A Firm Foundation for Asia Literacy (Click here for a special offer!)
Asia literacy is an important priority, but also something much more easily said than done.
With 52 incredibly diverse countries, Asia literacy is no simpler a thing than Europe Literacy would be for an Asian child. (Compare the religious diversity of Asia and Europe, for example!)
Imagine that a Chinese child was learning a small fraction of Italian as "Europe Literacy". Would that be enough? Do you think it would be good preparation for understanding Swedish language and culture?
We are doing something similar if we imagine that Japanese LOTE ticks our Asia Literacy box.
There is a better way: Imagine you really wanted your junior primary students to be able to climb Mt Fuji one day.
Would you buy air tickets to Japan straight away? or start training them on a local hill: to enjoy the achievement, build their muscles, see the view, think of themselves as mountaineers... so that they can climb Fuji and.or the Matterhorn and/or Everest when they are old enough?
School language learning can benefit from a similar kind of preparatory training:
Esperanto, as the world’s easiest living language, is an ideal linguistic “hill”. It is learner-friendly enough to master completely in primary school, and provides the best preparation for learning other languages because it has the least non-transferable idiosyncrasies.
The consistency of Esperanto means that class teachers can provide all the guidance needed, integrating LOTE into classroom life and providing reliable continuity.
Esperanto also provides intercultural access to peers in dozens of Asian and other countries- a great start for life in the global community!
(See some of them here!)
With 52 incredibly diverse countries, Asia literacy is no simpler a thing than Europe Literacy would be for an Asian child. (Compare the religious diversity of Asia and Europe, for example!)
Imagine that a Chinese child was learning a small fraction of Italian as "Europe Literacy". Would that be enough? Do you think it would be good preparation for understanding Swedish language and culture?
We are doing something similar if we imagine that Japanese LOTE ticks our Asia Literacy box.
There is a better way: Imagine you really wanted your junior primary students to be able to climb Mt Fuji one day.
Would you buy air tickets to Japan straight away? or start training them on a local hill: to enjoy the achievement, build their muscles, see the view, think of themselves as mountaineers... so that they can climb Fuji and.or the Matterhorn and/or Everest when they are old enough?
School language learning can benefit from a similar kind of preparatory training:
Esperanto, as the world’s easiest living language, is an ideal linguistic “hill”. It is learner-friendly enough to master completely in primary school, and provides the best preparation for learning other languages because it has the least non-transferable idiosyncrasies.
The consistency of Esperanto means that class teachers can provide all the guidance needed, integrating LOTE into classroom life and providing reliable continuity.
Esperanto also provides intercultural access to peers in dozens of Asian and other countries- a great start for life in the global community!
(See some of them here!)
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