Learning what language would help ESL students more?

[Crescentia]

There are more and more ESL students getting interested in classics today, especially in ancient Latin and ancient Greek (at least in my university, including me XD). Do you have any suggestions for those students who cannot use English 100 percent properly but are still willing to learn those two more advanced languages? And learning what language would help us the most in terms of having a more profound understanding in English and all Roman languages?

By the way, I've heard that learning Greek can help science students understand scientific terminologies better than learning Latin (is that true?), so would ancient Greek work better than modern Greek?

[swtwentyman]

I'm not sure your question. If it's which classical language would benefit ESL students more, then Latin, easily. If it's which other language would help with English, then probably French. It's similar in grammar and vocabulary to English (English actually takes a lot of its lexicon from French) and introduces several foreign sounds (u, eu; the r is close to a kh sound and words like "psychologie" are pronounced with a full ps). That said, my knowledge of English has been a far greater aid in studying Latin than French has been (though if I were a Frenchman that would probably be reversed).

I don't know where you are but in the US most ESL students are Spanish speakers. You might want to take that into account.

It would be of far greater use for one interested in science or medicine to learn the Greek elements than to learn a whole new language (unless they were interested in Greek to start with).