Secondary School Third Languages

[MintLeaf]

schellen:

MintLeaf, I only did Jap at uni and the dicts were recommended by the teachers. Yes, I had the 3 you mentioned. I guess any good ones will do. I remember using 2 of them from Kodansha. That was back when internet was still in its infancy.

I am not familiar with the Arts faculty, or for that matter, the modular system. How long did the language study module/course run?

schellen:

Now, I use online resources more since it's faster and with some experience, I can type in the appropriate keywords to get more accurate results. The site I primarily use is http://www.alc.co.jp and to help me with the reading and meaning of kanji on-screen, I use a Firefox add-on called Rikaichan. (Rikaichan doesn't work on IE or Chrome but I think it works on Safari.) You can google for these software, etc. Just don't use Babelfish or Google to translate directly cos you'll get \"weird\" results.

Thanks for the URL. I did some tests and each time it returned a comprehensive list of explanations/translations. And Rikaichan looks even more promising. I have yet to get it up and running though.

[mathsparks]

Serafiel:

Although I wanted to quit jap a lot of times, I decided not to. Because I already spent so much effort on it, quitting is like a cowards choice, to me.

It may seem like a coward's choice to you, Serafiel, but students quit for many reasons like lack of time/clash of schedule/transport difficulties and the most valid reason of all is that they're simply not linguistically inclined. And I would definitely not call them cowards. In fact, I would applaud them for having the courage to pick it up in the first place.

[schellen]

MintLeaf:

I am not familiar with the Arts faculty, or for that matter, the modular system. How long did the language study module/course run?

I'm not familiar with the modular system too since the year I graduated was when they fully implemented it. I took Jap Studies and it was a 3-yr course. The lang modules were compulsory then for 2-1/2 yrs. After that, for the last 1/2 yr, many of us didn't opt for the last lang module. I didn't touch Jap for another 10 yrs or so until my friends got me interested to take JLPT2 again. My DH, sashimi, got interested in anime and gunpla so he would often ask me to translate his hobby mags. Constant usage and a very gd teacher in the prep course for JLPT2 helped me to pass. My last job was in a Jap company so daily usage was very helpful too, although the terms I constantly used are more for business usage.

ALC is a very gd site as it provides lots of example sentences too, catering to the many definitions of each word/phrase. ALC publishes many ref/guide books in Jap too. I got 2 from Kinokuniya (not cheap) for biz e-mails and biz tel conversations. Rikaichan sometimes may provide slightly different definitions as compared to ALC so it's gd to try both.

[Serafiel]

excuse me, thos who got CCA clash could easily transfer class to one that won’t clash. As for transport–why would they pick it up in the first place if they live really far from bishan?

i’m talking about the people who, after one test where they didn’t do well, decided to quit just before o levels, so they would not have a stain among their As.

[MintLeaf]

schellen:

I didn't touch Jap for another 10 yrs or so until my friends got me interested to take JLPT2 again. My DH, sashimi, got interested in anime and gunpla so he would often ask me to translate his hobby mags. Constant usage and a very gd teacher in the prep course for JLPT2 helped me to pass. My last job was in a Jap company so daily usage was very helpful too, although the terms I constantly used are more for business usage.

Good for you. It's hard work to pass JLPT2. My ex-colleagues at the first company I worked for, tried to get me interested then but it didn't work. These people paid for their own Japanese lessons. They didn't learn Japanese as a third language or through a course in the University.

My third language batch took the first JLPT test in Singapore. I only remembered one person passing level 2 then. She was a PSLE PM book prize winner who consistently excelled at languages but chose the Science faculty instead. We didn't have LKY award during our time. I understand she is now a teacher at Nan Hua High School.

I believed we were killed by the listening test. In those days, we used casette tapes and our teacher would read the lessons herself and record them. The teacher would then manually duplicate those tapes for us. All these effort to ensure we learn the correct pronunciation. Low cost mini compo with dual tape deck weren't that rampant then, so duplicating audio resource required access to pretty decent equipment. And we did not really have other audio reference materials besides the teacher's personal recordings. It was under such circumstances that our classmate passed JLPT 2.

Given her talent, it was ironical that she did not pursue a humanities degree or the 文部省 scholarship. A number of people went for the scholarship which provided an opportunity to study in Japan for 5 years and complete a degree course. Two of them were my classmates at some point of time. One graduated with an Engineering degree, but I could not remember what the other one, who was a PROMSHO scholar, majored in. I believe MOE still offers a number of scholarships to Japan a year.

Generally, there are a couple of changes to the system that I am puzzled by. First the requirement for prior knowledge of Chinese to read Japanese as a third language. One of my classmates did Malay as a second language and had no problem keeping up. The second thing I can not understand is the Japanese H2 course. Most people I know would simply go for the scholarship to Japan if they want to go beyond JLPT 2 equivalent.

I guess our education system is just constantly evolving.

[schellen]

MintLeaf:

I believed we were killed by the listening test. In those days, we used casette tapes and our teacher would read the lessons herself and record them. The teacher would then manually duplicate those tapes for us. All these effort to ensure we learn the correct pronunciation. Low cost mini compo with dual tape deck weren't that rampant then, so duplicating audio resource required access to pretty decent equipment. And we did not really have other audio reference materials besides the teacher's personal recordings. It was under such circumstances that our classmate passed JLPT 2.

I used cassette tapes too. We had Jap lessons everyday for Reading 1, Reading 2, Conversation 1, Conversation 2 and Lab. In Lab, we had to bring tapes for recording too. We also watched language videos.

[mathsparks]

Serafiel:

excuse me, thos who got CCA clash could easily transfer class to one that won't clash. As for transport--why would they pick it up in the first place if they live really far from bishan?

i'm talking about the people who, after one test where they didn't do well, decided to quit just before o levels, so they would not have a stain among their As.

When 12 yos decided to pick up a 3rd lang, they hadn't experienced peak hour traffic on public transport nor have they any idea if they can cope with a heavy workload. As for those who didn't wanna stain their results, you didn't mention them in your earlier post.
My point is, while you stand out for your excellent determination and grades, you shouldn't 'look down' on those who had to drop out. My apologies if i've misunderstood your post.

[xxjustakidxx]

Serafiel:

excuse me, thos who got CCA clash could easily transfer class to one that won't clash. As for transport--why would they pick it up in the first place if they live really far from bishan?

i'm talking about the people who, after one test where they didn't do well, decided to quit just before o levels, so they would not have a stain among their As.

There's one more center in Ghim Moh, and we have cases (like research studies in Hwa Chong) that the school shortened the session for students with third lang.

[MintLeaf]

schellen:

I used cassette tapes too. We had Jap lessons everyday for Reading 1, Reading 2, Conversation 1, Conversation 2 and Lab.

Wow! That was intensive. Was that during the University days or the JLPT 2 preparation you did 10 years later?

schellen:

In Lab, we had to bring tapes for recording too. We also watched language videos.

What was the lab like, as in, headset only or headset and individual recording unit? And were you recording your own reading or recording something from a master unit?

By the way, at your previous job, did you use 挨拶 like ご苦労様でした、お疲れさまでした or さようなら or was English the medium for general greetings in the office?

[schellen]

MintLeaf:

schellen:

I used cassette tapes too. We had Jap lessons everyday for Reading 1, Reading 2, Conversation 1, Conversation 2 and Lab.

Wow! That was intensive. Was that during the University days or the JLPT 2 preparation you did 10 years later?

schellen:

In Lab, we had to bring tapes for recording too. We also watched language videos.

What was the lab like, as in, headset only or headset and individual recording unit? And were you recording your own reading or recording something from a master unit?

By the way, at your previous job, did you use 挨拶 like ご苦労様でした、お疲れさまでした or さようなら or was English the medium for general greetings in the office?

1. That was for uni alone. The prep course was 10 years later and only once a week. My classmates and I in uni used to complain how unfair it was that we had to go to sch everyday while our friends taking other Arts faculty subjects (who cld plan their own schedules) cld have 3-or4-day weeks.

2. We had individual headsets and recording units. Each class had about 20 students. We taped from a master which the teacher wld play from her own unit. The teacher wld also quiz us individually but she chose the settings where everyone cld hear so mistakes and admonishments were rather embarrassing.

3. I used Otsukaresama deshita, Osakini shitsureishimasu, Ittekimasu, Itterasshai, etc. Sayounara was not used and I believe you understand why.