Heide,

In Canada, French is compulsory in the English language school system. In
fact in New Brunswick kids get 30 minutes a day for 12 years, at the end of
which the number of kids who reached an intermediate level of oral
proficiency was evaluated at 0.68%, in other words next to none. The same
can be seen elsewhere.

Fluency in English and other languages among certain Europeans is a matter
of attitude and opportunity or exposure, not a function of the school
system. They have more opportunity to hear and use English and, to a lesser
extent, other languages. And they are more motivated to learn, and quite
convinced that speaking another language is really quite normal.






-- 
Steve Kaufmann
www.thelinguist.blogs.com
www.lingq.com
604-922-8514
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