Language B: Taken by fluent students

[Emmi]

At my school we have three native Spanish speakers (all from Spain) taking Spanish B HL. It makes me mad, because people who actually are at B level like me have to compete with fluent speakers who should be forced to do it at A1 as a self-study or take French B/ab initio. They get to breeze through the class with a 100% average while I have to work and actually take time to learn the language to get similar grades.

[Rigel]

Yeah well we don't have this problem in our school, but in other schools they offer Spanish B SL, and people usually ace the course. (They take English A1 SL).

[giantsushi]

I don't think our school has any policies or requirements to take language B.. but I think it is a good idea to have previous knowledge or is at least fluent in that language, especially if you are taking HL because language B is surprisingly vigorous and difficult. It is still possible to take the language without much previous knowledge and catch up but that is tremendously stressful, you should take ab initio course instead. Otherwise, Language B is an easy 6-7 if you are a native or if you are very fluent.

It's the same for my class. Fluent natives take all the marks and others are just.. a washaway....

[Sinoco]

From my French B class, there's someone who speaks fluent French, and whenever we do grammar and stuff, she gets to leave and do whatever she wants. She was encouraged to take Spanish Ab Initio, but obviously she's going to take the French course if given the choice. It annoys me how she's allowed to miss class every/every other period.

[carpediem]

I know a couple who do this. For example, I have a girl in my class who is fluent in Spanish, but the fair part is that she has to attend all classes like the rest of us. Also, she knew that she didn't want to take another ab initio language, so the only choice she had was to take Spanish.

Plus, there's some people who aren't quite fluent, like another girl I know who has grown up speaking French at home but has grown up in an English-speaking environment.

And now there isn't any A2 anymore, the fluent speakers have no choice to take B now.

[banks]

This happens at my school too! I've got a friend who's German, taking German A1 and English B and he's lived in Australia all his life! His parents speak German at home, but English is just as much his native language as German! There's people taking Ab Initio Japanese who've done it for two years as well, but didn't get good marks so the school let them do Ab Initio. It just ends up being unfair for the people who are actually taking the right level of language because it pushes the mark boundaries up so high. Japanese B is 87% for a 7. I've been doing it for nearly four years, I study pretty hard, get tutored once a week and I've only just started getting 6s. Grrrr!

[IBCONQUERER]

I take Swahili B SL (I have studied literature for 2 yrs before and I got a C in it) but I never had the option of choosing swahili A2 SL because my school has only B! I have studied english lit too so even doing english B would be wrong! In that case I believe I don't have an option!

[Sofia.]

I take English B HL, even though I'm nearly fluent. I love it, since I don't have to put the slightest effort into it in order to earn a 7. Of course, English A2 is better in the sense that it gives you the bilingual diploma, but I really don't care. I'd rather take English B, which for me is like taking one subject less, and study nothing than take A2, which would perhaps reduce my overall grade, which isn't at all beneficial if I want to go to university in Sweden.

If you take Swe lit, you'll get a bilingual diploma you don't actually have to study English at all to get it.. (because you read all the other courses in english)

[solastalgia]

This is actually very relevant at my school. We don't have A2 languages, so all the language classes (aside from A1 English) are at level B. So, we've got a lot of fluent speakers in language B classes. One Arabic teacher at my school finds this unethical so he refuses to teach anything but Arabic Ab Initio, and my Arabic teacher tries to teach his class like an A2 class.

That said, I am a fluent Arabic speaker and the Arabic B exam is still difficult for me because Arabic is a tough language all on its own. I also come from a weaker background in formal Arabic, which is drastically different from the Arabic I speak and know well (Lebanese dialect). I think this whole issue depends on the situation of people taking the class - some people are truly taking a class too easy for them, but others who are fluent are still at the appropriate level.

[DC_JackBlind]

Although we aren't the smallest IB school ever (200 Sixth Form students) this is rarely the case. Mostly because people aren't looking for THAT easy of a grade and I think that it would be very hard to explain to a university admissions officers if one were to apply to the UK.

The one or two students, to my knowledge, who have arranged this, aren't pursuing university options here in the UK...

[Gaby]

Well, at my school, beside Polish A, pretty much only Spanish B and English B are offered (in some years, French B and French/Spanish ab inito are offered) but taking English B is compulsory (up till the May 2012 cohort, it was compulsory to take it at HL, starting from my class, it's not). Most of us are rather fluent English speakers but even if we wanted to take English at any other level, we wouldn't be able to. Also, if someone didn't want to take English at all, just take Spanish, it's not possible either.

[Stanislaw]

Well, at my school, beside Polish A, pretty much only Spanish B and English B are offered (in some years, French B and French/Spanish ab inito are offered) but taking English B is compulsory (up till the May 2012 cohort, it was compulsory to take it at HL, starting from my class, it's not). Most of us are rather fluent English speakers but even if we wanted to take English at any other level, we wouldn't be able to. Also, if someone didn't want to take English at all, just take Spanish, it's not possible either.

Dziedobry z Kanada!

Polish is my third language, a bit sloppy

I take English A2 SL and French A1 Hl at my school; no other languages are offered here. English part of Canada, but French school. As such, all students speak both languages more or less fluently.

Personally I have a huge advantage ; I speak french at home with a french father, and english outside of school. I've managed to accrue 29/30's and i DO feel like its unethical. But I couldn't have taken a higher level french class ; so my feelings of success ensue guilt. Great.

I do think that the students should have an entry exam, and be placed appropriately.

But the main problem is the fact that courses of different difficulties yield the same amount of points. And this cannot be overcome, sadly. Its present in traditional school systems also.

[jess1ca]

I get that some schools don't offer a lot of courses. My school only has French B and English A1. Not that I was fluent in French anyway... haha.

But for those that just want the higher grades,

well, school isn't just about grades ...

it's about learning new things...

[Guest]

I honestly don't see a problem with taking a language B you are already fluent in. My understanding of group 1 and group 2 subjects is that they are trying to enable students to communicate in at least 2 languages. If the students are able to do so already, the goal is achieved. One might say that they are having it easy now, and it is probably true, but only because they had to go through the process of learning a second language beforehand. Just because they don't have to study it now does not mean they never had to study the said language!!!

Furthermore, why should they have 2 languages A if they are not interested in literature? Or learn another language if they already speak the necessary 2 and are not interested in languages?

I do agree with the problem of easy subjects - math studies and environmental systems. They do result in high results (points) and less knowledge, while students with other subject combinations might have better knowledge (math sl/hl, bio sl/hl, chem sl/hl, phi sl/hl) but less points and therefore might suffer unfairly. However, I disagree with placing students taking their native language as B into that group of "problems". Their language B test is the same as every other language B test, and they have the needed knowledge to do it (even more than necessary), thus not hurting anyone's points.

Edited December 30, 2013 by OldFashioned

[peter wai]

It happens a lot in Hong Kong too. Most Hong Kong students speak Chinese as their first language and start learning English since kindergarten, so they SHOULD be bilingual in Chinese and English... but there are many HK students who take Chinese B or English B, which I think is quite unfair and stupid.

However, there are some parents who are proud of "being bad at Chinese", believing that English is a more high-class language. They don't allow their children to speak Chinese or watch Chinese TV programmes at home, and they don't care about their kids' Chinese proficiency, so their Chinese is so poor that they HAVE to take Chinese B...

[IanSurvive]

I honestly don't see a problem with taking a language B you are already fluent in. My understanding of group 1 and group 2 subjects is that they are trying to enable students to communicate in at least 2 languages. If the students are able to do so already, the goal is achieved. One might say that they are having it easy now, and it is probably true, but only because they had to go through the process of learning a second language beforehand. Just because they don't have to study it now does not mean they never had to study the said language!!!

Furthermore, why should they have 2 languages A if they are not interested in literature? Or learn another language if they already speak the necessary 2 and are not interested in languages?

I do agree with the problem of easy subjects - math studies and environmental systems. They do result in high results (points) and less knowledge, while students with other subject combinations might have better knowledge (math sl/hl, bio sl/hl, chem sl/hl, phi sl/hl) but less points and therefore might suffer unfairly. However, I disagree with placing students taking their native language as B into that group of "problems". Their language B test is the same as every other language B test, and they have the needed knowledge to do it (even more than necessary), thus not hurting anyone's points.

This.

[Captain Jeeves]

Honestly, I live in the very northern part of the US so I'm not sure this has ever happened here, but here are my thoughts.

I think taking a B language that you're FLUENT in should be only allowed if absolutely, absolutely necessary. (I'm defining fluent as capable of reading, writing, speaking, and comprehension to a significant degree.) I do realize that many who have commented on this thread simply have no choice in the matter, as their school requires them to take a language at a level they may be overqualified for. Fair enough. If you're required to do it, then you don't really have much of a choice. My school requires English Lit HL for DP candidates, and although I doubt we've ever had a candidate whose mother tongue wasn't English, there is simply no other Group 1 course offered. So for people who are fluent in French, say, that have no other choice but to take French B, I don't think that's wrong.

The point of taking B languages is language acquisition. This, as I see it, means that one should actually be acquiring a language. If you already know the language, then you're entirely missing the point of the course. Group 2 courses are designed to allow someone to communicate in a language other than ones they previously knew. In my opinion this generally means they learn to comprehend things literally. By that, I don't mean that people would take something like "get out of my face" at face value. It is perfectly possible to learn little language-isms like that in B courses. I mean that I wouldn't expect a B language student to catch metaphors or other figurative language. That, I think, is something that is for A languages. When a B level student reads a sentence like "The dog barked," it's just that. A dog barked. Moving on. If you got that, good, because you don't need to see any deeper. But in A level, you're expected to tackle literature and understand the forces at play in it. In A level, the dog barking is a symbol of the eternal futility of conscience or some such BS.

In short, B language courses are to get you to understand the language; A language courses are to get you to understand how said language can be manipulated to create more than one meaning.

So people who already know the language should naturally take the next step. Who cares if you don't like literature? There are thousands of monolingual people who don't like literature, but they still have to take Group 1 courses. Just take Lit at SL. Just don't do it as a B course, because it's not fair for people that genuinely have to work at the class. IB makes you work. End of story. If you take B just to get an easy 7, it's not fair to everyone else because you're basically invalidating their work given how IB scoring works. If you don't want to do Lit then please, please do some other language. You never ever have to do anything with it after you finish and it's just so much more fair to everyone involved.

IB is supposed to be a challenge. If fluent or native speakers do B level language, it's not really in the spirit of IB in my mind.

[IanSurvive]

Honestly, I live in the very northern part of the US so I'm not sure this has ever happened here, but here are my thoughts.

I think taking a B language that you're FLUENT in should be only allowed if absolutely, absolutely necessary. (I'm defining fluent as capable of reading, writing, speaking, and comprehension to a significant degree.) I do realize that many who have commented on this thread simply have no choice in the matter, as their school requires them to take a language at a level they may be overqualified for. Fair enough. If you're required to do it, then you don't really have much of a choice. My school requires English Lit HL for DP candidates, and although I doubt we've ever had a candidate whose mother tongue wasn't English, there is simply no other Group 1 course offered. So for people who are fluent in French, say, that have no other choice but to take French B, I don't think that's wrong.

The point of taking B languages is language acquisition. This, as I see it, means that one should actually be acquiring a language. If you already know the language, then you're entirely missing the point of the course. Group 2 courses are designed to allow someone to communicate in a language other than ones they previously knew. In my opinion this generally means they learn to comprehend things literally. By that, I don't mean that people would take something like "get out of my face" at face value. It is perfectly possible to learn little language-isms like that in B courses. I mean that I wouldn't expect a B language student to catch metaphors or other figurative language. That, I think, is something that is for A languages. When a B level student reads a sentence like "The dog barked," it's just that. A dog barked. Moving on. If you got that, good, because you don't need to see any deeper. But in A level, you're expected to tackle literature and understand the forces at play in it. In A level, the dog barking is a symbol of the eternal futility of conscience or some such BS.

In short, B language courses are to get you to understand the language; A language courses are to get you to understand how said language can be manipulated to create more than one meaning.

So people who already know the language should naturally take the next step. Who cares if you don't like literature? There are thousands of monolingual people who don't like literature, but they still have to take Group 1 courses. Just take Lit at SL. Just don't do it as a B course, because it's not fair for people that genuinely have to work at the class. IB makes you work. End of story. If you take B just to get an easy 7, it's not fair to everyone else because you're basically invalidating their work given how IB scoring works. If you don't want to do Lit then please, please do some other language. You never ever have to do anything with it after you finish and it's just so much more fair to everyone involved.

IB is supposed to be a challenge. If fluent or native speakers do B level language, it's not really in the spirit of IB in my mind.

Well you could also argue that it's not fair to people who had to genuinely work hard at a younger age to achieve such fluency in their second language, and that it is even more unfair that these overachievers have to abandon their absolute advantage of getting a higher grade for university acquired from their genuine hard work at younger age due to some other person who initially lacked the effort to develop their second language to these overachiever's level of fluency at the first place.

These overachievers should have the freedom to choose whether to study language A or B, as they have decided to sacrifice their younger times to become an overachiever that they are now; to become more competitive in university selection. And those who did not spend the effort and hard work in the past to become like these people DO NOT have the right to criticize their decisions.

Regardless of my aggressiveness in this post, I am one of those who did not work hard in the past and am now struggling in Language B, but I could not stand your logic of invalidating these overachiever's genuine hard work in the past. And please, don't speak about 'spirit of IB' in front of university selection, it is very naive and doesn't work like that.

Edited January 3, 2014 by IanSurvive

[wings]

I take two B languages, and that problem has been hitting me hard in both classes.

We are three students who take German B. We started off as two students, until someone from the A class dropped down because 'her writing needs to be worked on'. I had that problem once taking French A in IGCSE and I had a separate tutor for that. I don't see why that couldn't have happened.

In Dutch B, we also have a fluent student. We do a lot of interactive orals, and he puts all of us SL students to shame. We also get intimidated by him, because he talks so fluently and for so long. All of the SL grades have dropped since he came into the class, because during the orals, he will include all of the simple points that the SL students come up with, so we end up not saying anything. I personally find it very annoying and unfair.

Also, did you guys hear that the IB has put up the language B grade boundaries? For written stuff we now need a 90% for a 7 instead of a 82%! Our B teachers told us it was due to the huge amount of fluent language B students. I don't know about you but that put my grade from a 6 to a 5 in one day.

There is a large gap between language A and B. They used to have language A1, right? Or do they still have that? In my opinion, they should take that into consideration again.

[under-cover]

Well, to be honest... The fluent speakers who take a "Language B" had to learn that language at some point as well... So...

I totally get the point that getting that easy seven is unfair, but ... As they had to learn that language too (it didnt just fly to them), i believe that it is/was their choice.

Well, actually, being brought up bilingual, like many in my family were, means they don't have to work at it at all as it is just natural to them. It is a lot easier than learning it at an older age as well. However, don't think I'm denying that it was hard, because I know being brought up bilingual is just as confusing. I just agree with many others in saying that if you speak a language fluently and are doing it as a language B, you're just taking the easy way out and I don't think its always right or even fair on other students.

Also, I have to mention that if it is English in question, I really do believe it is a lot easier for many to learn English due to how many people speak it, how it is used everywhere on the internet and it takes control of the media (especially film and music). Like, I find it actually really hard to find many films in French online and obviously I see very few people speaking French ever, so I don't hear the language as often.