in exams you generally don't have to know the specifics of the grammar, but how it works - things like word order, tenses, cases - which you'd learn from speaking. So they'd still have an advantage. Besides, they'd still have to have studied it in class, right? So they'd learn the same things as us, plus have the advantage of knowing all the vocab, tenses, cases, without having to think about it.
The english components of exams are pretty basic, don't you think? And you shouldn't assume that their english will be bad. I'm a native Turkish speaker, but my english is much better than most people in my school. I think if I did Turkish, after learning the things in class, I'd be much ahead of non-native speakers.
Basically native speakers do have an advantage, and it's up to them whether they use it or not. They could be lazy and fail, but if they're choosing to do German they'd probably excel in it - I think there should be a background speakers exam.
Well, I'm going to Germany for 10 weeks later this year - I'll let you know whether I think that gives me an advantage (hmmm, if so, that could end up being kinda hypocritical)
i think they shouldnt be allowed cos i know for a fact that chinsese people cant study chinese - so shouldnt it be the same for all languages!
Also yeah i agree that some of them bomb out - but when it comes to their grammar we have no chance! - also we are compared to them in speaking which makes it impossible for us to get full marks. My german teacher marked speaking a few weeks bak - and she said the native speakers were perfect - even after the exam they had a conversation with her in german (just about life in general)
is the german state winner usually native ...
Also yeah i agree that some of them bomb out - but when it comes to their grammar we have no chance! - also we are compared to them in speaking which makes it impossible for us to get full marks. My german teacher marked speaking a few weeks bak - and she said the native speakers were perfect - even after the exam they had a conversation with her in german (just about life in general)
is the german state winner usually native ...
no, usually native speakers don't top the state and there's nothing to say you cant do really well in german and german ext. if you're not a native speaker!
they have an advantage, but only in speaking and it is still possible for non-native speakers to get full marks. And we have the advantage in the other sections because you need to be able to express yourself in english really well!
and in writing...you can get 6/6 and 9/9 with a few grammar errors and not too sophisticated german. native speakers can write perfect, sophisticated german but they only get 6/6 and 9/9 as well!
they have an advantage, but only in speaking and it is still possible for non-native speakers to get full marks. And we have the advantage in the other sections because you need to be able to express yourself in english really well!
and in writing...you can get 6/6 and 9/9 with a few grammar errors and not too sophisticated german. native speakers can write perfect, sophisticated german but they only get 6/6 and 9/9 as well!