The chief virtue that language can have is clearness,
and nothing detracts from it so much
as the use of unfamiliar words.
—HIPPOCRATES
IN CANADA, there are many people who learned to speak other languages before learning English.
Though our country has two official languages, French and English, people whose first language is not English obviously are not a single homogeneous group. There are many aboriginal people whose first language is neither French nor English. Among immigrants from elsewhere in the world, there are people who have arrived only recently; children of people who have been here many years but have learned their parents’ language before English; and immigrants who have been here a long time but have not had opportunities to learn English.
There are people who know different alphabets or scripts, such as syllabics, Arabic script or the Cyrillic alphabet, and they must learn the Roman alphabet before they can read in English. Some immigrants have not had opportunities to attain literacy in any language. Others arrive here with university degrees and familiarity with half a dozen languages, including English.
There are languages with very different grammar from English. It’s not just that a language like German puts the verb at the end of the sentence. Some languages, such as Chinese, do not have different tenses as English does. Others, like Polish, are more complex than English. Many, such as Spanish, have more regularities in grammar and pronunciation than English does. As well, language-learning skills vary tremendously from person to person.
It is useful to have materials in many languages, but it is also essential to have English-language materials that are suitable for the needs of all those who are less fluent in English. For immigrants who are at a low reading level in English, this is usually a temporary situation. They will need easyreading materials, but only for a short time.
What works, what doesn’t
Because there are so many different needs for English materials among
people whose first language is not English, it is impossible to give many
definite rules about what works and what doesn’t. But it is certainly important
to make documents look inviting. Plenty of detailed headings and subheadings are helpful. Longer documents benefit from an extensive table
of contents, as it is hard to skim quickly in a foreign language. Pictures can
be very useful.