The report language teaching as public policy or report Grin (pronounced / g / ( API ), as French ) is a document written in 2005 by Franois Grin , a professor at the University of Geneva , at the request of the French.

This document attempts to answer the following question: "What foreign language teaching, for what reasons, and given what context? " . It examines three scenarios: the choice of a single natural language , the choice of a trio of natural languages and choose a constructed language , the Esperanto.

This ratio is known at European level and has been subject to a written question to the European Parliament . It has however, been followed by any change in practice in the language policy of a state.

The report analyzes the choice of English , although his analysis could apply to any other national language to be chosen as the only language.

This is mentioned on page 65 of the report in the following terms:

"This is not the English language as such that is the problem, but the linguistic hegemony, whatever the language for whose benefit it is exercised. (----) If this linguistic hegemony was s' operate (as is currently done) for English, it would be a very bad case (----) all the non-English speaking European Union, even beyond the borders of Union "

The author of the report indicates that for the UK , one of the United States where English is official language, this represents a saving of 17 to 18 billion euros by year. This economy would be strengthened if the choice of English as the only language. This figure does not include fringe benefits enjoyed by native speakers of the language chosen one, in a situation of conflict or negotiation taking place in that language, in addition, the report indicates that the symbolic effects also affect physical and financial.

According to the report Grin 5 points giving rise to an unfair redistribution are as follows:

1. a quasi-monopoly in markets for translation and interpretation into English, the writing of English texts, production of educational materials for teaching English and teaching that language;
2. saving time and money in international communication, the non-native speakers making every effort to speak English and accepting messages sent in that language;
3. saving time and money to English speakers, thanks to the fact that they do little more effort to learn other languages;
4. return on investment in other forms of human capital, resources that English no longer need to invest in learning foreign languages;
5. dominance of English in any negotiation situation, competition or conflict occurring in English.

Scenario 2: "Multilingualism"

The trilingual scenario is to ask that every European citizen knows two languages from, for example, the French , the German and English.

According to the report's author, this scenario does not change the costs of language teaching. The multilingual solution tends to reduce inequalities between speakers, but requires effort on the part of speakers whose mother tongue is not among the three deductions. However, the trilingual situation is not stable, it requires a series of accompanying measures, without which it risks falling into adopting a single language.

In a Europe that has 21 official languages at the time of writing the report, multilingual communication can not be left to chance, and it should be noted here that the scenario of multilingualism covers so he can be compared to both others.

We therefore define the "multilingualism" as the following model: Each resident should be proficient in two European languages besides their mother tongue. Indeed, even if only to ensure the mutual understanding of any subset of two residents selected at random, we need the directory of every European has at least two languages chosen in a given subset three languages. This amounts to give, in the logic outlined above, a preferred status to certain languages and it will be assumed here for purposes of exposition, it is the troika (English, French and from German).

Multilingualism is not a perfectly egalitarian scenario: indeed, even if we assume that all Europeans learn two foreign languages, we can distinguish two situations:

• for people whose mother tongue is English, French or German, just as one of two foreign languages is taken from this group of three languages, but the other foreign language may well be a third language whether Italian, Japanese or Welsh.

• By cons, a resident of native Estonian or Portuguese, the two foreign languages must be from the troika English-French-German. Any other language (again, whether Italian, Japanese or Welsh) should necessarily be taught as a third foreign language.

This asymmetry has implications for the comparison of scenarios.

However, it is important to note that even this restriction does not ensure mutual understanding (which is necessary so that we can say that multilingualism guarantees the same benefits as the communicational all-in-l'Angle "or Esperanto ). Indeed, if the multilingualism that question here really is to stand apart from linguistic hegemony, this means that Member States have created real incentives for the use of several languages.

If these measures are ineffective, we fall back into the script of "All-in-l'Angle" but if they are effective, we can, almost by definition, be expected that European citizens whose mother tongue does is neither English nor French nor German learn these two languages in approximately equal proportions.

Ultimately, the Europeans (except those who are native speakers of English, French or German) will be divided into three main groups: those whose repertoire includes language, as foreign languages, English and French ("EF") , French and German ("FD") and English and German ("ED"). What mutual understanding can we then expect? To simplify the calculation, we admit that francophones, anglophones and germanophones learn the languages of each other so tender, roughly around the same division of powers into three tiers.

The probability that given an audience of 20 people use a language of the troika excluded one of these persons is 99.9%, although this person has a directory conforming to the model of the troika privileged. In other words, it is almost certain that a participant has at least one directory, while fully conforming to the model of the troika privileged, do not include the language for the meeting of 20 people.

Also one of the underlying problems is the choice of languages to be part of the troika (and on what criteria to choose them), once this election and put the problem arises of the stability of the troika overlooked countries entering the union (imagine that Russia or the Arab countries entering the union is politically difficult to imagine that their languages do not become official in turn).

Scenario 3: "Esperanto"

The author of the report indicates that the choice of Esperanto would lead to a net annual saving of 25 billion euros for Europe . But he also notes:

"The frequent rejection reactions in respect of the Esperanto render impractical the implementation of short-term scenario 3. It can be recommended by cons in the context of a long-term strategy to develop a generation. Two conditions are critical to its success, however: first, a very big effort to inform, to overcome the prejudices that surround this language - which are usually based on simple ignorance - and help change mentalities and secondly , effective coordination among States for the joint implementation of such a scenario. 85% percent of the population of the EU-25 is a direct and clear, regardless of cultural and political risks involved in the linguistic hegemony. "

One might think at first glance, it is only replace English Esperanto, and it is an all-in-l'espranto "rather than a "entirely English." Despite this similarity surface, the differences between the two locales are daunting:

• First, the use of Esperanto wiped out in one fell swoop all transfers unfair that leads the all-in-English ", this also applies to" legitimizing effect "or" rhetorical effect " (effects that are not quantified in the study), the symbolic importance of this effect remains a major.

• Second, learning Esperanto is considerably faster than any natural language and, to varying degrees, this superiority is evident irrespective of the mother tongue of the learner. It is perhaps more obvious to people who are native speakers of a Latin language, but it also exists for those whose first language is Germanic or Slavic, or even non-Indo-European, despite an essentially Indo-European language of origin (Piron , 1994; Flochon, 2000).

• Third, like Esperanto is the language of person and, therefore, easily language everyone (Mullarney, 1999), its distribution is less threatening to the current languages of Europe than is the spread of English.

Table

The comparison between the different scenarios based on the following:

1. the definition of a locale, with reference to the European context;
2. identification of benefits, including communicative, associated with each environment;
3. a very brief definition of the axes of political education of foreign languages requires that each environment;
4. costs for the education system, associated with these education policies;
5. transfers resulting from each locale, subdivided according to the analysis of the previous chapter:
   1. core markets;
   2. economy of effort in communication;
   3. economy of effort in teaching foreign languages;
   4. the returns to saving in this teaching.

Quoted Grin Report p. 72: "there is not, in my opinion, means to assess, even roughly, the effect of legitimation (and therefore the position of undue superiority in situations of conflict and negotiation) that according to the locales, may fall to speakers of the language preference. Until a solution can be found to this difficult problem, the effect of identification (also called "rhetorical effect", cf. Grin, 2004a) is assumed to be included in the social and cultural dimensions reported above. It should still retain critical in any evaluation. "

Scenarios 1 and 2 therefore have the same cost in terms of teaching foreign languages. Scenario 3, cons, has a lower cost, since reaching a certain level of proficiency in Esperanto is much faster than any other language and literature is unanimous in that regard.

Thus, Flochon (2000: 109) notes that "the Institute of Cybernetics pedagogy of Paderborn (Germany) compared the learning times of several groups of French students, the undergraduate, to a level 'standard' and comparable in four different languages: Esperanto, English, German and Italian. The results are as follows: to reach this level, 2000 hours of study in German produce a language level equivalent to 1500 hours of study of English, 1000 hours of study of Italian and ... 150 hours study of Esperanto. No comment. "

Other estimates scattered in the literature confirms the more rapid attainment of target language skills in Esperanto than in all other languages with which the comparison was made (Department of Public Instruction Conclusion of the report

Franois Grin concludes that the best strategy among those studied in the long term for the teaching of languages such as public policy is to focus Esperanto (scenario 3) . He does not study other possibilities for constructed language.

References

Notes

References

Notes

Related articles

• Linguistic imperialism

External Documents

• The Grin Report
• English, the wrong solution Article of time on the report Grin.
• And if Esperanto replaced the English ... Article from The Courier , July 23, 2005

• consideration of the report by the CIPF
• [1] and then use the report by the European Monitoring Centre for Languages

• ratio used by the research center Nitobe
• TV show challenges the language of Claude Piron covers the same

• Language portal
• Portal Esperanto

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