Hacker News Reader

Comment by dpwm | Hacker News Reader

The thing I found most insightful in this piece is that Iranian primary schools were teaching English.

As someone from a country that has English as its first language, I often lament the fact that I don't know any foreign languages and feel a sense of choice paralysis with so many languages to learn. It strikes me that for many learning English as a second language isn't a choice.

The only foreign languages I was introduced to were French and German, and these were in secondary school. I couldn't speak either then, but I found my understanding of spoken French improved when I spent time around Geneva. Can anyone outline the norms for English teaching in the rest of the region and the rest of the world? I often wonder if I'd been born in a particular country, by what age could I expect to be reasonably proficient?

View on HN

> Can anyone outline the norms for English teaching in the rest of the region and the rest of the world?

I'd be interested in this too (or other languages, where it would be appropriate, such as the extent of French teaching in Canada, or Spanish in the USA). I suspect what Iran is apparently not doing any more is very uncommon around the world anyway.

English is tought as a second language (or third language in bilingual countries) in most of the world.

You would be hard pressed to find a country without ESL classes for it primary and secondary schools.

> English is tought as a second language (or third language in bilingual countries) in most of the world.

In primary schools, commonly?

In Russia, for example, it's one of the common subjects you start studying in middle school and continue up to the last year in high school. Also almost each college/university course also has English as one of the subjects with inclination towards the course major, e.g. more chemistry-related topics if your major is chemistry, etc.

Thanks. You may not be old enough to know from experience, but how does this differ (if at all) from the Soviet period?

AIUI Soviet citizens didn't generally learn English in (high/middle) school, which I always thought a bit surprising (assuming that's correct), and for some reason I have the idea German may have been taught in the USSR. (An idea which may simply derive from Russian being taught in East German schools.)

Well, I was born in 1978 and did experience the last years of the USSR, but I also know from my parents` experiences and from the old text-books, that there was a foreign language taught in Soviet middle/high schools and colleges for decades. Upon some research I've found that a foreign language was introduced as a common subject in to the schooling programmes in 1927 in the USSR. Initially that was German. Even in my school years I know that German, French, Italian and Spanish were still taught in schools, but English was more popular.

It would be surprising if they didn't study foreign languages in schools in the USSR considering that the country was surrounded by "enemies".

Thanks. And yeah, that's one reason I always thought it was surprising if they didn't teach English, since it was the (primary) language of 'the enemy'. Plus whatever faults the USSR may have had, education seemed to be pretty good.

Yes and some much ealier than Iran, I’ve studied English since the second grade until 12 (age 7-18) both written and verbal exam are also required to attain a high school diploma.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com