Providing Continuity
In the existing system, the preferred strategy is to start learning a target language as soon as possible and keep doing it as long as possible.
If it works that way, children have a chance of gaining a useful fraction of a language, and insight into the culture or cultures associated with that language.
Usually, the strategy fails several times along the way and students start over in several languages before they quit language learning, still monolingual but with a smattering of intercultural insights.
In the language apprenticeship strategy, one class teacher after the next contributes to the cumulative language acquisition of each child, until they are fluently bilingual in Esperanto and English. On the way, children can use their second language to explore dozens of diverse cultures, providing breadth of perspective along with depth of linguistic competence.
You can see why Esperanto is easy enough for generalists, and meet a sample of Esperanto-speaking children around the world here.
If it works that way, children have a chance of gaining a useful fraction of a language, and insight into the culture or cultures associated with that language.
Usually, the strategy fails several times along the way and students start over in several languages before they quit language learning, still monolingual but with a smattering of intercultural insights.
In the language apprenticeship strategy, one class teacher after the next contributes to the cumulative language acquisition of each child, until they are fluently bilingual in Esperanto and English. On the way, children can use their second language to explore dozens of diverse cultures, providing breadth of perspective along with depth of linguistic competence.
You can see why Esperanto is easy enough for generalists, and meet a sample of Esperanto-speaking children around the world here.
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