Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

Second languages for religious use
Some people use a second language because of their religion. For centuries after its
decline as an international language, Latin functioned as a religious language of
the Catholic Church. Muslims read the Koran in Arabic, regardless of whether they
live in an Arabic-speaking country like Saudi Arabia or in a multilingual country
like Malaysia. Jews outside Israel continue to learn Hebrew so that they can pray in
it and study the Bible and other sacred texts. In parts of India, Christianity is iden-
tified with English, in Ethiopia with Aramaic. Though the language of religious
observances is specialized, it is nonetheless a form of L2 use for supercentral 
The goals of language teaching
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languages. As this type of L2 learning is distinct from most classroom situations, it
will not be discussed further here, but it should not be overlooked, since for mil-
lions of people it is the most profound use of a second language imaginable.
Official languages and L2 learning
According to Laponce (1987), 32 countries recognize more than one language for
official purposes. Switzerland has four languages (German, French, Italian,
Romansh) and uses Latin on its stamps (‘Helvetia’). The Singapore government
uses English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil.
But the fact that a country has several official languages does not mean that any
individual person speaks more than one; the communities may be entirely sepa-
rate. Mackey (1967) claims that ‘there are fewer bilingual people in the bilingual
countries than there are in the so-called unilingual countries’. Few Canadians, for
instance, use both English and French in daily life. Instead, the French and English
speakers live predominantly in different parts of Canada, as do the German, French
and Italian speakers in Switzerland, and the French and Flemish speakers in
Belgium. It is necessary in many of these countries to teach speakers of one official
language to use another official language; Afrikaans-speaking civil servants in
South Africa need English; their English-speaking counterparts in Canada need
French.
This does not necessarily mean that each official language is equally favoured;
few Swiss would bother to learn Romansh as a second language. Nor does it mean
that the official language learnt is the version actually used in the country; in
Switzerland, French-speaking children learn High German, not the Swiss German
mostly spoken in the German-speaking areas, so they can, in a sense, speak with
Germans better than they can with their compatriots.
Sometimes a language can become an official language with at first few, if any,
native speakers. Hebrew was revived by a popular movement in Israel long before
being adopted by the new state. The teaching of Hebrew in Israel did not just edu-
cate one group in the language of another, but created a group of people who
spoke a second language that would become the first language of their children.
In some countries an official language is selected that has, at least to start with, a
small proportion of native speakers, for example, Swahili in Tanzania, where only
10 per cent of the population are native speakers. Another pattern is found in the
Congo, where French is the official language but there are four ‘national lan-
guages’, Kiswahili, Ciluba, Lingala and Kikongo, which are used as lingua francas
among speakers of different mother tongues. To take a final example, in Pakistan
four languages are spoken in different provinces: Pashto, Punjabi, Balochi and
Sindi. Urdu is used all over the country, as is Arabic for religious purposes. In addi-
tion, English is an official language.