Why are four categories of languages identified in LOTE?
In the study of LOTE four categories of languages have been identified. These are Roman alphabetical languages, non-Roman alphabetical languages, character languages and sign language. These four categories provide standards which acknowledge that students require different amounts of time to achieve literacy depending on which language they are studying. These categories are not referred to for the skills of listening and speaking. A student whose first language is English will generally progress more rapidly in reading and writing skills in languages which use the same alphabet as English as compared with languages which do not share the Roman alphabet. This does not mean students complete less work in any LOTE class, it simply means that more practice is required to reach comparable levels in reading and writing. Character-based languages require more hours of study to reach a similar level of written fluency, simply because the concept of characters is new and time is required to l
