Thursday, May 3, 2007

Outlining

Why the great United States of America are lame?
Whatever happened to educated American High School students?
Sprechen Sie eine Sprache?
Do you speak another language?
What have multilingual and American in common? - Nothing?
Another language than English?
How competitive are American High school students w/o learning another language?
Languages way too late?
Why?
How come that Americans are known for their stupidity? - Would learning another language and being interested in other cultures help?

Intro:
a,attention getting device


"If you speak two languages, then you are bilingual. Speak one? You must be American." Almost everybody knows this joke. But what is true about this joke?

b,preview of main points

*history( 1940's, 1970's, analysis, world languages, world power)
* present ( what happened to predictions?)
*future ( How necessary are the for the future?)

c, transition to thesis statement/main question or point of the paper

Thesis: American high school students are way behind in comparison to students from different countries..



Body:

I, History, Present, Future TIMELINE

- topic sentence about one side of the issue

+ PAST

* 1940, 90% = French, Spanish, Latin

* What kind of a problem does it create for Americans that @ the end of the century this still remains/

+ PRESENT

* The 2000 issue (maybe the last as a solution for the problem with Latin)

* China

*touch base on europe to mention how serious those issues are

- research and quotations from sources to prove the topic sentence is correct

+ Main points from "Lost in America" (past and present)

+Future: "Campaign urges America to learn foreign languages"

Transition sentence to the next paragraph:

Talk a little bit about the issues, while explaining in the first paragraph what is goiing on in america and what the main issues are. because then you can write something like one of the main issues bla bla bla is That American High Schoolers learn languages way too late. Ta-ram-ta-ram!


II, Starting to learn another language at the age of High School is way too late!

- topic sentence about one side of the issue

Show don't tell that Americans learn a language way too late; gibe facts; what is going on around the world.

* The average American teenager learns his/her first language at the age of 15. so when they go to high school.

* scientists mention that children can learn languages @ a very early age

- research and quotations from sources to prove the topic sentence is correct

* "Bringing up Baby Bilingual"

Transition sentence to next paragraph because it is talking about Europe. Maybe something like: By the time American High school students start to learn their first second language, the average student in Austria learns his/her third or forth second language.

III, Europe the role model?! (norway, sweden, austria, germany...?)

When do they start to learn the languages? Why is it so important to them to learn another language? English as language of opportunity?

- topic sentence about the other side of the issue

*By the time the average American High Schooler learns his/her first second language an european 2/3

- research and quotations from sources to prove the topic sentence is correct


IV, Positvie side aobut - What could people argue about me?

- topic sentence about the other side of the issue

Is the problem really that serious

how about the fact how much money was spent on education

- research and quotations from sources to prove the topic sentence is correct


V, Solutions

- topic sentence stating your position on the issue

* change in school system

* language villages?

- reasons and research that say why you chose this standpoint



Conclusion:

a,

Re-state thesis

b,

Review main Points

c,

Use an attention-getting device to send the reader off in a thought-provoking manner

Facts that are good but so far don't fit anywhere right now:

* it seems that english is the world language: arrogance

*American school system right now doesn't really give the student any room to learn more languages.