When I was teaching at the British School of Bucharest, none of the English, French or German children were learning Romanian. How silly, considering that they were in the capital of Romania!
Schools do have to make painful choices and cannot do everything. Usually what happens is that if you are going to have more of subject A, then it follows that there is going to be less time and money available for subjects B and C. I think that, as expats, we ought to try to encourage our children (if we have any) to take an interest in the culture and the language of the country where we are currently living. The bad news is that many parents say, "Well, we are going back to the U.K. (or wherever) in a year or two, so why bother?"
Dear Alexa,
When I was teaching at the British School of Bucharest, none of the English, French or German children were learning Romanian. How silly, considering that they were in the capital of Romania!
Schools do have to make painful choices and cannot do everything. Usually what happens is that if you are going to have more of subject A, then it follows that there is going to be less time and money available for subjects B and C. I think that, as expats, we ought to try to encourage our children (if we have any) to take an interest in the culture and the language of the country where we are currently living. The bad news is that many parents say, "Well, we are going back to the U.K. (or wherever) in a year or two, so why bother?"