A Child's Guide to Languages
Of the schoolchildren who begin learning French this autumn term, two-thirds will give up within three years with little or nothing to show for it. For most of us, learning foreign languages seems to be difficult, tortuous and usually ends in failure.
Odd, really, when you think that all over the world babies and young children seem to pick up their native language remarkably easily: without formal teaching they acquire not only the words, but the underlying grammar-whether it's English, Chinese or Russian. It always works. So by studying how infants do it, can we find radically new ways of teaching foreign languages? And can these methods be applied in the traditional English school system? Narrator PETER FRANCE
Film editor PAUL RAPLEY
Horizon editor GRAHAM MASSEY
Written and produced by JON PALFREMAN
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