Previous work has examined the potential of Esperanto as a pedagogical tool in classroom foreign language learning in England, where limited language input of sometimes as little as one hour per week is the norm. The work reviewed here focuses on child learners aged 6 to 12 and was carried out between 2006 and 2016. Two Esperanto-based language awareness programmes have provided primarily descriptive insights, suggesting that learning Esperanto may result in greater metalinguistic awareness and more positive attitudes to other languages and cultures. However, the language awareness programmes were implemented without matched comparison groups and therefore could not reveal whether the learning of Esperanto would lead to different results than the learning of other languages. Classroom-based research that included matched comparison groups has sought to address this issue. Specifically, three studies investigated the questions of whether learning Esperanto as opposed to learning other languages would help enhance children’s metalinguistic awareness and thus contribute in turn to more successful learning in a limited-input classroom context. On the one hand, results indicate that for novice child learners, Esperanto was easier to learn than French, and that learning Esperanto may have a levelling effect that compensates for individual differences between children. On the other hand, the findings also show that these apparent advantages of Esperanto did not translate into measurably greater benefits for the development of metalinguistic awareness, or greater subsequent success in learning another foreign language. Moreover, learning Esperanto could not compensate for low language learning aptitude. In view of these sobering results, a number of proposals are made on how to take forward the research agenda. These proposals include further research into the potential benefits of using form-focused instruction (based on any language) with children as well as the effects of learning Esperanto in novice adult learners.

中文翻译：

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世界语作为英国课堂外语学习的工具

以前的工作已经研究了世界语作为英格兰课堂外语学习教学工具的潜力，在英国，有时每周只有一小时的有限语言输入是常态。此处审查的工作侧重于 6 至 12 岁的儿童学习者，并于 2006 年至 2016 年期间进行。两个基于世界语的语言意识计划主要提供描述性见解，表明学习世界语可能会导致更高的元语言意识和对他人的更积极态度语言和文化。然而，语言意识计划是在没有匹配的对照组的情况下实施的，因此无法揭示学习世界语是否会导致与学习其他语言不同的结果。包括匹配的对照组在内的基于课堂的研究试图解决这个问题。具体而言，三项研究调查了学习世界语而不是学习其他语言是否有助于提高儿童的元语言意识，从而有助于在有限输入的课堂环境中更成功地学习的问题。一方面，结果表明，对于初学儿童来说，世界语比法语更容易学习，学习世界语可能会产生平衡效应，弥补孩子之间的个体差异。另一方面，研究结果还表明，世界语的这些明显优势并没有转化为对元语言意识发展的更大好处，或者在学习另一种外语方面取得更大的后续成功。而且，学习世界语并不能弥补语言学习能力低下的不足。鉴于这些发人深省的结果，就如何推进研究议程提出了一些建议。这些建议包括进一步研究对儿童使用以形式为中心的教学（基于任何语言）的潜在好处，以及对新手成人学习者学习世界语的影响。