210 replies to this topic

[Vvi]

Just out of interest, I wanted to ask people how many options their school offers their students in terms of Language B's. The most common Language B's being studied on this forum seem to be French, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, German and and Italian.

Is anyone out there studying a very random language, or one that is not commonly spoken worldwide? If you are, why did you choose it instead of a more commonly used language?

My own school offers French, Hebrew and Arabic as Language B (and a few students have taken Spanish, Italian and Finnish as a 7th subject).

[Irene]

My school offers French B SL only (I think). Which is why all the Diploma students have to take it.

[Hyperbole]

My school offers English, French, Spanish and German at B level for both HL and SL, and Swedish at SL (although I think that's only because nobody wants to study it at HL).  There are probably more than double the number of English B students compared to the total number of students of the other three languages, so it's pretty uneven! (Most of the English B students could very well manage at A2 level, though; it's pretty ridiculous that they're allowed to take the easy option.)

Unfortunately we don't have any quirky languages... not that I would have chosen one anyway, because I was in love with French already before starting the IB, but still. I think more people might have been interested in studying a language if they could choose something more exotic. I guess the problem with that is that you need previous knowledge of the language, and very few people get the chance to study anything other than French/German/Spanish within the Swedish schooling system. So we're stuck with the most common languages.

[IBStuck]

for language B my schools offered

first high school: Spanish SL and HL, Japanese SL, and French SL (not sure if they offered HL or not)

second high school: Spansih SL (only one student ever took the HL exam), French SL, and German SL

[heartworthy]

IBStuck, on Jan 28 2009, 04:26 PM, said:

for language B my schools offered

first high school: Spanish SL and HL, Japanese SL, and French SL (not sure if they offered HL or not)

second high school: Spansih SL (only one student ever took the HL exam), French SL, and German SL

That's so unfair! I'm not getting my IB diploma because my school didn't offer IB Japanese! We only have Spanish and French SL/HL. Was your first high school public or private?

[IBStuck]

heartworrthy, on Jan 28 2009, 03:55 PM, said:

That's so unfair! I'm not getting my IB diploma because my school didn't offer IB Japanese! We only have Spanish and French SL/HL. Was your first high school public or private?

it was a public school.

[heartworthy]

IBStuck, on Jan 28 2009, 06:38 PM, said:

it was a public school.

I wish our school district offered any sort of Asian languages. I've heard of a lot of people who would be interested in taking Japanese or even Chinese. You think they'd at least offer it through an online course.

[IBStuck]

heartworrthy, on Jan 28 2009, 07:55 PM, said:

I wish our school district offered any sort of Asian languages. I've heard of a lot of people who would be interested in taking Japanese or even Chinese. You think they'd at least offer it through an online course.

there was a larger asian population in this area so there was a larger demand for it and they had a teacher qualified to teach it.

[Aboo]

My school offered French and Spanish.

It did offer Indonesian in the first year too.

[Ashika]

Just French B... and we only have the choice of HL haha

[irenesme]

My school currently offers only Spanish and French (SL or HL).

However, I think that they are going to take up another language next year because my school is expanding to include a Middle Years Program in addition to the Diploma Program next year. I heard that they are going to add Mandarin as a language.

Its just too bad that I am graduating though because I would have liked to take an asian language.

[QueenSara]

Vvi, on Jan 28 2009, 10:01 PM, said:

Just out of interest, I wanted to ask people how many options their school offers their students in terms of Language B's. The most common Language B's being studied on this forum seem to be French, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, German and and Italian.

Is anyone out there studying a very random language, or one that is not commonly spoken worldwide? If you are, why did you choose it instead of a more commonly used language?

My own school offers French, Hebrew and Arabic as Language B (and a few students have taken Spanish, Italian and Finnish as a 7th subject).

What about Swedish B? I have heard that a lot of Finnish IB schools offer it ;P

[Emmy]

Our school offers Finnish, Swedish, French and German B, but all of them only at SL.
Which is really annoying since I would've needed French B HL for uni...!

[Vvi]

QueenSara, on Jan 29 2009, 09:43 PM, said:

What about Swedish B? I have heard that a lot of Finnish IB schools offer it ;P

I don't live in Finland If I did, I'm sure my school wouldn't be offering Arabic and Hebrew. And I would probably speak Swedish. I think Swedish IB schools should offer Finnish, as an exchange of languages. Equality

Our school offers only French at ab initio level, and then SL and HL for all 3 language options. Although taking Hebrew HL is crazy actually, even people that have lived here for over 10 years and speak Hebrew well only get 4's or 5's. For some reason they make you study biblical Hebrew, which is probably why people fail the exam. And spelling in Hebrew is hard, because you don't use letters for all the vowels but you still have to say them (so imagine they're in between somewhere). Like "banana" is spelt "Bnna" (obviously in Hebrew letters, not Latin ones).

[Hyperbole]

Vvi, on Jan 29 2009, 09:52 PM, said:

I think Swedish IB schools should offer Finnish, as an exchange of languages. Equality

Tss, nobody here would study your language even if it were readily offered.    Finnish accents are super exotic and anyone who said they were studying Finnish would be given a "whut?" face everywhere they went.

Sadly enough. *ahem*

In primary school I had a friend whose father was Finnish. They wanted her and her sister to get the opportunity to study Finnish as an additional mother tongue, but in our small town there weren't the resources to provide that education. (I've been wondering why their father didn't just tutor them himself, but oh well...)

[Vvi]

Hyperbole, on Jan 30 2009, 01:02 AM, said:

Tss, nobody here would study your language even if it were readily offered.    Finnish accents are super exotic and anyone who said they were studying Finnish would be given a "whut?" face everywhere they went.

Sadly enough. *ahem*

In primary school I had a friend whose father was Finnish. They wanted her and her sister to get the opportunity to study Finnish as an additional mother tongue, but in our small town there weren't the resources to provide that education. (I've been wondering why their father didn't just tutor them himself, but oh well...)

http://www.hs.fi/eng...y/1135242786506 Interesting article.

"Thursday’s edition of the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter published an expression of opinion by Maria Wetterstrand, one of the chairs of the Swedish Green Party.
      Wetterstrand demanded that the Swedish government should apologise for the integration policy focused on the country’s Finnish-speaking population in the 20th century.
    
”I cannot help thinking that a certain class-thinking has had a distinct influence on what kind of attitude our countries have taken toward these linguistic minorities. In Finland the Swedish-speaking population belongs to the upper class, while in Sweden the Finnish-speaking minority has been suffering from a low social standing, finding themselves largely bereft of influence”, Wetterstrand wrote.

Carl Bildt, the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, rejected the idea of a formal apology. ”If I were to apologise for all that has happened in the history of Sweden, I would not have time for anything else”, responded Bildt to journalists."

I had to take Finnish lessons since age 5, until age 15 when I "graduated" online. My mother doesn't know all the grammar rules herself, and didn't have time to teach me. So I guess it's the same for that family you knew.

[Chesire_Cat]

My school offers Spanish (both HL and SL) and French (HL and SL) and Ab inito Spanish, French and Arabic, but they don't offer any A2 languages, or even English B. Plus, if in your pre IB years you do French and Spanish and you're not good enough to go into Spanish or French B (and a lot of people aren't), you have to take Ab Initio Arabic, which is considered hard by most people!

Edited by Chesire_Cat, Jan 30, 2009 - 09:41.

[saritaoel]

My school offers French, Spanish, and Arabic as their B languages. Other languages can be taken self-taught though; the only ones that have been self-taught that I know of are german and urdu.

[Tilia]

Our school offers French, Spanish, German and Swedish B and Russian, Japanese and Italian ab initio

[__inthemaking]

Only French B SL is offered. Probably because we're Canadian, heh.