
Iran Bans English in Primary Schools - rmason
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/07/world/middleeast/iran-english-schools.html?mtrref=www.google.com
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rmason
All Iran's Mullahs accomplished with this stupid ruling is to make learning
English much cooler among the youth because now it's forbidden.

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WheelsAtLarge
True, the Streisand effect in action. But even if they can accomplish their
goal of keeping people from English language information there's plenty of
people that know English already and will spread what they learn. "Information
wants to be free," is a truism.

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dpwm
The thing I found most insightful in this piece is that Iranian primary
schools were teaching English.

As someone from a country that has English as its first language, I often
lament the fact that I don't know any foreign languages and feel a sense of
choice paralysis with so many languages to learn. It strikes me that for many
learning English as a second language isn't a choice.

The only foreign languages I was introduced to were French and German, and
these were in secondary school. I couldn't speak either then, but I found my
understanding of spoken French improved when I spent time around Geneva. Can
anyone outline the norms for English teaching in the rest of the region and
the rest of the world? I often wonder if I'd been born in a particular
country, by what age could I expect to be reasonably proficient?

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LV-426
> Can anyone outline the norms for English teaching in the rest of the region
> and the rest of the world?

I'd be interested in this too (or other languages, where it would be
appropriate, such as the extent of French teaching in Canada, or Spanish in
the USA). I suspect what Iran is apparently not doing any more is very
uncommon around the world anyway.

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dogma1138
English is tought as a second language (or third language in bilingual
countries) in most of the world.

You would be hard pressed to find a country without ESL classes for it primary
and secondary schools.

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LV-426
> English is tought as a second language (or third language in bilingual
> countries) in most of the world.

In primary schools, commonly?

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iliaznk
In Russia, for example, it's one of the common subjects you start studying in
middle school and continue up to the last year in high school. Also almost
each college/university course also has English as one of the subjects with
inclination towards the course major, e.g. more chemistry-related topics if
your major is chemistry, etc.

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LV-426
Thanks. You may not be old enough to know from experience, but how does this
differ (if at all) from the Soviet period?

AIUI Soviet citizens didn't generally learn English in (high/middle) school,
which I always thought a bit surprising (assuming that's correct), and for
some reason I have the idea German may have been taught in the USSR. (An idea
which may simply derive from Russian being taught in East German schools.)

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iliaznk
Well, I was born in 1978 and did experience the last years of the USSR, but I
also know from my parents` experiences and from the old text-books, that there
was a foreign language taught in Soviet middle/high schools and colleges for
decades. Upon some research I've found that a foreign language was introduced
as a common subject in to the schooling programmes in 1927 in the USSR.
Initially that was German. Even in my school years I know that German, French,
Italian and Spanish were still taught in schools, but English was more
popular.

It would be surprising if they didn't study foreign languages in schools in
the USSR considering that the country was surrounded by "enemies".

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LV-426
Thanks. And yeah, that's one reason I always thought it was surprising if they
didn't teach English, since it was the (primary) language of 'the enemy'. Plus
whatever faults the USSR may have had, education seemed to be pretty good.

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Feniks
I never learned my English proficienfy in school, let's face it learning a
language requires more than a few hours a week in a classroom. Watching TV,
playing games and reading books will get you there after a few years. Hell I
have immense difficulty now reading stuff in my native language (English is
wonderfully efficient).

Besides Iran can grumble but even the French have to use English at
universities now because that is the language of science.

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toomanybeersies
But it was a start to English proficiency, without the (little) you learned in
school I doubt you would've been able to learn as much from TV and reading
books, because you need to start somewhere.

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neonate
It's bullshit, of course.

[http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/01/how-mainstream-media-
lo...](http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/01/how-mainstream-media-lose-their-
reputation-fakenews-on-iran-and-egypt.html)

Fascinating how the same credulous repetition runs though the major press as
through the "social media" they deride.

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smt88
The article you posted agrees with TFA. Not sure what you think is bullshit.

From TFA:

"The teaching of English usually starts in middle school in Iran, around the
ages of 12 to 14, but some primary schools below that age also have English
classes.

"Some children also attend private language institutes after their school day.
And many children from more privileged families who attend nongovernment
schools receive English tuition from day care through high school."

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neonate
According to the article I linked to, there was no 'ban', only some government
official saying something about existing curricula. No doubt they're paranoid
about foreign meddling, but then who isn't?

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monochromatic
That’s a great way to shoot yourself in the foot.

