Hello, this is Clare Martin, and today I’m looking at the language learning. It has been said the British are bad at learning languages, but can this be true? We teach languages to most of our children and every evening school offers classes to adults. What sorts of people study, Why do they study? And what are the problems? To find out more, I went down to the adult education center in Briton. There I spoke to Eve. Eve is from Paris, but he now teaches in England.
C: What sorts of people come to learn languages on these courses?
E: All sorts of people. They youngest are schoolchildren who are doing a level, and my oldest student is 73, and is about to start university and graduate.
C: Why do they come to learn?
E: Very very many reasons, the challenge, because they are board, they want to go on holiday, because they need to use the language, because they want to learn how to teach. Some of then are actual teachers themselves, they come to see how I did it. It’s rather terrible for me, but we’re…
C: What are the most popular languages that people come to learn?
E: In this order, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese.
C: That is quite a range of languages for a small town. And all the classes seem popular, I spoke to Magerete, a student in Eve’s class. I try to find out a bit more. Have you been here for long?
M: 4 years. I didn’t take French at school, but I decided 4 years ago start it.
C: Why did you choose French, I am attracted to the language, the sound of the language, and I am attracted to the literature of France, if possible, I would like to get enough understand of, really understand the literature of France.
C: Just next door, a very full Spanish class was in progress. I spoke to one of the students, kathleen, why did you decide to learn Spanish?
K: Because I’ll stay for 6 months in Spain.
C: Did you learn any languages at school?
K: Yes, French, only French. Were you any good at it in those days?
K: I didn’t learn very hard at school. I don’t think. But I enjoy it, it’s fantastic.
C: Well, the enthusiasm.
K: What are the problems? Do Magarete and Kathleen find it easy to learn?