London, February 8 : Schoolchildren in a town in England can speak as many as 150 different languages and dialects, according to a survey.

Pupils in Reading, Berkshire, made use of the Ghanaian dialect of Akan, Chichewa, from the south central Africa, the Aztec tongue of Nahatl and Telugu amongst many other languages at home.

Officials were said to be worried about the growing number of students with little or no command of English, fearing it ineffective communication with the teachers.

"If pupils are speaking 150 different languages in one place, that's quite an extraordinary number," the Telegraph quoted a spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, as saying.

"We become concerned when schools aren't coping with these children's needs, and I can imagine that is no mean feat for a local authority where pupils speak this many languages," the spokesman added.

Philip Davis, the Conservative MP for Shipley, West Yorkshire, said: "It's very worrying and Labour's lax immigration policies are a huge factor in this.

"It is also a result of political correctness, we haven't really made people integrate properly into British society and we haven't made them learn English."