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Word of Mouth

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Series exploring the world of words and the ways in which we use them

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Word of Mouth: The University of Babel

19/03/2013

The University of Babel

BBC Radio 4 - Word of Mouth, The University of Babel

Michael Rosen asks how English spoken by foreign students equips them for university life.

Michael Rosen investigates how the English spoken by foreign students equips them for British university life: Stories, analysis and a day in the life of Birmingham University.

Generations of students have left lecture halls wondering whether they understood what they just heard. Now, a growing proportion of these learners don't consider English their first language. In the first episode in a new series, Michael Rosen visits Birmingham University to investigate how well the English spoken by foreign students equips them for British university life. And to see how lecturers are adapting to their multilingual audience. And there's feature on Special English, the slowed down, limited vocabulary version of the language developed more than half a century ago as a radio experiment, and which the Voice of America network still uses in its programmes.

Producer: Chris Ledgard.

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