On 23/01/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
It is an irrelevant question. Research has shown that kids that learn to write in their mother tongue first will do better academically.
The question was "Note that I'm asking 'effectively communicate'" - effectively, not requiring the communication to be ideal. (e.g. en:wp is effective as an encyclopedia for quite a large international readership who don't have English as a first language, as is seen by the large amount of editing from such countries and people.) You appear to be answering the question as if it said "ideally".
- d.