Language courses

[RoseRodent]

I'm doing a home study language course at the moment and I've been asked what kind of accommodations I need to be able to do my listening exam. Now, they haven't given me anything to choose from, so that's a bit of a problem! But also they have a "deaf enough" rather than a cultural understanding here. I am interested in learning new languages to read and write, but I don't voluntarily speak to any strangers, I'd wander around Beijing for days rather than stop and ask for directions, if there isn't a price on something I am not going to buy it, I really don't want to have to do the speaking and listening exams.

If I were able to produce an audiogram showing I am completely deaf then they'd let me do something different, I think they let you work from transcripts I'm not entirely sure, but since I can hear some they want me to do the exam the normal way. I've told them I'd only do it with a live speaker as doing it over the phone is a waste of time, but the thing is they keep asking me how well I can hear it compared to other students, well I don't know I hear the way I hear and who knows what other students can hear?

Speaking and listening is not my language of choice in English either, I don't really know why it has to be based on your medical deafness level not your cultural identification. I guess they don't want people just trying to "get out of" doing the speaking and listening exams, but I am at a loss what to say to them about how disadvantaged I think I am cos some students pass the listening and some fail even when they can hear it, so there must be something difficult in there? Or did they just not study? Who knows! In any case I know people with audiograms worse than mine who can cope over the phone so what is the relevance of your paper deafness compared to your ability to comprehend what they are offering - an unknown voice of unknown pitch speaking an unknown script in an unknown context.

Thinking of just pulling out of the exam, I don't need the credits cos I got transfer credit in the end anyway, and I've got what I wanted out of the course, but would be nice to be credited with what I learned.

 

[Beach girl]

Gosh, I sympathize. I had to learn several languages due to my career. Early on in my career I still had good hearing, but it went down after I had to take anti-malaria medication for two years.

The part of the language test that was listening and responding was always more of a challenge than the written understanding part.

Since they are offering accommodations, I'd definitely take them up on it! If you can't hear at all on the phone, then definitely a live speaker is the way to go.

Do your studies include any time listening to a native speaker of the language speak in person? I think you need to have that practice, not just listening to a tape recording or something, in order to have comprehension of not just the sound of the language, but the look of it as well (i.e., lipreading skills).

Good luck with it.

What is the language, if I can be so nosy?

 

[RoseRodent]

We don't get any experience with a live speaker because it's a distance learning course. We have one tutorial (wow!) but the primary aim is to practice speaking to each other, so the native speaker is probably not going to talk that much.

I'm actually learning Mandarin - thought it would be an interesting challenge and also one of the big things everyone comments on with my speech is I have no "tone of voice" and I wondered if learning a tonal language would help with that... the jury is still out on that one!

 

[Beach girl]

Wow, that WOULD be a challenge! Are you enjoying it?

I've studied and/or have some fluency in Latin (from high school), Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Serbo-Croatian. Most of my S.C. has been forgotten, other than a few phrases, but I can still get by in the other three. I want to study Italian, and have made a stab at it from time to time, but have never gotten very far.