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Here in Canada we have what's called "French immersion" schools, which is where, for the first 8 years of a child's education (and for some it continues until the end of secondary school), the majority of their subjects are taught in French. English is taught starting from 3rd or 4th grade as a second language.

This would seem like the perfect solution to learning French, but there are a few problems with it. First of all, due to the lack of teachers who speak French well enough to teach in it as well as the government's lack of desire for English Canada to learn French, you can only go to a French immersion school if you go there from 1st grade. There are some schools that accept students in 5th/6th grade but those are unfortunately rare.

I think that this immersion thing really could work out a lot better if people made the effort. In fact, I think that immersion should be mandatory in all schools. Not necessarily for all subjects, but even if, let's say, for Phys Ed and music, that would already be great.

Maybe the government thinks it isn't worth the effort, but I do. Everyone ought to learn at least one language other than their mother tongue, and from my experience with people on gaia, European students who went an English-immersion school can communicate in English 100x better than those who didn't.

The younger you are, the better you learn. In Spain, children start to learn English almost as soon as they go to school. It should be the same way all over. People don't realize the power of foreign languages. sweatdrop

I would love to see that happen, but it's just not very practical where I live. We'd have to renew the staff, since they don't speak Spanish (That would be the best language to immerse here in Central/South Texas).

Our negligible language program has it so that when you go into Spanish, you hear it from the teacher for about an hour a day. There are tests next to every day so it's an incentive to learn (And it saves my grade. IN EVER DO MY HOMEWORK. But I do do my tests, and ACE them. That's not a goo work ethic...). But the students will do memorization tactics, and it's good for tests but not good for wanting to practically speak... Like, you cram it all into your brain, and after the relief of it being finished, you forget it for cramming the next test's information.

The best language classes you can get in Mexico come from 2 kinds of places: dedicated language schools, and private schools.

Since Mexico shares border with the United States, the world's most powerful nation, in theory, English is standard, required and mandatory in all high schools during the first 2 years. However, English is optional in middle school, and in elementary it's only and exclusively taught in private schools. As a result, English level in public schools is almost nonexistant: a friend of mine is studying networks and telecommunications just like me, you need a decent level of English in order to understand the device manuals, usually printed in English, but he barely even knows the language.

However, going to a private/dedicated language school doesn't guarantees that you will have a good level of English. Some private schools here are bilingual: classes are in English in odd days, and in Spanish in even days. I know a couple of this kind of schools in Guadalajara. But a lot of things have to do: from the teaching method, to your motivation. The University of Guadalajara runs a dedicated English school where a friend of mine had English classes to do better in English class, because he barely even knows the language; however, he barely even learnt a thing, as well as many friends of mine who went to this school. The English level at the Instituto de Ciencias, the high school I come from, sucks inmense amounts of a** too: two of mine ended up in English level 1 at the university because they had class with the worst teachers in the world. Same applied to French: I already knew French, so I never had less than a 9/10 in class, but the amounts of people who failed the subject were inmensely huge, and most of those who did passed, only studied as little as necessary to pass the subject.

By own experience, total inmersion is the best way to teach a language. I think that's why English and French classes at my high school sucked so much: the teacher had little or no control over the people, and would often switch to Spanish so the students would understand the teacher. In Berlitz, however, inmersion is total because it's total, and even though I didn't know a s**t of German, my teacher would talk to us in German. You can't imagine how much and fast did I learned in class. Best of all, they hardly ever leave any homework, and if the teacher did, it would just take 10 minutes to do it.

Both English and Swedish are taught in Swedish schools. Hmm yeah, most of them. There are schools where English is the only language, Swedish only appear in Swedish class. razz It wouldn't suprise me if English becomes the official language of Sweden. If it would, it would be the only official language of Sweden.

Anyway, immersion sounds pretty good. That's the way Swedish people learn English. You start with English when you're like 8 years old or something. After that it will be your friend for the rest of your life. You speak English at least once a day, even if it's just one or two sentences.

Haha, yeah, I guess that's why. razz

It should not be made mandatory to take foreign language classes in school. Here's why.

-Not everyone wants to partake in the learning of a new language. You can't force someone to do something they don't want to do.

-Usually the students who DO have to take a foreign language class neither respect nor put any effort toward the language they are learning. They do not all share our love of learning foreign languages.

-Students forced to take foreign language classes tend to throw their skills away after the schooling is over; all their training is for naught.

Point is, don't MAKE someone take a foreign language class. It's their loss if they don't wanna help themselves open job oppurtunity windows, not ours. We don't need those kind of people taking up space in our classes--fouling up the language with dishonest attempts at speaking it and throwing paper airplanes around while the teacher isn't looking--and all the while not knowing that their IQ is dropping quicker than the XBox 360 trend.

Oh yes. Learning a langauge should definately be mandatory. Its said that a child who learns a second langauge becomes better in school. I live near Mexico and they had us learn a little in elemtary, but only for the advanced students who didn't need help in English, and still I didn't learn very much, because the teacher was kind of bad.