Saluton!

Do you know any schools in what Esperanto has been taught? I'd like to be a teacher of languages. I'd like to teach some European languages and Esperanto. But unlike numerous European languages in Esperanto there are no exceptions in its grammar. No irregular verbs, only one past tense etc.
So, is there enough stuff to be taught for two or more years? What do you think?

Of cource, vocabulary is an important thing to handle, but too many words to study may discourage kids' in studying. So, should the international culture of Esperantists be a part of curriculum?

Dankon.

Hi glomo. I'm only aware of the Springboard to Languages program in the UK. I can't quite remember which schools were participating, and I'm not sure if they are even still active. Maybe the website will have details about that somewhere.

Esperanto is taught in some Hungarian universities, people use it to fulfill their language requirement in an easy way. As a result, Hungary has a big population of people who learned Esperanto to pass the exam then had nothing else to do with it, and a huge cottage industry of Esperanto teachers who are primarily aimed at helping people to pass the exam. Most of these people aren't interested or involved in the Esperanto movement itself, however. It's just a way to make money (the teachers) or pass an exam (the students).

glomo:
So, is there enough stuff to be taught for two or more years? What do you think?

Definitely. I still take English courses, and I'm a native English speaker. After the student has learned Esperanto fluently (and who knows how long that would take), then they should do literature tests and vocab tests like in my English class. Every week we learn new SAT words and at the end of the week we're tested on the new vocabulary we learn. But the usual day is reading a short story, poem, or some other kind of passage and we answer questions on it and try and find the theme and figurative language ktp. And after some short stories in the textbook, we read novels and answer questions on each chapter and then do periodic tests. I imagine that's what the Esperanto classes would do.

Nun mi iomete volas instrui Esperanton. xD

P.S: At one point, my French teacher taught Esperanto at a high school in my city.

erinja:Esperanto is taught in some Hungarian universities, people use it to fulfill their language requirement in an easy way. As a result, Hungary has a big population of people who learned Esperanto to pass the exam then had nothing else to do with it, and a huge cottage industry of Esperanto teachers who are primarily aimed at helping people to pass the exam. Most of these people aren't interested or involved in the Esperanto movement itself, however. It's just a way to make money (the teachers) or pass an exam (the students).

Erinja,
That's really interesting. I don't see it as a bad thing (do you? it's not clear from what you wrote but I infer from the apparent tone of your writing here that you maybe find something objectionable?). Most people aren't going to be in the Esperanto movement regardless of their exposure to Esperanto. Most people just aren't interested in languages, or movements. Still, anything that exposes people to Eo seems useful to me.

It's sad, but most college/university students don't give two spits about actually learning anything in college. They just want the chance to party for 4 years and to get that piece of paper at the end of it to help them get a job. Anything else is just an obstacle for them to bypass. Maybe I'm too cynical, but it certainly seems that way to me.

So given that many colleges require some study of a foreign language, and that most student's aren't going to care about that, why not let them take Eo? You know, before I studied Eo, my knowledge of English grammar and syntax was already quite high. Yet, I was surprised how my understanding of my own language deepened and improved through the study of Esperanto.

As a physicist I was advised to take German in college to satisfy my liberal arts requirements. There was a time when a reading knowledge of German was useful for english speaking physicists (now almost all major scientific papers are in (or translated into) English so it's less useful than it once was). I had 4 semesters of German and developed some facility with reading and writing german (especially with the aid of a dictionary); but within a few years I had mostly lost it all because of disuse.

Nonetheless, I don't think my study of German was wasted (though don't get me started rambling about how dumb and inefficient most classroom models for language instruction are). I gained a deep appreciation for the German language and culture, I learned a bit about how languages contrast and evolve (English and Hochdeutsch having a common root). Plus I had a lot of fun (though I doubt very many of my classmates would have agreed on the fun part).

So I think it's very cool that Esperanto has found this use in Hungary, and even cooler that a small cottage industry has sprung up to support it. Surely some people in hungary will catch the Eo bug becuase of the exposure they get at Uni.

Seems like a win-win situation to me.

Tschus! er....I mean Ĝis la revido!
Michael.

P.S., Probably a nice side benefit: when people in Hungary tell their friends that they speak Esperanto, they probably get more than blank, uncomprehending stares in return like we do in the states.

awake:

erinja:Esperanto is taught in some Hungarian universities, people use it to fulfill their language requirement in an easy way. As a result, Hungary has a big population of people who learned Esperanto to pass the exam then had nothing else to do with it, and a huge cottage industry of Esperanto teachers who are primarily aimed at helping people to pass the exam. Most of these people aren't interested or involved in the Esperanto movement itself, however. It's just a way to make money (the teachers) or pass an exam (the students).

Erinja,
That's really interesting. I don't see it as a bad thing (do you? it's not clear from what you wrote but I infer from the apparent tone of your writing here that you maybe find something objectionable?). Most people aren't going to be in the Esperanto movement regardless of their exposure to Esperanto. Most people just aren't interested in languages, or movements. Still, anything that exposes people to Eo seems useful to me.

It's not that I see it as a bad thing, I really don't care one way or the other. But people need to know that just because Esperanto has a strong presence in Hungary, doesn't mean that the Esperanto community has a strong presence in Hungary. Esperanto is almost like a joke subject there.

The situation has been this way for some time, it's nothing new, and yet I don't see loads of Hungarians at Esperanto events. Therefore it doesn't seem that significant numbers of people have been 'bitten by the Esperanto bug', so to speak.