36. This newsletter article claims that Professor Taylor's foreign-language program at
Jones University is a model of foreign language instruction. This conclusion is based on
a study in which foreign language tests were given to students at 25 other universities.
The study shows that first-year language students at Jones speak more fluently after just
10 to 20 weeks in the program than do 90 percent of foreign-language majors at other
colleges at graduation. Despite these impressive statistics, I am unconvinced by this
argument for two reasons.
To begin with, the assumption here is that students from Professor Taylor's
program have learned more than foreign language students at other universities.
However, we are not given enough information about the study to be sure that this
comparison is reliable. For example, the article does not tell us whether the foreign
language students at Jones were given the tests; it only reports that the tests in question
were "given to students at 25 other colleges." If Jones students were not tested, then no
basis exists for comparing them to students at the other universities. In addition, the
article does not indicate whether students at all the universities, including Jones, were
given the same tests. If not, then again no basis exists for the comparison.
Furthermore, we cannot tell from this article whether the universities in the study,
or their students, are comparable in other ways. For instance, Jones might be a
prestigious university that draws its students from the top echelon of high school
graduates, while the other universities are lower-ranked schools with more lenient
admission requirements. In this event, the study wouldn't tell us much about Professor
Taylor's program, for the proficiency of his students might be a function of their
superior talent and intelligence.
In conclusion, the statistics cited in the article offer little support for the claim
about Taylor's program. To strengthen the argument, the author must show that the
universities in the study, including Jones, were comparable in other ways, that their
foreign language students were tested identically, and that Taylor's program was the
only important difference between students tested at Jones and those tested at the other
universities.
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