(1) "Lingvistikaj aspektoj de Esperanto", Dr John C. Wells; professor of English language phonetics at University College London.
(2) Edward Thorndike, a famous American teacher and educationalist.
(3) "Fortoj de l'vivo", Vilho Setälä, a Finnish linguist.
(4) Dr Helmar Frank, director of the Institute of Cybernetics in Paderborn, Germany.
* 21120 different meanings for the 850 words of the basic vocabulary.
** Frequency of dictionary consultation: one unknown word in a hundred.
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We pay € 17 THOUSAND MILLION annually into the British economy!
Esteemed parliamentarian!
In October 2005 a particularly interesting report was published, accessible in French at http://cisad.adc.education.fr/hcee/documents/rapport_Grin.pdf, by Prof. François Grin of Switzerland.
The most startling conclusion of the report is that due to the current international leading position of the English language, the United Kingdom gains € 17-18 thousand million, which is more than tree times the famous British rabate, or 1% of its GNP. In other words, each of 394 million non-anglophones of the EU, among them the citizens of the poorest new member states, are subsidising the British economy!
This amount is received from the sale of books and other goods linked to the English language, from the 700 000 people who visit Britain annually to learn English, as well as from the savings derived of economic transfers to the United Kingdom for language reasons but for 75 % of them, which the author believes is the fruit of the hegemony of English and not only of the demographic weight of the language itself.
The professor of the University of Geneva and specialist in language economy François Grin has released an extensive file in which he analyses the language policy of the European Union. The study was requested and published by the High Council on Evaluation of the School System - in French: Haut Conseil de l'évaluation de l'école - a public, independent, French organization which evaluates and analyses the state of teaching in France.
The report poses the question: what would be the optimal choices for working languages in the European Union?
A more just system would save the EU at least € 25 thousand million annually!
The Swiss economist proposes a comparison among three possible scenarios:
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English as the exclusive language;
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multilingualism;
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Esperanto as an internal working language the EU organs.
The third possibility, Esperanto, appears to be the least expensive and most equitable, but Grin believes it is not currently viable due to strong prejudices against Esperanto based on simple ignorance. He believes, however, that it is strategically possible for a new generation, with two conditions:
- A large-scale and continuous information campaign throughout the EU about language inequality and Esperanto.
- Cooperation of all member states in the campaign.
This could lead to a net annual saving of approximately € 25 thousand million for the EU! “85 % of the population of the 25 sates have in this a direct and evident interest”, prof. Grin claims.
(This report about millions of Euros describes only true about English language in European Union. Not only England is earning big sum of money. The same other “English” countries where English is spoken from birth are receiving their big share in giving possibility to learn the language by foreigners.) (Added comment by MondEtur)
Sincerely,
Margareta Handzlik, EU parliamentarian
Prof. Renato Corsetti, World Esperanto Association (UEA)
D-ro Seán Ó Riain, European Esperanto Union (EEU)
PS: Esperanto to help learn other languages:
www.springboard2languages.org
Brussel/Bruxelles, 22 05 2006
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Springboard a unique introduction to foreign languages
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Visit related pages
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Welcome
Springboard... to languages is a flexible, one- to four-year programme which offers a unique introduction to foreign languages through the simple, regular, international language Esperanto. It's an ideal preparation for learning other languages and helps transition to KS3; it lends itself to cross-curricular activities and to KS2 Literacy and Numeracy work, and is particularly suitable for the non-specialist teacher of foreign languages in primary schools.
Request an information pack or get in touch with us.
Springboard: a unique introduction to foreign languages
Springboard is a unique introduction to foreign languages for all pupils at Key Stage 2.
By using the international language Esperanto as a springboard, the project aims to:
- increase a pupil's awareness of language structure generally:
For example: all nouns end in o, all adverbs end in e, all infinitives end in i,
and other grammatical forms are marked by similarly clear endings.
Estas bone iri al la urbo piede .
It's good to go to town on foot.
- highlight the links between languages:
Topic five - the body: piedo (foot).
French has pied ; Italian has piede ; Spanish has pie ; English has pedestrian .
- stimulate a love of, and interest in, language-learning through creative manipulation
of the language:
Maljunulo = an old person (noun)
the prefix mal means 'opposite';
the word-root jun means 'young';
the suffix ul means 'a person'.
- encourage a positive self-image in each pupil as a successful language learner:
"I can do this!"
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Why Esperanto? Many schools used to teach children the recorder, not to produce a nation of recorder players, but as a preparation for learning other instruments.
Springboard uses Esperanto, not to produce a nation of Esperanto-speakers, but as a preparation for learning other languages.
The strategy and benefits of this approach are summarised on the page Springboard and the National Languages Strategy. |
International contacts - different cultures and lifestyles
Esperanto is used in some 90 countries around the world and is perfect for learning about other cultures and lifestyles.
Esperanto is uniquely placed in the world of languages, having speakers and contacts around the globe. The links can provide contacts with classes and schools from many different countries.
Because Esperanto is easier to learn than national languages, students can start to use it sooner for real dialogue and correspondence.
And - because Esperanto doesn't belong to any one nation or country - the speakers on each side of the dialogue will see each other as equals.
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Pilot Schools - a new approach
All Pilot Schools will be provided with free teaching packs. An introductory pack includes:
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Twilight and weekend INSET training, classroom teaching and support will be available from a qualified teacher and competent Esperanto-speaker.
    
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It's been done before! - previous experiments
It's been done before! Esperanto has been successfully used as a springboard to other languages for more than 80 years.
"Numerous studies since the 1920s have confirmed that learning Esperanto improves the motivation of learners (because of their relatively rapid progress in the language) and improves subsequent learning of other languages. The first documented experiment was in England - Bishop Auckland, 1918-21; later studies, each concentrating on different aspects of the question, but coming to broadly similar conclusions, have been conducted in New Zealand (1924), New York (1931), Manchester (1948-'65), Sheffield (1951), Finland (1963), Hungary (1970), Germany (1980), 5 European countries (1990), Italy (1993) and Australia (2000). The 1931 work was by a team led by the eminent educational psychologist, Edward Thorndike of Columbia University. The plain facts are that young people enjoy learning Esperanto; they learn it up to 5 times more quickly than other languages and the skills learned are readily transferable."
David Kelso - a former HM Chief Inspector of Schools,
Trustee and Director for Education of Esperanto-UK
You can download a short paper summarising these studies, and read the
report of a previous study in Australia .
Teaching Guidelines - introducing Springboard
Detailed Teaching Guidelines are now being prepared. These will include suggestions on using and implementing Springboard and on raising language awareness. More documents will be added to the list below as they become available.
Posters
Here are several posters about Springboard2Languages. They are available in A1 size. Please get in touch if you would be interested in having one in your classroom.
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WHERE IS MYTH? WHERE REALITY?
They told me, when I was a kid: "Don't be afraid to ask your way. Use your tongue and you'll go to the ends of the world." But just a few miles away people spoke another language. To ask them anything was maddeningly useless.
They told me: "To discuss with foreigners, learn languages at school." But 90% of the adults can't properly express themselves in the foreign language which they chose as students.
They told me: "With English you can get along anywhere in the world." But in a Spanish village I saw an accident in which a French and a Swedish car were involved. Neither with one another nor with the police could the drivers communicate. In a small town in Thailand I saw an agonized tourist trying to describe his symptoms to a local doctor. He strained himself in vain. I have worked for the United Nations and the World Health Organization on all inhabited continents, and on a few islands, and I found out in the Congo, in Poland, in Japan and in many other places that English is of no use outside of major hotels, big stores, business circles and airports.
They told me: "Thanks to translations even the most remote cultures are now accessible to all." But when I compared translations with originals, I saw so many distortions, so many omissions, so little respect for the author's style that I was forced to approve the Italian saying Traduttore, traditore: ‘to translate is to betray'.
They told me that the West helps the Third World with due respect for the local cultures. But I saw that it has no regard for language dignity, it imposes its languages from the very start, taking for granted that they afford the best means of communication. I saw that the cultural pressures linked to English or French change the mentalities and exert their destructive effects on age-old cultures whose positive values are remorselessly ignored. And I saw the countless problems encountered in the training of local people, because Western technicians don't know the local tongues and in these languages textbooks do not exist.
They told me: "Education for all will guarantee equality of opportunity for the children of all classes." And I saw rich families in the developing world send their young to Britain and USA in order to master English, while the masses, imprisoned in their own languages, subjected to all sorts of propaganda, only have a bleak future, maintained as they are by language in an inferior position.
They told me: "Esperanto has failed miserably." Yet in a mountain village of Europe, I saw farmers' children chatting with Japanese visitors after only a six month Esperanto course.
They told me: "Esperanto lacks human value." I learned the language, I read its poetry, I listened to its songs. In that language I received confidences of Brazilians, Chinese, Iranians, Poles and a young fellow from Uzbekistan. And here I am – a former professional translator - owing it to honesty to say that those conversations were the most spontaneous and profound I ever had in a foreign language.
They told me: "Esperanto is worthless, because it has no culture." Yet when I met speakers of Esperanto in Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, most were more cultured than their fellows of the same socio-economic level. And when I attended international debates in that language, the intellectual level really impressed me.
I tried to explain all this around me. I said: "Come! Look! Here's something extraordinary! A language which solves the communication problem between the peoples of the world! I saw a Hungarian and a Korean discussing politics and philosophy in that language only two years after starting to learn it. This is impossible in any other tongue. And I saw this, and that, and also these…"
But they replied: "Esperanto is not serious. And, anyway, it's artificial."
I fail to understand. When a man's or a woman's heart, their feelings, the finest nuances of their thoughts are expressed directly from mouth to ear in a language born of a luxuriance of intercultural communications, they tell me: "It's artificial."
But what do I see as I wander through the world? I see travelers longing to share with local people ideas and experiences, or maybe just recipes, and sadly giving up. I see exchanges by gestures leading to grotesque misunderstandings. I see people thirsting for information prevented by language from reading what they want.
I see masses of people, after six or seven years of learning a language, hacking away at it, unable to find the right word, wearing a laughable accent, missing the point they mean to make. I see language inequality and discrimination thriving throughout the world. I see diplomats and specialists speaking into microphones and hearing through earphones a voice other than that of their partner. Is that "natural communication"? From heart or brain to mouth to ear, that is artificial, of course, but from microphone to earphone through an interpretation booth, this is obviously natural! Has the art of solving problems with intelligence and sensitivity ceased to belong to human nature?
They tell me much, but I see different. So I wander, bewildered, in this society which claims for everyone the right to communicate. And I wonder if they're deceiving me, or if I am just plain crazy.
C. Piron
World Esperanto Organization (UEA)
World Esperanto Youth Organization (TEJO)
Esperanto learning
Informoj pri Esperanto en diversaj lingvoj
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