university reform

[guignol]

i saw a big culture shock too... french students are pretty much on their own, especially compared to the states.

in one of my classes the prof read off (not handed out) a list of works: about 100 books ranging from louise labé to jean giono... to choose one for a report? to read? how many? all of them? and to what purpose?

basically, the more of those books you'd read, the better you'd understand her lectures. it wasn't mandatory reading, but in any subject, the more you read the better. reading otto rank (for example) without a BIG background in lots of subjects just can't be done.

what you say about the orals surprises me. when i did one on les petites filles modèles my prof didn't give a damn about old lady rostopchine... i had to show her the freud card, the marivaux gambit and a little bit of the old vallès-daudet 1-2! otherwise it was 5 sur 20 max.

[Pierre-Henri]

Guignol, If I trust your moniker, you're an old fa... I mean, An experienced man. Believe me : French university today has nothing to do with what it was only 10 or 15 years ago. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

Blackjack : your English writing is excellent, you're making yourself clear. I don't know what your exact proficiency in French is, but the single fact that I can understand your sentences easily puts you into the top tier students, even compared with the French ones.

I hate doing this, I hate quoting students, but you can't understand if I don't give an example. This is a student's work, the result of a translation, from a French student, licence level. We are at the Sorbonne -- situation is much worse at less prestigious universities. And I must add this work is old already : things are getting worse year after year.

------------------------------------
Quelques jours avaient passés depuis ma visite lorsque je me rappella le Alcalde : qui était à sa maison, que c'était la-bas une femme maîtresse que je voulais connaître. Entre curiosité et perplexité, je me dirigea a : l'Ayuntamiento, une habitation avec fenêtre, cuisine et un tapis avec peu de poils. Le reste était la vie de l'Alcalde.
Je traversa le portail obscure et appella avec les [blanc] une vieille m'ouvrit et me conduit sans un mots jusqu'au fond de la maison. Là-bas dans un couloir humide, qui menait à une cuisine avec des restes de nourriture, étaient assis Alcalde, sa femme et une autre personne, una manche noire et grise, un corps vêti de [blanc] y une tête avec les cheveux courts. Je restais debout, attendant, mais personne ne m'invita à m'asseoir.
----------------------------------

This is supposed to be a literary translation.

Guignol, it's not that students have issues with some difficulties of the French language. In truth, many of them are completely unable to write or speak a single sentence that makes any sense. They don't read anything, because they can't. You can't explain anything to them, because they ignore the meaning of even the most basic words. You can't teach anything to them, because their mastery of their own native language is wanting to a point very few realize. The situation is desperate, terminal. France jumped 100 years backward.

Rough estimates : 30 % of students at licence level are illiterate (I mean really : can't understand any written text). 50%, having a very failing culture, would require remedial courses -- which the university doesn't have the possibility to give. The 20-30 remaining % are like Blackjack, lost and forlorn among the noisy crowd.

Personally, I don't believe a single second that the troubles the university is facing today are polical by nature. I think they are the first signs of this massive, breathtaking and frightening surge of illiteracy and obscurantism.

[guignol]

i get where you're coming from P-H, but it's the same everywhere... in the 80's i lived a couple of years in palo alto. between waiting tables (a student job in the states) and having a brother at intel, i met quite a lot of stanfordites, both students and grads... and was shocked by their total, and i mean total, lack of culture générale, and their complete inability to express themselves with anything resembling coherence or elegance.

and i'm worried about my son... he goes to a good school, gets great marks, and overall is no dummy; he knows achilles killed hector, what hammurabi's code and the capital of peru are, can tell beethoven from satie and could pick margot fonteyn out of a police lineup. but despite taking latin insists on using pitance 20 times a day as a synonym for pitié, (in contexts where the word pitié doesn't mean anything anyway), and half a dozen words like that comprise about 80% of his discourse.

what i feel is that even good students today see learning as just a circus trick, they don't feel it has any relation to themselves and their real lives. when they get together it's not conversation, it's just crows cawing at each other.

PS: you're right i'm an errr... distinguished gentleman but i don't see why my nick would suggest that. at least here in lyon guignol LIVES!

[Pierre-Henri]

Betrayed by your profile.

My words always sound gloomy, but I have such love for literature, culture and nice language (*) that the lack of interest shown by the students -- even in the humanities -- is beyond me.

Well, I'm for freedom. If young people don't care about literature, grammar, history, arts and the like, if they prefer reading "Closer" than René Char, that's fine by me. This is a free country. But what the hell are they doing in a humanistic cursus ?

Universities have to deal with heaps of students who don't give a dime about what they are doing, and who repeatedly complain that the lectures, you know, are too cultshural, not kewl, with all the old boring stuff the teachers want them to learn, the books they are required to read, sooo difficult and uninteresting, and all those stoopid facts they have to know.

Sometimes, you really would like to bang their heads : What are you doing here, bloody moron ? This is not highschool ! You're an adult, you're free to leave !

Legally, they are adults. In their heads, 12, 13 years old. I wonder if it's not one of the main issues : huge, huge, huge lack of maturity, and no sense of responsabilities at all.

De l'enfant-roi à l'enfant-tyran...


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(*) at least in French. My heart is full of shame when I see the mistakes I do in English.

[blackjack]

(*) at least in French. My heart is full of shame when I see the mistakes I do in English.

You mean the mistakes you make in English? ;)

But to be honest, if I can ever speak and write French like you can write and probably speak English, I'll be happy as can be.

[guignol]

i'm going to be snide here and claim he did that mistake on purpose... P-H's english is that good that make vs. do isn't a problem for him... c'mon, own up! ;)

but i do see a couple of fine points...

- something may not be worth a dime, but one doesn't give a damn.

- high school is twowords.

[blackjack]

i'm going to be snide here and claim he did that mistake on purpose... P-H's english is that good that make vs. do isn't a problem for him... c'mon, own up! ;)

but i do see a couple of fine points...

- something may not be worth a dime, but one doesn't give a damn.

- high school is twowords.

In retrospect, you're probably right.

I'll sum up by saying that while living in France has been a really good experience for me, and I'm really glad to be able to speak the language fluently now, I'll be glad to get back to good old Carleton College where I'll be among students who actually give a damn and professors who hold them accountable when they don't do what's expected of them.

[Pierre-Henri]

You mean the mistakes you make in English? ;)


http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/24/92/23439224.jpg

I thought "do" was like "stuff". Something you put when you don't know.

[blackjack]

http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/24/92/23439224.jpg

I thought "do" was like "stuff". Something you put when you don't know.

'do' is the most common translation of 'faire,' I think. There's no real rule, but a (very) loose guideline might be that when referring to a person or an animate object or objects, translate 'faire' as 'make,' and when referring to other things, translate it as 'do.'

for example - 'j'ai fait la cuisine'= i did the cooking but 'je fais beaucoup de fautes' = i make a lot of mistakes and 'il me fait éclater de rire' = he makes me burst with laughter.

or something like that.

[guignol]

as a teacher i used to explain it this way: if it actually produces something, it's make, otherwise it's do, and there are about half a dozen noteworthy exceptions, including mistakes. make the bed is another. make amends... if you have that book grammaire anglaise de A à Z they probably have the list.

http://www.iut-nantes.univ-nantes.fr/~habrias/dessGledn/Image_08

[Pierre-Henri]

if you have that book grammaire anglaise de A à Z they probably have the list.


I have the old "Ophrys". To formally learn English is on my "to do" list since 1998. A simple course when I was in licence is my last real training. After that, it's all on-the-job : reading Bill Watterson, Bill Bryson, Terry Pratchett, cheap Sci-Fi and Heroic-Fantasy novels.

However, even if my English to French is perfect, I still have difficulties from French to English. The tenses are still a severe pain. Why the hell do you care if things are "progressive" or not ? Do I have to be a leftist to conjugate correctly ? [sitcom laughing track]

The prepositions are also annoying : your really should use the same than the French ones, it would be simpler for everyone.

Spelling traps are many, too : "personnellement" in French, but "personally" in English. On the other hand, "adresse" in French, but "address" in English. Some of them are rather difficult to memorize in French alone, so when you have to memorize them the other way in English, it can be hellish.

As for the pronunciation, I won't try to improve myself. I'm absolutely certain my Pepe le Pew impersonation makes me irresistible. I'm sure it does, no ?

[guignol]

The tenses are still a severe pain. Why the hell do you care if things are "progressive" or not ?tenses a pain? that's rich coming froma french speaker. as for progessives:

in the present it distinguishes the actual from the habitual:

i'm not wearing underwear... right now. but it may so happen that i normally do.

i don't wear underwear... as a rule. but it may so happen that inhabitually i am right now.

in the past you'll find it makes about the same distinction as the imp. p/r au p.c.

The prepositions are also annoying : your really should use the same than the French ones, it would be simpler for everyone.that's a common but still very interesting observation. look at prepositions with an open mind and you'll realize that, unless describing strictly spatial relationships, they make sense on no language, they're simple convention.

Spelling traps are many, too : "personnellement" in French, but "personally" in English. On the other hand, "adresse" in French, but "address" in English. Some of them are rather difficult to memorize in French alone, so when you have to memorize them the other way in English, it can be hellish.it's true english spelling is horribly unpredictable, the relation between the written and the spoken is tenuous at best. for an extra thrill, have a go at british place names like worcester or magdalen.

As for the pronunciation, I won't try to improve myself. I'm absolutely certain my Pepe le Pew impersonation makes me irresistible. I'm sure it does, no ?my son's served him well during his year in school in the states... although bizarrely, they thought he was british, not french!

[Pierre-Henri]

About university : here is the official diagram of the French research.

http://media.education.gouv.fr/image/60/0/20600.gif

Nobel prize winners routinely turn mad when they try to understand our academic system.

Obviously, the diagram was to simple. Our minister, the comrad Valérie Pécreskova, has just created another bureaucracy : http://www.sauvonslarecherche.fr/spip.php?article1837

North Korea ? Pfff. Amateurs.