Re: CHAT: A slightly less forbidden experiment?

Barry Garcia wrote:
>
> grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com writes:
> >        Turkish kids can have Turkish lessons in a Dutch school? Wow! I
> >think
> >I'll never see such a thing in France for the Arabic kids before a long
> >time! (anyway, it's against the language policy of France, which is:
> >French and only French).
>
> They dont teach foreign language classes in France? (If I understood what
> you are saying). Here locally, there is a cultural school for Korean kids
> where they can keep up their language, and they learn cultural stuff, as
> well as learn to write in Hangul. There is also  the International School
> (elementary level) where kids learn about different cultures. They even
> have language classes for 3 year olds there too.
        Of course there is foreign language teaching in France, but it
generally begins at 12 (junior high school) and it is what it is:
foreign language teaching. Only the very widespread languages are
available (generally only English) and most of all kids are really
discouraged from learning their native language or the native language
of their parents. Arabic is hardly available in any school and most of
all it is never available as first foreign language. There are a few
foreign schools in France but not many, and I don't know of any
International School. French is the language of the Republic, so it is
the language of teaching and speaking. Other languages can be learned,
but as foreign languages only (which means: two or three hours of
teaching a week at most). Of course, it can change when you arrive at
University, and in some places even in high school, but it's very rare.
And finally, only one foreign language class is mandatory in France
(generally English but German and Spanish are sometimes available as
first foreign languages), the others are optional, and many education
courses do without teaching foreign languages at all (most of the
technical courses don't have any class of foreign language, even
English).

        And after that people in France complain about the low level of knowing
of foreign languages among the French people...

--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
        Prof. Holstlaan 4
        5656 AA Eindhoven
        The Netherlands

        Phone:  +31-40-27-45006
        E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com