The thread that shadowyrm tried to start three days ago has turned into a bit of a mess so I thought I'd start this new one in an attempt to clear the air a bit in hopes that history will not repeat itself. Here is shadowyrm's original post:

Quote:I was poking around Wikipedia today and read the article there on Esperanto
. It has some interesting notions about language learning in it. In particular, in the context of learning Japanese, I was interested in the parts about how learning Esperanto seems to accelerate the learning of other languages. I'm curious if anyone has any experience as to whether it helps with languages like Japanese or Korean, or if it helps mainly with more closely-related European languages.

Can anyone here on the boards speak Esperanto? Do you think it helped with your Japanese?

And here is a related link provided by mankso:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeuti..._Esperanto

Before this week, I hadn't given Esperanto much more than a passing thought, but the recent discussion has got me to thinking. Over the course of the past year, I've developed strong doubts in the institution of foreign language education, at least of the kind I've come to know in high school, college, and here in Japan. I think that presenting students with endless lists of vocabulary words, and contrived sentences to illustrate grammar points is unnatural and deters a lot of would-be learners before they have the chance to experience a language in all its glory.
That has left me with the question of what, then, teachers can do for students who want to learn foreign languages. Maybe Esperanto is the answer.
I'll admit right now that I know practically nothing about the language, but it stands to reason that its supposedly simple and regular grammar rules would make it easier for students to learn how to pick up meaning from context with a minimum of start-up vocabulary and grammar, and they could then apply those honed skills to a "real" foreign language soon afterward. Perhaps a course, "Intro to Foreign Languages: Esperanto" would be a useful addition to school curricula. After all, Mr. Fabrice recently said, on a different matter, "the best thing teachers could ever do is to teach you how to learn."
I can sure say that for me, learning QBASIC (which is essentially useless nowadays) sure eased my transition to C++, and maybe the same is true of spoken languages. There sure seems to be a lot of evidence to that effect.

I hope this can turn into a productive discussion (and I know I'm one of the main offenders when it comes to hotheaded comments). Have at it!

I think that current teaching methods would still have vocab lists being used for Esperanto. That would not change. All of the techniques currently used for learning languages would be employed in the learning of Esperanto. Granted, according to results from many respected Universities, the rate or acquisition of Esperanto is fast and thus people can study on their own sooner, but is this an advantage in the long run? Beginners are still going to need teaching to a certain level of proficiency in other languages before they are able to go off on their own.

hmmmmm.

I asked for this to be posted here, as a complement to the Wikipedia article cited above, but as it hasn't been, here goes:

Fantini, Alvino E. & Timothy G. Reagan: Esperanto & Education - Toward a Research Agenda. ESF, 1992.
http://www.esperantic.org/esf/f-r1.htm

Thematic vocab lists of isolated words for learning FL's were popular 50-60 years ago. Nowadays no N. American FL teacher is likely to do this, but would teach vocab in context.