How many languages can be taught?
- In a multilingual setting, children may be forced to learn various languages. In NF, for example, at the Danish minority school in Risum, children are taught Frisian, High German, Danish and English, and they learn Low German in the vilJage. In India children may also be forced to learn up to five languages. Two questions arise here: (1) can the children cope with so many languages? and (2) does the language element take up too much time in the curriculum? Possibly one would have to differentiate the degree of competence that should be attained in each language, whether listening com- prehension, oral, reading or writing competence. This might depend on the function each language is to have in the pupils' lives.