Re: [langue-fr] L'anglais est-il une langue universelle ?

From: Michael Everson (everson@egt.ie)
Date: Sun Dec 31 2000 - 08:07:15 EST


Ar 07:48 -0800 2000-12-30, scríobh Patrick Andries:

>> School curricula are quite crowded
>> already. Every extra language you add is less time for math or
>> history or science or the native language. And where do you find the
>> teachers for all these extra languages?
>
>I would like to see any statistics tending to prove that pupils learning
>more languages have worse results in maths or science than the unilingual
>ones (let's say a comparison between HK pupils and the US ones ;-)).

There won't be. All evidence (and there's lots of it here in Ireland where
we have English-medium and Irish-medium schools) shows that, in general,
children who are bilingual do BETTER in school than monolingual children.

>The Americas being one of the most unilingual place in the World...(if we
>except California ?).

And Arizona. And Florida. And New York (City).

>> Trilingualism and more is I'm afraid just too
>> much to ask of most people who aren't full-time language
>> professionals or naturally gifted with languages.

Actually, all human beings are naturally gifted with languages, so long as
they are introduced to those languages young enough. Like well before 10.

Michael Everson ** Everson Gunn Teoranta ** http://www.egt.ie
15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland
Mob +353 86 807 9169 ** Fax +353 1 478 2597 ** Vox +353 1 478 2597
27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn; Baile an Bhóthair; Co. Átha Cliath; Éire



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