Putting together personal learning experiences

Last week we shared our individual experiences in class, and we would like to highlight the following ideas that arose in the discussion:

• The oldest among our classmates started learning English (or French) in Primary School (when they were around 12 years old), whilst the youngest started in preschool.
• Those who started learning English in preschool have sweeter memories of that period, because they sang and listened to stories. Nevertheless, once they started Primary School, emphasis was placed on grammar, just like what happened to those who started learning the language at 12.
• Regarding language schools, two different views were put forward: those who went to language schools were happy because they improved their level and school was easy for them, while those who didn't get to go to language schools felt left behind and frustrated. So, it is not clear whether language schools are good or bad; it depends on the side you are on.
• Even though some of us in class are in their twenties and others in their forties, the methodology used in Primary and Secondary School, based mainly on learning grammar through written exercises, hardly changed over decades. The only exception is the fact that some of the younger classmates had the opportunity to learn a few school subjects in English, which is quite recent. In this case, also, there were opposite opinions in class: some thought that it was a good thing, and others ended up neither learning the language nor the subject. Besides, some believed that using English to learn subjects could be harmful for Basque, depending on the sociolinguistic context of the school.

In summary, we had a very interesting and intense debate, that led to many readings recommended by our teacher, which we will discuss in another post when we finish reading them.