Friday 3 October 2008

Speak English!

The Guardian is proud to tell the story of a school in Brighton where the childrend speak 55 languages, so they are using sign language to communicate. Ever hear of Wolod? That's just one of the languages. Tower of Babel.
Why can't they learn to speak English in England? And what will happen in the US - will we speak to each other in sign language and learn Wolod?
Remember what happened to the Tower of Babel.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Do you believe everything the papers say?

God help you.

Mike Pasture said...

No, but this was a verifiable report and is typical of what is occuring.

Genco21 said...

Facts astray as usual.

The point clearly missed too.

This school has children speaking less than half the number of languages listed by Mr Pasture. Depending on your source it is between 22 and 27. Still very high and this is what makes it a news story. The high number is so atypical.

That's not to distract from the problem faced by the headteacher of this school, and I admire their ingenuity, trying to find a solution. I won't comment on the rights, or wrong of what he is doing, as it isn't a moral issue and I am no expert in the fields of teaching or languages.

For the record, I needed several attempts to spell this message correctly, and may still have made many errors. I do hope you'll forgive me.