When Adam Skwierawaski left Poland for a new life in East Anglia in 2004, he thought he had studied enough English to get by.

But when confronted with Britain's range of national and regional accents, he realised he was out of his depth.

'Wrong way round'

"I just couldn't understand all these different dialects - Scottish, Welsh, northern, cockney. They don't teach you all those in language school," he laughs.

Now completely fluent and working as the Cambridgeshire organiser for the trade union Usdaw, the 24-year-old believes he had an easier time than most of his fellow migrants.

"I'm quite lucky because I mostly work with English people, so I picked up the language pretty quickly," he says.

"But a lot of immigrants end up working alongside people from the same country as them, so they don't have the chance to develop their skills.

"The government have got it the wrong way round. Anyone who can fill in all the forms to claim benefits in the UK has good enough English already - it's the ones in factories they want to concentrate on."

Welfare minister Jim Murphy announced the new proposals to force claimants to study the language.

"Not just for the sake of employment rates, but for the benefit of the individual, their community and society as a whole," he said.

But Adam's fellow Pole Ewa Mahey, 50, who is settled in Frome, Somerset, is not convinced by the plan.

She has been in the UK since 1993 working as an English language teacher and says she sees first-hand how committed most immigrants are to learning their new home's native tongue.