HenryVII, it is only native English speakers who are relentlessly, arrogantly mono-lingual. The rest of us speak two or more languages.

My experience with native English speakers is that generally they are too afraid to even try to speak another language, though feel perfectly entitled to become rather incensed when a non-English speaker will not try to speak English. At home or in a foreign country.

By the way, did you know that though you are native English speakers you are not likely to pass an exam in English in High School in say Germany or the Netherlands? That is because you are taught your own language so poorly.

Knowing another language means power. You will have to wait for me to interpret what was said/written and trust me that I do so as objectively and truthfully as is possible. You have no means to know if this was done. It is only English speakers who tolerate this.

Some very good points, eg different languages give us new ways of looking at things,eg (apparently) ‘danger’ in Chinese is made up of 2 symbols – problem + opportunity. But I don’t need to learn Chinese to appreciate this.

But ultimately what school kids are thinking is ‘is this relevant?’ There has always been a shortage of good teachers, let alone good language teachers. Don’t make it compulsory, otherwise lessons will resort to colouring in to keep many many bored kids from going ape.

Also, many kids have such a poor command of English - maybe they should know their own language well before being "taught" another?

Some countries learn a range of languages true, but that’s because usually they are living side by side with those countries, eg Germany / France. Our geographic isolation works against us here.

Quaint idea in theory & totally unworkable in practice.

“Blue-sky thinking”.... oh, God.