Learning an L2 in a troubled world – Interest in learning te reo Māori continues to grow. When, in 2018, Anton Matthews, co-owner of his family restaurant Fush, in Christchurch, offered free lessons, some 600 people showed up. And classes at polytechnics and other institutions are now regularly filled to capacity.
So perhaps it’s not straying too far from the essential subject of these columns, to consider why, in a world of uncertainty – a world that, indeed, seems increasingly beset by “wars and rumors of wars”, by disruption of climate patterns, loss of biodiversity and by new virus outbreaks (to name but a few concerns) – why, in such a world, should the learning of another language be reckoned of such value.
An obvious answer is that language is important in providing a way to better understand, or make sense of, the world in which we live – and, indeed, the importance of language may well be, if anything, greater in times of adversity or conflict.
Learn more about this topic by reading this article on Stuff.
After reading “Learning an L2 in a troubled world” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.