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发表于 2006-5-29 11:34:30
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TOPIC: ARGUMENT221 - The following appeared in the editorial section of a student newspaper.
"In a recent survey, most students who were studying beginning Russian gave higher course-evaluation ratings to classes taught by non-native Russian speakers than to classes taught by native Russian speakers. The reason that the non-native speakers were better teachers of Russian is easy to see: the non-native speakers learned Russian later in life themselves, and so they have a better understanding of how the language can be taught effectively. Therefore, in order to improve instruction for all languages and also save money, our university should hire non-native speakers as language instructors instead of trying to find and recruit native speakers."
WORDS: 528 TIME: 4:00:00 DATE: 2006-5-28
In this argument, the arguer recommend that our university should engage non-native speakers as language instructors instead of employ native speakers for improving instruction for all languages and saving money. To support this conclusion the arguer cites the result of a resent survey that non-native Russian speakers teach someone who are studying beginning Russian more effective than native Russian speakers. In addition, the arguer assumes that non-native speakers have a better understanding about teaching effectively. As it stands, the argument suffers from several critical flaws as follows.
To begin with, Samples for the survey should be statistically reliable. Unfortunately, from the survey we little sign for such procedures for sampling, thus doubting whether the respondents constitute a sufficiently large sample so as to be representative of the overall population of students .For example, the number of students who are studying beginning Russian may be 50000 in our city, only 500 students of them are surveyed. Even if they all prefer non-native speakers as their language teachers to native Russian speakers, they are one percent of all of students.
Furthermore, the arguer attempts to establish a causal relationship between the fact that non-native speakers learned Russian later than natives ones and the claim that they have a better comprehension about Russian teaching. This argument, nonetheless, is based on an oversimplified analysis of the cause of non-native speakers' superiority. Actually, it is equally possible that non-native speakers' process of studying Russian resemble their students'. Unlike native speakers who study spontaneously Russian as babies , non-native speakers study second language using a ,long-term, systematic method and overcome many difficulties. When their students are studying beginning Russian, non-natives may instruct their students some tricks in learning a foreign language summarized by themselves. When the students feel depressed, they solace and encourage students with their own emotions similar to the students' during their studying processes. Undoubtedly, such teachers are more easily accepted by their students than native speakers. Without ruling out such alternative explanation the arguer can not convince me that non-native speakers learned Russian later in life themselves results in their teaching become more effective than native speakers'.
In addition, the arguer assumes that hiring non-native speakers as language instructors may economize. It is not completely accepted. For instance ,native speakers come from countries of the Third World. They could be employed by not paying good salaries. However, non-native speakers who are from America demand more.
Last but not least, the arguer assumes without justification that there are many distinctions between Russian and others. Russian is a relatively uncomplicated language. And it is popular. So you can find lots of non-naive speakers about it easily. On the contrary, studying kinds of rare languages such as Arabic is harder. Except for man come from there, finding and hiring a non-native speaker is difficult, even if providing him munificent remuneration.
To sum up, the conclusion lacks credibility because the evidence cited in the analysis does not lend strong support to the arguer's claim. To make the argument more convicing, the arguer would have to provide more specific evidence concerning that non-native speakers have advantage of teaching and showing the resemblance between Russian and others. |
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