Excellent news, if it is true. Apparently, Education Minister, Michael Gove, thinks that every child over the age of five should learn a foreign language in school.
Now we need to wait and learn more about:
- how it is to be costed
- which languages will be prioritised
- whether or not a language will later be made compulsory at GCSE level
- and if the teaching of languages might be changed in order that children can actually learn not just how to repeat things, but to initiate independent thought and speech.
In the course of this we might also urge him to consider whether French is still the most appropriate ‘first’ foreign language to teach in the UK. Boys in particular find it hard to get their mouth around French pronunciation and clearly don’t like the ‘acting’ that is required to do it. Spanish is easier, German harder to learn but easier for Brits to pronounce. German is spoken by over 100 million people in Europe (more than any other language) and Spanish is useful in various parts of the globe. And French? Er…
The real problem in the future, however, is where the competent language teachers are going to come from when the numbers of those already learning a language has plummeted in the last ten years. The consequences of previous policies will be felt for a generation or more.
Which is why I get worked up about it.
October 1, 2011 at 5:40 pm
You’re right that Michael Gove has not said which langage or languages our children should be learning? Will he be daring and advocate Esperanto? I hope so.
October 1, 2011 at 6:39 pm
And what is the time frame? It would take a fair while to train language teacher for primary school level, and there are already so many primary school teachers who cannot find a job that it seems completely unrealistic.
The current crop of language teachers who had to leave the state secondary school sector because too many were dropping languages have largely been soaked up by the private sector or have retrained for other jobs.
In any case, secondary school teachers are not naturally suited for primary schools and the teaching skills required are quite different. There cannot be a simple transfer if it’s to be done properly.
October 1, 2011 at 7:00 pm
You may be interested to know that several British schools have introduced Esperanto in order to test its propaedeutic value.
You can see details on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INCr1bV8kGk
Their new online course http://www.lernu.net has 125 000 hits per day and Esperanto Wikipedia enjoys 400 000 hits per day. That can’t be bad🙂
October 1, 2011 at 8:14 pm
As someone who has taught languages, I think it would be more useful if every child arrived at secondary school able to speak, read and write English sufficiently to be able to benefit from secondary education. Lessons in rudimentary syntactic analysis or an introduction to Latin would be useful, but it seems pointless to teach children a second language until they have mastered the basics of the official language of the UK.
If we were really sophisticated, we would remove language teaching from schools and introduce town language academies like the town music schools in the rest of Europe to be attended after school by those who had proven proficiency in English. Joining one of these would be as prestigious as being a member of a school sports team.
The only way of teaching a languages properly across the board at primary level is to teach half the school curriculum in the target language ab initio. Perhaps we should begin recruiting foreign graduates and training them to become early years teachers?
October 2, 2011 at 6:29 pm
I learned French in elementary, junior, and senior high school in the US in the 1960’s. Got a medal for it in high school, in fact. Do you think that I could as much as order a baguette in a patisserie in Paris when I visited more than 10 years ago?
There is value in learning another language, of course. But picking that language should not be left up to the various pedagogical fads that ebb and flow like the tide, twice in the 24 hours. French used to be taught because most educated people spoke it along with their own language, and France (and Québec) were the closest places that spoke it. I took a lot of Latin in high school, and my major at Columbia was Latin and Greek. Looking back, while I enjoyed it and still use it (translating Augustine with a group at the moment), I would have gotten much more out of Chinese. In 1970, anyone who majored in Chinese at Columbia would have automatically gotten a job with the CIA, and no one wanted that. A fad. I’m now too old (my own judgment after taking Chinese classes) to learn it well without moving there.
I think that there perhaps ought to be two or three languages (along with Latin, of course) taught at every primary and secondary school, with pupils learning the one they are most drawn to. It actually doesn’t matter which language they learn, as languages are not utensils, only good for what you can get out of them. They are windows into different cultures, and as long as pupils get a window, it doesn’t matter which.
Gove will probably have to lobby Theresa May to let in enough native speakers of various languages from other countries to teach. There goes the immigration cap again!
October 2, 2011 at 8:13 pm
What about Mandarin – might make more econmic and cultural sense?
October 2, 2011 at 9:59 pm
French may be out of fashion but half of Africa still use it and many people go to France on holiday. My kids learned German, French and Welsh. By A level they had all dropped them all in favour of science based subjects, which is where the jobs of the future will be. Me I’m doing French at night class, great fun. Au revoir.
October 4, 2011 at 5:21 pm
Probably not acceptable but I thought of this thread when someone posted me the latest crop of Grove jokes:
“A Swiss man, looking for directions, pulls up at a bus stop where two Brits are waiting.
“Entschuldigung, können Sie Deutsch sprechen?” he asks.
The two Brits just stare at him.
“Excusez-moi, parlez vous Fracais?” he tries.
The two continue to stare.
“Parlare Italiano?”
No response.
“Hablan ustedes Espanol?”
Still nothing.
The Swiss guy drives off, extremely disgusted. The first Brit turns to the second and says,
“Y’know, maybe we should learn a foreign language.”
“Why?” says the other. “That guy knew four languages, and it didn’t do him any good.”
October 4, 2011 at 7:39 pm
As a former Secondary Schoo;l Head I give a small cheer and wait for the reality.
In the 60s we introducedf Spanish. The candiddate who got the job was happy to introduce Spanish as the language of the classroom from day 1.
Like youngsters learn English hearing it and starting to use it.
October 5, 2011 at 6:09 am
I forgot to mention previously that the London Language Show will be held this year from 21st – 23rd October.
Tickets to the show are free, but you need to book using this link
http://www.thelanguageshow.co.uk/page.cfm/link=7
October 13, 2011 at 12:51 pm
[…] languages debate continues. Following earlier discussions on this blog – especially in the light of recent press reports on a podcast I’d made […]
September 7, 2012 at 9:29 am
Hi Nick,
as a fervent advocate of language learning, you may like to take a look at this advert posted by Berlin Volkshochschule on adult education.
Click on the link and then on the YouTube video at the bottom of the page:
http://www.berlin.de/vhs/kurse/sprachen/
Regards
Martin Lund