Jump to content

Self-Taught Language Experiences?


apricot

Recommended Posts

Hey,

I'm having a bit of trouble deciding my 6th subject in the IB. I'm more language-orientated, but my school's offer for languages is pretty pathetic. I'm thinking that a possibility could be a self-taught language, like French or my other mother tounge that my school doesn't offer. HOWEVER my organisation skills are not that good and I'm really afraid that I find myself not studying the self-taught language at all...!! :P (I'm already worrying about how I'll organise the studying of the other five subjects that I'll study...) Anyway, has anyone got any experience/advice about this?? Would be much appreciated!! :)

Edited by apricot
Link to post
Share on other sites

Ok basically you didn't start IB, so I am giving you an advice.

Before IB, we all think we are able to handle such a thing, self taught language, no matter how much previous IBers tell us its impossible.

You have to seriously bare in mind that you are going to have way too much work to be able to handle a self taught subject, let alone a language.

I was considering to do French on my own, but right now I am more grateful than ever that I didnt. I took the subjects I liked with supportive teachers (except ITGS) and yet I would never waant to imagine how I would have been with a self taught language.

So I personally dont advise you.

Take another science, or one of the human sciences like ITGS, business..etc. Think about what you want to do in uni. Unless you are going for a language degree, I dont see taking a self taught language is going to bring you anything apart from unneccesary stress.

This is my opinion. :P

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm doing French A1 self-taught. We have a self-taught coordinator. She gives a few lessons in english to enhance the learning and all but it's all not that useful. Thankfully she happens to be a french literature teacher so she can help me. Self-taught is a pleasure for me. It's a way to escape the English speaking world. I had the choice of doing English A1, Swedish or French self-taught and I went with the language I enjoy the most.

I was considering taking Italian B self-taught because B languages are a joke. But I'm not aloud since I already do one self-taught so instead i'm doing japanese ab initio.

If you could tell us what you were considering it would be nice because in this instance you aren't really telling us much.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm doing French A1 self-taught. We have a self-taught coordinator. She gives a few lessons in english to enhance the learning and all but it's all not that useful. Thankfully she happens to be a french literature teacher so she can help me. Self-taught is a pleasure for me. It's a way to escape the English speaking world. I had the choice of doing English A1, Swedish or French self-taught and I went with the language I enjoy the most.

I was considering taking Italian B self-taught because B languages are a joke. But I'm not aloud since I already do one self-taught so instead i'm doing japanese ab initio.

If you could tell us what you were considering it would be nice because in this instance you aren't really telling us much.

How does one go about self-teaching a language? I would be interested in taking another language (French) but I'm not sure if I could handle it considering how badly my classmates in French 2 are responding to the difficulty level.

Link to post
Share on other sites

There's a big difference between self-teaching yourself another language (as in learning it as a foreign language) and then self-teaching yourself literature, though! They're two completely different subjects.

I would actually agree with Maha and try to dissuade you from self-teaching a language unless you already speak it really quite fluently and want to do it for A2 or A1. At any level below that you really ought to have a teacher to guide you through and mark your essays because you're not going to have the expertise to know what is right/wrong in a particular language, how to pronounce unfamiliar words etc., unless you're already extremely familiar with that language.

Self-teaching yourself how to speak a language really isn't anything like the same as reading & analysing books by yourself (which is more or less what A1 is, no matter what the language), sooo if you were looking at doing a language AB or B, I'd say to avoid it and just go with whatever is on offer.

Unless you want to go on to do a particular language at University, I honestly don't think it's worth bothering about which language you take. I took Spanish to fulfill the language diploma requirement and that was the end of that -- I could equally have done any of the other languages I'd studied and not be feeling much difference! Which language you pick doesn't matter one jot in the end unless you're actually going to become a language student.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you all for your replies!! All right, firstly, I AM thinking of studying a language in university (English). If I would teach myself French, it would be French B (probably SL, I guess I couldn't take it as HL if it's self-taught... But I'm not sure!) My other choises are A1 Finnish HL, A1 English HL, History HL, Biology SL and Maths Studies. I'm not at all into science subjects, so another subject from group 4 is totally out of question if it won't be possible (or advisable) to study that self-taught French. Another possibility is B Swedish SL. I think I'll take that if French won't work out, since I really prefer studying languages. (But I like French waaaay better! :) ) So it's not like I'll study by myself because there's not other subject to take, I just love studying the language. Lastly, I have parents who can help me alot with French so the fact of not pronuncing words correctly etc wouldn't be a problem.

However, I do understand that I'd need to be really organised and I might even regret it afterwards with all the other things to do... Like I said, I'm really poor at oranising and my self-discipline is not as good as it could be :D

If anyone has anything to add after me giving this info, I would appreciate it alot!!

Edited by apricot
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I was under the impression that one can only do a self-taught language at A1 level. I checked Google, and nothing came up for anything other than A1. I would like to do Self-Taught Serbian B HL (instead of doing a second Natural Science for Group 6) if I could, but my IB coordinator said that you can only do self-taught languages at A1.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...