Here is an interesting article on education. I attach an excerpt.

When parents plunk down $20, $30, $40 and maybe $50 thousand this fall
for a year’s worth of college room, board and tuition, it might be
relevant to ask: What will their children learn in return? The American
Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) ask that question in their
recently released publication, “What Will They Learn: A Report on the
General Education Requirements at 100 of the Nation’s Leading Colleges
and Universities.”

ACTA conducted research to see whether 100 major institutions require
seven key subjects: English composition, literature, foreign language,
U.S. government or history, economics, mathematics and science. What
ACTA found was found was alarming, reporting that “Even as our students
need broad-based skills and knowledge to succeed in the global
marketplace, our colleges and universities are failing to deliver.
Topics like U.S. government or history, literature, mathematics, and
economics have become mere options on far too many campuses. Not
surprisingly, students are graduating with great gaps in their
knowledge — and employers are noticing.”

The National Center
for Education Statistics reports that only 31 percent of college
graduates can read and understand a complex book. Employers complain
that graduates of colleges lack the writing and analytical skills
necessary to succeed in the workplace. A 2006 survey conducted by The
Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the
Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the Society for Human Resource
Management found that only 24 percent of employers thought graduates of
four-year colleges were “excellently prepared” for entry-level
positions. College seniors perennially fail tests of their civic and
historical knowledge.

Here is an article on innovation planned for Michigan,

A couple of extracts with my comments in italics..

” A troubling 40% of high school students failed the reading portion of the Michigan Merit Exam the last two years.”

Nothing new there.

“The reimagine plans could help Michigan win a slice of more than $4
billion in federal funds pledged for states with promising plans to
innovate education.”

As usual it is all about getting more funding.

“Proposals so far reflect an array of ideas. For instance, students
would be able to take college courses at their high school in
Fitzgerald Public Schools in Warren. And in Oxford, students will be
fluent in Spanish or Mandarin Chinese by the eighth grade — and start
learning a stringed instrument in kindergarten.”

They will not learn what you are teaching them now. How will they suddenly become fluent in Spanish and Mandarin by grade eight?

All of this talk about how the school system is going to impose new curricula on kids misses the point. The question is how to turn non learners into learners, with or without the school system and the classroom.

I have always held the view that in learning a foreign language, it is best to treat it as one language. To me the spoken language, written language, business language, academic language, are all really one. I try to speak as neutrally as possible, keep my writing as simple and straight forward as possible. I focus on learning the words and phrases I am interested in.

If I spend a month or two on a Tolstoi novel, that will be the vocabulary that I focus on, and feel most comfortable with. If I needed to communicate on economics I would focus my reading and listening on that kind of content. If I wanted to write business letters, I would read business letters, probably have someone record them for me to listen to, and save words and phrases from them at LingQ.

I have never considered these things as different forms of the language, just variations on a common base. Much of the basic vocabulary is the same. Focusing on different types of content helps to round out your language skills. I would never take a course on business Russian, or academic Russian. I would consider it a waste of time. Now that is just me.

Here are some exchanges from my language teacher’s listserv. I would be interested in your opinions on how to deal with different language styles.

……

“On vacation I had a place and time to think about my last year’s Thai 
student

I spoke English with her, corrected her English, and edited her 
academic
papers.

I was struck by something people on this list probably take for 
granted:  she had one “mode” or discourse
of English, which she used for both speaking and writing. Academic 
writing is  a different discourse than
spoken English.  Consequently, we spent a lot of time pulling apart 
her spoken English and inserting a more
  academic style

Has anyone on the list encountered this problem?  Any useful thoughts?

What I did:  “You can’t say that on a paper, we’ll have to find 
another  [phrase, sentence] that will work better.”

……….

“I teach on the for-credit side at a community college. Many of our
students are long-term immigrants whose spoken English is fine. In
fact, some of our students have graduated from US high schools. One of
their biggest problems is they don’t understand there is more than one
register. I spend a lot of time teaching students the difference
between everyday spoken English and more formal academic English. I
don’t have any specific materials, but just keep reminding them.”

…………….

“We are presumably all familiar with the importance of scaffolding in
instruction, i.e. building upon our learners’ background knowledge. 
Registers are associated with real-life domains.  We need to work on
helping those domains take on a life of their own, so to speak, and the
register will then be context-embedded and more meaningful, thus easier
to learn and use rather than residing in the “abstract.”"