Before I came to live in Switzerland I took speaking and comprehension for granted. After all, the English speaking community can make themselves understood almost anywhere in the world without making much effort to learn the local languages, can they not? I had travelled, and this was my rather egocentric impression.
So what changed my mind? Well, language learning took on a whole new dimension when my husband and I took the decision to bring up our two children bilingually. I started to read books on language acquisition and learning, and studied the children trying to communicate. This made me realise how potentially difficult this whole business really was, and I realised that learning a language can be a life long task, which can also be complex for many of us. Furthermore, the task is often more easily said than done.
As a result of this, I started my own teaching business. I wanted to teach English to small children. ‘Let’s take them in at the age of three’, said I, thinking that I would be lucky to get a couple of students to keep me happy and to earn a little income into the bargain. If someone had told me that six years later I would have around 350 students, I would never have believed them, and possibly not have started in the first place. [...]