Nearly 1 million children in the British school system are not native English speakers.

In Europe, Britain is often held up as a model of a multicultural society. The model is being strained, however, by the number of schoolchildren who speak English as a second language – and a lack of funding for teaching it to them.

The Telegraph reported yesterday that despite the large numbers of ESL (English as Second Language) schoolchildren – up to 75% in some London schools – grant funding originally set aside for helping these students learn English can now be used for other purposes at local discretion.

The current government defends the decision, stating that “having English as a second language doesn’t always mean that English skills are necessarily poor” - -which is certainly true enough.

The controversy emphasizes what a linguistic patchwork Great Britain is. In an earlier article, the same site points out that in the city of Reading (est. population 232, 662) schoolchildren speak as many as 150 languages. Most learn to speak English within a few years, but some slip through into high school “unable to speak any English at all.”

This all makes for a fertile breeding ground for future bilinguals – as long as sufficient resources and efforts are concentrated on making sure these children learn to speak English.

Betty Carlson

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