Re: American Jingoism

On Sat, 16 Feb 2002, jogloran wrote:

> <<
>
> Count yourselves lucky!  In the US you rarely start a
> foreign language until you're 14 to 16.  Attempts to
> start younger are usually bilingual efforts in heavily
> Spanish-speaking areas, where it is highly
> controversial, because, *of course*, everybody should
> learn English. :P
>
> >>
>
> Wow, that's strange... most schools here in Australia have compulsory
> language learning in primary school (which is Kindergarten to 6th
> grade here), and at my high school, you are made to do 1 term each of
> French, German, Japanese and Latin in Year 7, then in Year 8 you get
> to choose one of them. Year 9 onwards, it's on an elective basis (you
> can if you want).
>
> At my primary school we got taught French, and I'm taking Japanese at
> school now.
>
Unfortunate, but true.  I'm sending my children, both in primary school,
to a private tutor to learn Spanish.

--
  Steve Kramer           ||           scooter (at) buser dot net          ||
  _____________________  ===================================================
 |  __/^\__        ,-^,|
 |/~       \_     {  / |        "The problem with the world is that
             \/\   |!  |         everyone is a few drinks behind."
               /  / )  |___
              (_  \ \     /              Humphrey Bogart
                ~v^  ?_,-'