Already fluent in language B?

[beth-]

Basically: I studied German at my middle school and freshman year, now I'm in the pre-IB and have to pick a second language. This school does not offer AB initio nor do they offer German. I've spoken to my coordinator and she says that I have two choices; study AB initio (as in, start studying a new language) during my pre-IB year (for example, Mandarin, or continue with German during the pre-IB), but then I would have to study either Swedish or English at Language B, or I could go straight into sophomore Spanish or French, study my heart out for a year and then go into language B for French or Spanish.

 

I'm a native Swedish speaker and got an A- in Swedish my freshman year. I'm also a native English speaker and got an A+ in English my freshman year. 

 

How hard is language B? Do you think it's possible to study Spanish or do I have to study Swedish/English?

Edited August 22, 2015 by beth-

[idontlosehope]

i speak spanish and im also fluent in english and german. in my opinion, German is way harder than spanish. and i've been told this from a lot of german people. My school does exchange programs and they are always around, they learn easily, i think if you put a little effort in it, it'd be easy.

[Emmi]

If you're fluent in a language then you shouldn't be taking it at B level. B languages are meant for people LEARNING a language, not for people already fluent in a language or trying to get a free 7. When you do this, you make it unfair for the people who aren't fluent, making it harder for them to do well and pushing the boundaries up to extremely high levels (I believe it's around an 88% to get a 7 in Spanish because of all the people taking it already fluent in the language). However, if your school doesn't care, then if you don't want to learn a new language then you can just go take a language you're fluent in since there's nothing the IBO can really do about it if your school lets you take it.

 

My school let three students from Spain who lived there until they were 15 take Spanish B and a girl from France take French B for their language. How is that fair to everyone else who isn't fluent?

 

I took both German and Spanish classes in high school (Spanish for IB, German for fun) and Spanish is easier than German in my opinion as a native English speaker.

Edited August 22, 2015 by Emmi

[beth-]

If you're fluent in a language then you shouldn't be taking it at B level. B languages are meant for people LEARNING a language, not for people already fluent in a language or trying to get a free 7. When you do this, you make it unfair for the people who aren't fluent, making it harder for them to do well and pushing the boundaries up to extremely high levels (I believe it's around an 88% to get a 7 in Spanish because of all the people taking it already fluent in the language). However, if your school doesn't care, then if you don't want to learn a new language then you can just go take a language you're fluent in since there's nothing the IBO can really do about it if your school lets you take it.

 

My school let three students from Spain who lived there until they were 15 take Spanish B and a girl from France take French B for their language. How is that fair to everyone else who isn't fluent?

 

I took both German and Spanish classes in high school (Spanish for IB, German for fun) and Spanish is easier than German in my opinion as a native English speaker.

 

It's not fair for me either as a person who doesn't know how to say "My name is Elizabeth" to go and compete with people who've been studying Spanish for 3-4 years. My friend is half Colombian and speaks Spanish with a level of fluency that other A*-students have a hard time following the conversation that she's having with her teacher. 

And how could I be pushing the boundaries up to extremely high levels when the papers are externally graded? It's not like I'm inflating the grade boundaries or anything. 

 

Thank you for your advice, though, I'm leaning a bit more to Spanish B.

[Emmi]

And how could I be pushing the boundaries up to extremely high levels when the papers are externally graded? It's not like I'm inflating the grade boundaries or anything. 

 

Thank you for your advice, though, I'm leaning a bit more to Spanish B.

 

I apologize if my response seemed very harsh, looking back on it, it sort of was.

 

Let's pretend you're fluent in.....French. You decide to take French B because you want an easy subject. The class is very easy for you since it's just a language acquisition course, so you already know the vocabulary and grammar and how to speak the language properly (since they look for things such as competency, tone, etc in the speaking portions of the course). When you go to the exam it's very easy for you as well.

 

Some people think "well it's just me, I can't impact a course by myself." That's true. In the grand scheme of things, your score doesn't influence the boundaries at all. However, what if 2000 people around the world do this? If there were 10000 people taking the exam that session, with 20% of them fluent enough to score a 7 easily, that throws off the boundaries. Exams are marked like this:

 

Everyone takes the exam and the exams are marked by graders around the world. After all of the exams are marked, the IBO looks at the distribution of grades and sets the grade boundaries from that distribution. If everyone does well, the grade boundaries go up slightly. If everyone does poorly, the grade boundaries are lowered to make it a little more fair (in order to compensate for things like a tough or poorly-worded question). But since 20% of the people taking the exam were fluent, then those 20% of people, in addition to the non-fluent speakers taking the course who put in a lot of time to do well enough that they scored well, are going to have very high marks on the exam. The IBO isn't going to award a 6 or 7 to 27% of the candidates for an exam where 10000 people took it. So they raise the boundary to make that percentage smaller. Now you essentially have to do extremely well in order to get a high mark, which can be difficult if you're a non-native speaker competing for the same mark as someone who is already fluent in the language and can score that mark easily.

 

That's why it's unfair for fluent people take the course.

Edited August 22, 2015 by Emmi

[ebu]

Hi

 

Reading this post, I feel kind of guilty. I'm currently taking English B HL despite my fluent english so my advice might be helpful. Firstly, it would all depend on how important language is for you. Do you enjoy learning new language? Would learning an extra language be a big advantage in your future? If not, you should think whether 'studying your heart out' for a language would be worth it.

 

Another choice might be self-teaching yourself a language. You could just develop your German skills further on your own and maybe take the SL exam. I guess the choice is up to you.

 

By the way, I personally found English B difficult. As difficult as my Korean A course, mainly because the grade boundary is so high meaning that each mark I carelessly lose can seriously harm my grades. Also, there's a certain style that ib examiners want for the english b exam and its so hard to fit into that.

[azara]

I'm studying German B as someone who has been learning German as a second language for 4 years, so I'm at the standard that examiners should expect.  However, the grade boundaries for German, and any other language B, are so high not because languages are easy but because a lot of people who are bilingual do their second language as language B and push up the grade boundaries.  Like Emmi said, that means that those of us who are legitimately studying it as a second language find it far more difficult to get high grades, because fluent speakers mean the standard required for a 7 is incredibly high.  I beg you, please don't contribute to that problem! It makes it really tough for the rest of us.  I would pick an ab initio language instead.