David Curtis

Like every English-speaking nation, Australia under-performs because of a national assumption that there is no need to learn a second language. "Talking to the Whole Wide World" overcomes the obstacle of staffing a primary school with linguistically-trained teachers. Every class teacher, with the aid of the book, can become a language teacher, fitting the foreign language into any situation that develops during the school day. Primary-school teachers are already trained to be resourceful and use their own initiative, and this book gives them full rein. That the language concerned is Esperanto is the key to the process, for it has been designed and track-tested to avoid the usual pitfalls of national languages - their irregularities. What's more, as it is based largely upon Latin, and other European languages, while having an affinity (in its vocabulary-building) with Chinese, Esperanto makes for an excellent introduction to the language-learning that takes place in the secondary school. Teachers there should welcome it, for experience of learning Esperanto and talking to the whole wide world gives primary-school children such an appetite for language-learning that they are more than ready to lap up whatever is on offer when they transfer.
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