The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
Issue link: https://thelinguist.uberflip.com/i/458734
Vol/54 No/1 2015 FEBRUARY/MARCH The Linguist 19 FEATURES The majority of the children enjoyed the lessons and reported that they were looking forward to learning other languages. When we compared an Esperanto class with a French class we found that the Esperanto pupils were much more aware of the importance of learning other languages. Children in Year 4 (aged 8-9) who were nearing the second year of S2L expressed a much greater interest in meeting speakers of other languages than pupils in Year 5 who were learning French, even though the older pupils had travelled abroad more often. It is likely that this was a result of differing curriculum content; the Springboard programme emphasised the links between language and culture, while the French teaching lacked this broader dimension, focusing more on linguistic content. The Esperanto pupils also had regular contact with children in primary schools in Germany and Hungary through videoconferencing. They were motivated to learn by exchanging resources in Esperanto, as well as through trips to each of the partner schools. The Springboard children were asked to demonstrate their understanding of how languages are interrelated or 'borrow from each other', a central feature of language awareness programmes. They were asked, for instance, to identify cognates in different languages; to identify singular and plural forms in different languages; and to translate individual sentences into English from French, German and Spanish. In many cases, they were more confident, and competent, in analysing language in close detail than their peers who were learning French. All of the teachers felt that the programme had made a positive contribution to the curriculum, especially in terms of enhancing pupils' literacy in English. They felt that children's understanding of English phonics had benefited from the phonics lessons in Esperanto, where it is easier to make links between the written and the spoken form. The teachers felt that learning Esperanto had helped pupils to spot patterns in languages and, consequently, to identify language forms such as verbs, adjectives and nouns. This knowledge had then been transferred to English. They observed that the regularity of the language made it more accessible to lower ability learners in particular and boosted all children's confidence in learning a foreign language. A welcome alternative? For the teachers responsible for delivering the programme, Esperanto was a welcome alternative to teaching foreign languages of which they had only rusty knowledge. Having observed an Esperanto specialist teaching in the first year, they were able to teach their classes independently, and clearly benefited from the accessibility of the language. It became clear that the children on the Springboard programme had a different perception of the function of Esperanto. It was seen as a tool for decoding other languages, rather than merely a means of transactional communication. These findings will be encouraging to those who see language awareness programmes as an alternative way forward in primary languages education. However, introducing the programme more widely would take a complete overhaul of parents', schools' and policymakers' perceptions of the purposes of learning a language. 'Learning how to learn', a key element of language awareness and metacognition, could be a welcome addition to the new primary languages curriculum. Esperanto may have a valuable role to play within that. Notes 1 DfES, 2007, 'Languages Review', London, DfES 2 Hawkins, E, 2005, 'Out of this Nettle, Drop-out, We Pluck this Flower, Opportunity: Re-thinking the school foreign language apprenticeship' in Language Learning Journal, 32, 4-17 3 See, e.g, Fettes, M, 1998, 'Esperanto and Language Awareness', OISE, University of Toronto; and S2L's own research at www.springboard2languages.org The Esperanto pupils were much more aware of the importance of learning other languages © SHUTTERSTOCK