Snippets:
< Andy supports the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF), whereby the aim is mutual comprehensibility in intercultural communication rather than adherence to native speaker norms. To do this effectively, he says, English must be delayed until children have fluency and literacy in their local and national tongues. - Andy Kirkpatrick, Griffith University professor and expert in English and its use in Asia.
< “There’s a kind of myth that you need to be a youngster to learn a language. That is simply not the case. Adults are very good language learners. Age is not necessarily relevant.”
- Andy Kirkpatrick, Griffith University professor and expert in English and its use in Asia.
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< Andy supports the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF), whereby the aim is mutual comprehensibility in intercultural communication rather than adherence to native speaker norms. To do this effectively, he says, English must be delayed until children have fluency and literacy in their local and national tongues. - Andy Kirkpatrick, Griffith University professor and expert in English and its use in Asia.
< “There’s a kind of myth that you need to be a youngster to learn a language. That is simply not the case. Adults are very good language learners. Age is not necessarily relevant.”
- Andy Kirkpatrick, Griffith University professor and expert in English and its use in Asia.
< “There’s a kind of discourse of despair. If you travel around Asia, you will hear people say time and again, ‘You’re teaching English to these children for 10 years and they still can’t construct a single sentence in English,” he says. “The reality is children are not learning English.”
The situation is particularly stark in rural schools, which are resource-challenged and where teachers often don’t have a firm grasp of the language.
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