The Start of a New Era? Sarkozy’s Stance on English Learning
Tuesday, 24th February 2009
President Sarkozy of France started intensive English lessons last year in the hope that this would impress the Queen and Gordon Brown during his state visit to the UK. He was also keen to demonstrate his commitment to all things British.
Since then Sarkozy has introduced an initiative that will try to make French school children fluent in French and English. The main reason behind this initiative is the widespread use of English in international business and trade. The president also believes that the French should no longer insist on speaking their own language in international negotiations and should use English instead.
Sarkozy’s positive attitude to English could be seen as a positive development that might encourage more French people to learn English and other languages. On the other hand, not everyone in France will be eager to learn or improve their English just because the president thinks they should. Learning a language requires strong motivation, commitment, dedication and plenty of time.
President Sarkozy also believes that French schools should teach Arabic language and civilization, because the Muslim population of France is increasing significantly, and because he believes Arabic to be the “language of the future, of science and modernity”. He also hopes that knowledge of Arabic will become generally more widespread in France as the language belongs to one of the oldest and most prestigious civilizations in the world.
World leaders who speak two or more languages include Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor who speaks German, English and Russian; Kevin Rudd, the Australian PM who speaks English and Mandarin Chinese; Tony Blair, the former British PM speaks English and French, and Mary McAleese, President of Ireland, who speaks English and Irish. In most cases such people already speak several languages before they take office. I doubt if there are many cases of presidents or prime ministers who have learnt a language while in power – finding time to study would probably to very tricky. However I do know that Mary McAleese takes Irish language classes for a week every summer – a couple of years ago I was in the same class!
Tags: english, culture, learning, languages, france, language, tailor-made, arabic
Posted by Simon Ager under Attitudes to Language Learning,
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