Student Satisfaction And Usefulness Of Language Classes In Non-Formal Education

Non-formal education

Non-formal adult education has certain characteristics that influence the teaching and learning process, especially when it comes to foreign languages, like: short term classes – from a few months to a year (they rarely surpass a year); they take place maximum three times a week, two hours at a time; they take place during working hours or after that; they are individual or in small groups. The subject matter that is to be studied is condensed so that it can be taught in a short time, the teaching method can be adapted to individual needs and progress must be seem already after a few months. Mastering a language is split standardly in several aspects: comprehension, grammar, reading and writing and speaking. Out of these some are easier to condense and teach on a short period of time to an adult student based on how they process information. The easiest to learn are passive comprehension and grammar and the hardest is speaking. Speaking needs more time to become fluent and cannot be condensed.

Adult education has often been non-formal through time, as it aimed either to eliminate illiteracy, develop new work skills, learn a craft, and lately learn now technologies or languages. Its foundation has been the idea that people can continue to develop themselves throughout all their life, regardless of their educational starting point.

Paul Freire represents an important voice in adult education through his democratic visions and the literation methods he developed and successfully used in under-privileged areas in South America. He managed to synthetize in a philosophical way the essence of human communication and its highest purpose – to transcend personal limits by connecting to a universal existence.

The normal condition of man consists not only in being present in the world but be a part of it as well. Man must establish relations with the world and through a game of creation and re-creation that begind with the natural world, he must get to a personal report, a cultural work. In his relations with reality, the sence of reality, man creates a specific means, from subject to object, that results in the knowledge expressed through language. (Freire, 1971, p. 108)

He also raised some controversies, in part due to his idealism and belief in the human capacity to develop oneself in harmony with others and the environment. He presents a philosophical view on education and offers it to common people, regardless of their level, as an instrument for knowledge of the world and themselves. The success he had is not without risk, as his message is always open to personal interpretation and ca be used for manipulation. But it proves to be better fitted for today’s society, so individualistic and dynamic, where independent learning becomes more and more important. However, both in communication and in learning, the individual ca be its own enemy.

The present so-called postmodern time is an era of information and communication, facing technological changes unseen before that influence society and human psychology. Sousa Santos (2003) used another type of characterization to understand the history of education, considering the stage that we are at now. Ancient societies were characterized by a continuity between the experience of the represent and the experience of the future. What is happening in the present will continue into the future: the poor will continue to be poor and illiterate. In developed societies education has become hope for the future. The changes that are taking place will lead to a general progress. In a globalized society most of the population has lost hope, the experience of the present is difficult, and expectations are getting worse. Education is often despised as it is seen out of touch with the times. (Frias, 2009, p. 142)

The despise that the author is talking about is not unfounded as in more and more countries the educational system is following an outdated structure, developed in the industrial era, in which the main objective was the training of qualified workers, specialized in a certain profession that was to be exercised throughout their entire lives. The postmodern period, highly technological and always changing does not require the same type of training as the knowledge gained in a particular class become obsolete in a few years. The new educational targets have been redefined as gaining skills and competences that help people to adapt to a dynamic workforce. This doesn’t seem to have worked as it was expected hence the rise in popularity of private classes and the development of adult education, which can be seen as a consequence of the school system’s failure.

Efficient learning

Human memory is of many types: visual, auditive, kinetic, etc. In the case of language learning the predominant types are visual and auditive and information is stored both morphologically and phonetically. In order to have an efficient learning we must understand more profoundly what is learned phonetically and what morphologically.

The teacher should be capacle of offering the grammatical forms that are similar to the native language, and not let the student just have a guess. We are often surprised when an element from a foreign language is similar to what we have in our native one. Fisiak, Oxford, 1981 p. 3

This changes the way certain linguistic elements are taught. Even though languages are not the same, they all have these two basic aspects. Teaching grammar can especially benefit from learning through morphems and morphemic patterns, that can offer formulas for coding and decoding information, with a minimal use of memory.

To better show the importance of this fact I quote the study On the Mental Representation of Arabic Roots published in Linguistic Inquiry by Idrissi et al. (2008). This study was based on Arabic, where the morphemic structure is crucial and sructures grammar.

In Semitic languages words can be reduced to their root that is formed of three or four letters, mostly conconants. Vocalisation is made by the speaker and in writing some vowels ca be left out. This means that a great variety of prononciations has aexisted over time and continues to exist and phonetic changes are made easily. It also means that the processing ans storage of the vocabulary is made by the human mind differntly to the phonetic languages. By extension, the research done on these languages can be extended to other non-semitic ones.

In Prunet, Béland, and Idrissi 2000, we presented evidence from an aphasic subject that argued for the morphemic status of Arabic consonantal roots. We predicted that inaudible glides in weak roots should resurface in metathesis and template selection errors, but at the time the relevant data were unattested. Here, we present such data, obtained from a new series of experiments with the same aphasic subject. Arabic hypocoristic formation offers another case of glide resurfacing. Both sources of data confirm that Arabic consonantal roots are abstract morphemic units rather than surface phonetic units. (Idrissi et al., 2008, p. 221)

So, if in Arabic consonantic roots are processed by the human mind as abstract morphemic units and not as superficial phonetic units then the human brain has the capacity to learn certain linguistic particularities as pure abstractions, that it manipulates to create meaning. The fact that this can be directly linked to the roots of the word in Arabic shows that these are the abstract concepts that cognitive linguistics talks about and are thus very practical in teaching.

They can be used to create language families and links between languages for the learners that helps them better understand and remember new information. An approach based on morphemes could be extremely useful when it comes to teaching and learning vocabulary and some grammar features. Through them a teacher can establish grammatical parallels and equivalences between related and non-related languages, making for an intuitive learning experience. Non-formal education is all about fast, effective learning, which actually follows very modern trends in what education in general should be and how it should take place. When it comes to learning languages, nothing beats the ability of children to pick up on whatever they hear around them, but adults can be helped by their teachers to undergo a similar process.

The point of education is to accelerate the acquisition process, not be satisfied with or try to emulate what learners can do on their own. Therefore, what works in untutored language acquisition should not automatically translate into prescriptions and proscriptions for pedagogical practice for all learners. (Bielak & Pawlak, 2013, p. 78)

Through supported learning, formal or non-formal, adults can be helped to acquire the necessary knowledge and abilities to further continue their studies on their own. They tend to be individualistic learners anyway, so they benefit from studying in a small group or one on one setting, where most or all of the teacher’s attention is given to their specific needs and styles. However, outside of such frames, they seldom find the discipline, motivation, and disposition to pursue the study of a new language.

The prointervention positions view pedagogical intervention as having a facilitative function with respect to the acquisition of language and its grammar, or even see it as indispensable. Specifically, they represent the view that although formal instruction may in most cases not be necessary to ensure that learners acquire foreign language grammar, such instruction is able to speed up and generally enhance the process so that higher levels of proficiency are achieved. (Bielak & Pawlak, 2013, p. 100)

When using teaching methods developed around achieving a more efficient learning, the teacher’s input is very important as these are presented and applied through and by him. It is the teacher that can offer a morpheme-based learning system, if the student is not a linguist or philologist himself, which he or she usually isn’t, and it comes to the teacher to present new structure of grammar in an easy and intuitive way. Workbooks can only do so much in this case as a deeper understanding often require a human mediator. The focus of this article was thus on the teacher’s performance and appreciation by their students, along with the books, time, place and structure.

The Romanian natives

Language classes are requested by native Romanians who wish to learn a new language or improve one they have studied before, often at the demand of their employers, who also sponsor them. The major demands are for English – although it is the most studied language in schools, German – in the region of Transylvania and Bucharest, French – on the rise after Brexit, Spanish, Italian and very rarely Russian. Although some of these languages are studied in schools it appears that students don’t graduate with a level that is advanced enough to serve their professional needs and seek private lessons as adults. The research wishes to see what are the main social groups that these people belong to, from an educational and professional perspective in order to better understand their needs, the faults in their formal education and the role of non-formal education in their career advancement.

Other nationals

The demand for Romanian classes has increased in recent years as foreign companies that open headquarters in Romania are willing to relocate highly skilled people to Romania for a time. This has led to a rising demand for Romanian as a foreign language classes but also for secondary languages like German or French. As the companies pay for the training and offer it as a relocation package, often the families of the temporary immigrant benefit from them. The request for other languages beside Romanian comes from them. However, their choice to enrol in private language classes is based on similar needs as the Romanians and follow the same trends. The gap between academic training and workforce requirement seems to exist in other countries as well.

Romanians

The assessment showed that the Romanians who chose to study foreign languages in non-formal education were more women than men, although it depends on the studied language. The main languages demanded were English and German, followed not so closely by French and Spanish. Russian is a rarity. The German need can be explained by the presence of many German companies in Transylvania and Cluj-Napoca, where the study is based, specialized in technical manufacturing or services. Also, more men chose German classes than women and were working in a technical field. As for English, even though it is studied in schools for as much as twelve years, it appears that the level achieved by the students is not advanced enough for the demands of a global job market. This points to deficits in the formal education received at school, which, despite its lengthy duration, does not offer enough to cover for the real necessities of the job market, leaving graduates without proper training. Women are more present in English, French, Spanish and Italian classes, and work in corporate or economical fields. The main age categories are 20 to 30 years, followed by 31 to 45 years, with few students over 45 years old and only one over 55. About 90 % have a university degree, some even a PhD and were employed during the study or had their own business. They work in technical fields, followed by corporate and economical.

A great majority are satisfied with their classes, their teachers, workbooks, the place and time of the lessons. These types of classes take place either at the company where the students work or at the office of the company that offers them. The teachers are freelancers and collaborators and less so employees, who have some pedagogical training or learn from their reaching experiences. Due to the lack of a curriculum or finality of the studies through an exam, there is greater freedom to use whichever method is required and works better and to follow the rhythm of the students rather than impose one. As most people apply for these classes for work related reasons and not for studies of emigration, very few of them are preparing for an international language exam like IELTS or Cambridge (Figure 5 Wanting to study abroad).

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One can also argue that the participants who have studied abroad at one time in their lives had already mastered a foreign language to a satisfactory degree before they went there or had gained more knowledge whilst there and do not need to take up private lessons later in life. Also, the older students that request private lessons, that is, past the age of 50, are usually not Romanian but foreign. It appears that Romanians belonging to older generations are not interested in non-formal education, which is logical as it is a new field in education in Romania or if they do, they just find private tutors who go to their homes.

The very young students, children or minors and the elderly tend to choose more traditional non-formal education settings like private tutoring at home. The young adults and mature adults seem to prefer a more organized setting, within a group or alone but structured into study modules that cover specific language levels so that at the ends they can have some idea as to how well they know the language.

Foreigners

The non-Romanians who chose to study Romanian in a non-formal private setting came from many different national backgrounds, with no country being represented predominantly. However, the gender division is different to that of the natives, with an 80 % to 20 % ration of men to women, namely, a greater part of transitory of permanent immigrants were male. Most of them are between the ages 31-45 followed by 20-31 and have a university degree. Foreigners are better represented in the older age group, that is past 50, as most older students that request non-formal language classes are not Romanian.

Foreigners also seem to be quite satisfied with the teaching, workbook, place, and time of the lessons and intend to take several modules of study. That is because they mostly learn Romanian as a foreign language, and they have never studied it before. Other languages that are requested by this group, albeit very rarely, are French and Russian. Their main reasons for studying Romanian are integration in the community and being able to get by daily. If they intend to settle here then they are interested in reaching a more advanced level and are more dedicated to their studies, which can last for up to 2 years, a rather long time for non-formal education. It is with them that we see the elderly group of people better represented, with ages between 50 and 70 years old. Some of them are retired and choose to study a foreign language out of interest or to break the monotony of their daily lives.

Another group appearing here are expat housemakers, the wives of the men who came to Romania for their careers and who are usually transitory and do not wish to settle. This group chooses Romanian and other languages for fun and socializing, prefer a one-on-one approach and befriend their teachers. They also get private home classes if the teacher agrees to it.

This reflects the custom that the family follows the husband as the traditional income earner wherever his career takes him so relocating is more often because of the husband’s job and not the wife’s, especially if they have children. The men usually have higher positions at work and better salaries.

As the languages that foreigner’s study are not mandatory for their work, they tend to be more demanding and ask for a change of teacher more often if they don’t get along. They don’t intend to learn by themselves as they are very busy if employed and see the lessons as a leisure activity, not to be taken too seriously.