freeform Posted May 24, 2006 (edited) . Edited January 7, 2020 by freeform Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sean Posted May 24, 2006 check it out  LOL  P.S. after you've seen the video quickly read the title of this post out loud a few times... and something mysterious will happen. I would have said UK. There is this linguistic terrorist I know there that is just pure trouble.  Sean Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Peregrino Posted May 25, 2006 (edited) Yes, you can thank the retarding rays of the US public school systems . . . Although to be fair, recent comparative tests measuring high school students' knowledge of history and geography came out more or less even when comparing Europeans and Americans (although there were of course marked differences among the various countries/states). Â Having lived and studied in the US, the UK, and Spain, I can say that British and European public school systems are generally FAR better than their US counterparts for primary and secondary education, but the US UNIVERSITY system is excellent and generally is better than what I've seen in Europe, despite the party-hearty, frat boy aspect . . . And the strange system of favoritism that allows people like George W Bush to purchase degrees from Ivy League schools. (As he once asked, "Is our children learning?") Â My experience at British universities (Lancaster U, plus some classes at Birkbeck college in London--what nostalgia . . .) was very positive, but the learning environment wasn't necessarily better than what I had found in US universities . . . Though it was nice to get a change of scenery and finally visit the Lake District that Wordsworth and Coleridge had crowed about so much in their poetry. Â From my experience teaching here, I have to say that Spanish university students, while they come in with a lot of factual knowledge, have little ability to express and synthesize that knowledge, even in their own language. Most of them simply never learned to write essays while in secondary school! Â Spaniards, Brits, and Americans ALL have tendencies towards mono-lingualism, unlike what you find in other parts of Continental Europe, never mind Africa. (A Rwandan friend of mine grew up speaking nine languages with great ease!) Â BTW, do you consider yourself "European" as well as British, Freeform? People have their doubts here on the Continent about "perfidious Albion"! Edited May 25, 2006 by Peregrino Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
freeform Posted May 25, 2006 (edited) . Edited December 18, 2019 by freeform Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
