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March 28, 2024, 09:38:11 pm

Poll

What did you study?

Arabic
0 (0%)
Auslan
0 (0%)
Chinese
16 (21.9%)
French
17 (23.3%)
German
3 (4.1%)
Greek
0 (0%)
Hebrew
0 (0%)
Hindi
0 (0%)
Indonesian
4 (5.5%)
Italian
8 (11%)
Japanese
16 (21.9%)
Korean
0 (0%)
Latin
7 (9.6%)
Spanish
0 (0%)
Vietnamese
1 (1.4%)
Other (please specify below)
1 (1.4%)

Total Members Voted: 51

Author Topic: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?  (Read 5344 times)  Share 

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lacitam

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #15 on: February 07, 2019, 03:50:44 pm »
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Did Chinese during my early high school years but eventually dropped it because I am already fluent in it.

Joseph41

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #16 on: February 07, 2019, 03:58:17 pm »
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Did Chinese during my early high school years but eventually dropped it because I am already fluent in it.

Do you think it was taught well through high school?

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K888

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #17 on: February 07, 2019, 04:07:22 pm »
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I did french 7-12. Happy I continued with it, but I only kept going because I liked the language, was pretty good at it and didn't really want to do any other subjects. The way it was taught (particularly in VCE) made me quite disillusioned with the subject and I enjoyed it a lot less as a result.

lacitam

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #18 on: February 07, 2019, 04:20:18 pm »
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Do you think it was taught well through high school?
Not at all. I remember that my lessons consisted of just vocabulary, we didn't really touch on essay structure at all. My teacher based our tests on memorisation rather than application. It might have helped other students but not for me (and the thing is that my teacher wasn't even Chinese, so she made tonnes of mistakes with her grammar, characters, stroke order etc. time and time again)

appleandbee

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #19 on: February 07, 2019, 04:34:34 pm »
+1
French in primary school, Chinese in year 8 (language classes only started from year 8 onwards in my first high school) and German for a year and a half in year 9 and 10. Considered doing German for VCE at various points in year 9 especially given that I went into it feeling pretty enthusiastic, but the only subject teacher in my school retired at the end of the year (ended up teaching in a private school though) and got a new teacher. That teacher tried to teach us grammer from scratch and rework our way of learning which made it for most people apart from a few people who learnt German at their previous school so the teacher allowed half the class the class to drop out and do research instead lol. Now, I'm not really interested in the language anymore, although it is admittedly useful given they the universities are almost free for international students.

Apart from that I speak Russian reasonably (Central Asian lineage), self-learnt it for the most part-especially the grammar component(and lived in the Central Asian region for two months). Also studied Spanish and Arabic in uni (still studying Spanish on my own, I feel it's more accessible to study it to an advanced level compared to other languages as there are really good grammar books). May revisit Arabic later. ANU also offers Hindi and Persian (amongst other less commonly taught Asian languages) through an open universities platform, which are both very appealing, so I'm still deciding which one I want to do first.

Back in my first high school, both Chinese and French were offered (increasingly elite public school in an inner suburbs area undergoing gentrification). There were 6-8 French classes compared to two Chinese classes in year 8 where it was compulsory to study a language. It was like that in both years that I was in the school. Why was there such a disproportion? I feel like it's down to the perceptions of Eurocentric superiority in culture and the humanities. I wonder whether the tide will shift to Asian languages in Australian schools...

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smamsmo22

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #20 on: February 09, 2019, 01:23:14 am »
+1
French in primary school, Chinese in year 8 (language classes only started from year 8 onwards in my first high school) and German for a year and a half in year 9 and 10. Considered doing German for VCE at various points in year 9 especially given that I went into it feeling pretty enthusiastic, but the only subject teacher in my school retired at the end of the year (ended up teaching in a private school though) and got a new teacher. That teacher tried to teach us grammer from scratch and rework our way of learning which made it for most people apart from a few people who learnt German at their previous school so the teacher allowed half the class the class to drop out and do research instead lol. Now, I'm not really interested in the language anymore, although it is admittedly useful given they the universities are almost free for international students.

Apart from that I speak Russian reasonably (Central Asian lineage), self-learnt it for the most part-especially the grammar component(and lived in the Central Asian region for two months). Also studied Spanish and Arabic in uni (still studying Spanish on my own, I feel it's more accessible to study it to an advanced level compared to other languages as there are really good grammar books). May revisit Arabic later. ANU also offers Hindi and Persian (amongst other less commonly taught Asian languages) through an open universities platform, which are both very appealing, so I'm still deciding which one I want to do first.

Back in my first high school, both Chinese and French were offered (increasingly elite public school in an inner suburbs area undergoing gentrification). There were 6-8 French classes compared to two Chinese classes in year 8 where it was compulsory to study a language. It was like that in both years that I was in the school. Why was there such a disproportion? I feel like it's down to the perceptions of Eurocentric superiority in culture and the humanities. I wonder whether the tide will shift to Asian languages in Australian schools...

Russian seems like such an interesting language; it's pretty uncommon as a subject but I think it'd be fascinating to learn :) I'm also interested to hear how you go learning Hindi/Persian.
As someone who studied French from years 7-12 and also observed the massive popularity of French over Chinese at their high school, part of the reason I chose to study French over Chinese (and also Italian) is that the class environment seemed a little less intimidating for me since I knew there were usually pretty few experienced French speakers. On the other hand, there were quite a few students who spoke Chinese and Italian at home or had close links to the languages which had allowed them to learn them all their lives and I was kinda scared of being out of my depth :P Chinese characters also freaked me out a bit!! I wonder if other people had similar experiences? I will add, though, that I did genuinely enjoy French as a subject, love the language, and would definitely like to travel there in the future, so that also contributed a lot to my choice. (:
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strawberries

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #21 on: February 09, 2019, 01:33:56 pm »
+3
did German from 7-12. loved learning the language but didn't really like the way they taught in class. i was good at the start but shit by the time i got into year 12, but it did end up being my best-scoring vce subject so i can't really say i extremely regretted it especially cos it kinda saved my atar :P

also did chinese sl for vce but that was done with an outside school. parents basically made me. chinese saved my atar too but i wouldn't recommend doing it, esp if you're of chinese background cos it's way too much effort imo. but it definitely is a very useful language considering where the world is heading today.
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spectroscopy

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #22 on: February 09, 2019, 02:28:00 pm »
0
Have only ever learnt Mandarin chinese at school from prep-year 10. Primary school was just a shitfest singing songs and learning the same sentences every year.
And in high school I learnt nothing because in general Chinese teachers in high school (from my experience - we had multiple teachers come and go) teach the complete wrong way.

They try to jam so much vocab down your throat that it becomes literally impossible to learn anything without spending hours of study per night into it from year 9 onwards. The pedagogy used is often a reflection of Chinese classes in China that just starts from a lower base and has a really fast pace. Most chinese tests from year 9 and 10 saw like 70% of the cohort fail and everyone had to get scaled up.

However throughout school, I had 2 teachers who spoke Chinese as a second/third language and literally all of my learning came from them (until I forgot it cos this was like grade 6-7). They taught at a pace slow enough that the subject wasn't a write off (5-10 words per week which is fine) + surrounding grammar and cultural learning. and the content did eventually progress unlike primary school chinese. In University I spent a fair amount of time doing Chinese and the methodology in Uni is similiar to how these 2nd language teachers taught. In the first 5 weeks of Chinese in Uni (which started from 0) I learnt more than in 10 years of chinese in school.

The thing that makes it difficult to learn as fast as other languages is because when you learn a language you generally learn spoken and written together - and the written component of chinese slows the pace down by a mile. I don't know how chinese teachers in year 9 expected kids to memorise 30 words with 1-4 characters per week + remember ones from previous weeks. Especially where you get a line or two in the wrong place and you just lose all the marks for it.

Aaron

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #23 on: February 09, 2019, 02:34:13 pm »
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Italian 7-8 and Japanese P-6

I have imo had a terrible experience with school LOTE. It was poorly taught in both my cases and I dropped it after it became optional in Year 9. I just don't think I ever engaged with it in the end. Perhaps it might have been different if it was taught by somebody else but I just don't think I was ever interested.. apart from the Lygon St excursion for Italian which was an absolute food fest. Typical of me to only remember that  ;D
« Last Edit: February 09, 2019, 02:35:51 pm by Aaron »
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avocadinq

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #24 on: February 09, 2019, 05:39:01 pm »
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French was compulsory in years 6-7, but I did not enjoy it as much as Japanese which I did from year 5, year 8 to year 10. I didn't really enjoy the way French was taught at school, even though I loved the process of learning it. I preferred Japanese a lot better because it was easier to learn imo and the class environment was great. I continued japanese through years 9 and 10 but dropped it before year 11 since I was more passionate for other subjects (eg. modern) besides japanese.
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AngelWings

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #25 on: February 09, 2019, 08:05:28 pm »
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Not exactly a secret that I took Japanese and Chinese during high school. As many know, I also continued Japanese at uni and have a minor in it.
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Joseph41

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #26 on: February 10, 2019, 11:59:16 am »
+1
Top five so far:

1. French
2. Japanese
3. Chinese
4. Italian
4. Latin

Any surprises there?

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hums_student

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #27 on: February 10, 2019, 12:35:17 pm »
+1
I learnt Japanese from year 7 to 10. Around year 8~9 my interest peaked and I ended up doing a lot of Japanese-related activities, even representing the school in Japanese speaking contests outside school. Then it just started dying down. When year 10 was over I dropped the subject as soon as possible and have not touched it since. In year 9 I could have full on conversations in Japanese and now the extent of my  vocab are words which have been integrated into the English language, as well as some hiragana and kanji (kanji only because it's pretty much Chinese).

I did Chinese for VCE but also know German and have a very extensive knowledge of music-related French and Italian vocabulary ;D Funny Sad story, during the Christmas holidays I was in Italy and tried ordering food at a restaurant in Italian (after practicing for hours beforehand), only for the lady at the counter to say "Just speak English dude".

Chinese characters also freaked me out a bit!!
I have never read anything more relatable in my life. I mean just look at this character!

Top five so far:
5. Latin
I get that Latin has insane scaling and is good for VCE but I can't imagine having it on your resume ;D
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« Last Edit: February 10, 2019, 12:49:17 pm by Lsjnzy13 »
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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #28 on: February 10, 2019, 01:56:08 pm »
+2
Butting in late here but:
I did Japanese for grade 5 and 6, and then Italian from 7-10.

I would've probably kept Italian right through VCE, but I didn't for various reasons- including the fact I wanted to do psych 1/2 and keep my other subjects without my timetable clashing, and it didn't run in my year for either 1/2 or 3/4, and I didn't want to have a distance subject.

I try to keep practicing my Italian though, but I've gotten a little lazy recently oops :-[

Top five so far:

1. French
2. Japanese
3. Chinese
4. Italian
4. Latin

Any surprises there?
Not really too surprising, I guess! :)
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strawberries

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Re: What LOTE(s) did/do you study at high school?
« Reply #29 on: February 10, 2019, 02:45:44 pm »
+1
Top five so far:

1. French
2. Japanese
3. Chinese
4. Italian
4. Latin

Any surprises there?
I'm surprised German's not there actually (every high school I considered going to offered German).
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