Penelope Vos 6 September, 2010 (response to story about the
There is a better way. The limited resource of language specialist teachers should be concentrated in secondary schools and all primary teachers equipped to give children mastery of their first foreign language. This easy "apprenticeship language" gives children confidence, language learning skills and non-English-speaking peers from a variety of cultures. This convinces them that there is value in bi- and multi-lingualism and provides intercultural perspective. "Talking to the Whole Wide World" is a teacher's resource kit containing all of the necessary Language teaching methodology and linguistic knowledge necessary to simultaneously learn and teach the learner-friendly intercultural language, Esperanto. English-speakers are famously monolingual because they doubt a) the usefulness of other languages and b) their own capacity to learn, in the time they are willing to invest. Esperanto is 6 times quicker for English speakers to learn than European languages and 22 times quicker than Mandarin or Japanese. It is realistically masterable in as little as 100 hours in the classroom, especially when taught by the generalist teacher because this person models what "normal" people (as opposed to specialists, foreigners and enthusiasts) can and would agree to do. Also because the usual classroom teacher can integrate the learning activities to occur more frequently than once a week which is completely impractical for any language-learning and especially for children. Mastery of Esperanto in primary school has repeatedly been shown to increase both motivation and capacity to learn subsequent languages faster. Primary language programs maintained for several years usually cover about the same amount of learning as is covered in the first 6 months of secondary school. And most programs are less consistent. The secondary language program then starts with a mixture of students who are aggrieved to start at a disadvantage (and wasting whatever start they had made in another language) and those who are aggrieved to be repeating themselves instead of making progress. Far better to let students finish what they start- Esperanto- in primary school and start together in their new "natural" language in secondary. Universities interested in equipping their primary education students to provide this service, or schools interested in implementing the program, are invited to contact the author through the mondeto.com website.
There is a better way. The limited resource of language specialist teachers should be concentrated in secondary schools and all primary teachers equipped to give children mastery of their first foreign language. This easy "apprenticeship language" gives children confidence, language learning skills and non-English-speaking peers from a variety of cultures. This convinces them that there is value in bi- and multi-lingualism and provides intercultural perspective. "Talking to the Whole Wide World" is a teacher's resource kit containing all of the necessary Language teaching methodology and linguistic knowledge necessary to simultaneously learn and teach the learner-friendly intercultural language, Esperanto. English-speakers are famously monolingual because they doubt a) the usefulness of other languages and b) their own capacity to learn, in the time they are willing to invest. Esperanto is 6 times quicker for English speakers to learn than European languages and 22 times quicker than Mandarin or Japanese. It is realistically masterable in as little as 100 hours in the classroom, especially when taught by the generalist teacher because this person models what "normal" people (as opposed to specialists, foreigners and enthusiasts) can and would agree to do. Also because the usual classroom teacher can integrate the learning activities to occur more frequently than once a week which is completely impractical for any language-learning and especially for children. Mastery of Esperanto in primary school has repeatedly been shown to increase both motivation and capacity to learn subsequent languages faster. Primary language programs maintained for several years usually cover about the same amount of learning as is covered in the first 6 months of secondary school. And most programs are less consistent. The secondary language program then starts with a mixture of students who are aggrieved to start at a disadvantage (and wasting whatever start they had made in another language) and those who are aggrieved to be repeating themselves instead of making progress. Far better to let students finish what they start- Esperanto- in primary school and start together in their new "natural" language in secondary. Universities interested in equipping their primary education students to provide this service, or schools interested in implementing the program, are invited to contact the author through the mondeto.com website.
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