Language learning in schools: Is Britain at odds with the rest of the EU?
As a professional translator, I clearly place value on the learning of foreign language skills in schools. They bring obvious practical benefits (the ability to communicate when in a foreign country, to order a beer, to book a hotel room, to say "hello" and "thank you" to overseas business partners), but they also bring educational benefits - there is research that shows that learning a second language stretches and develops parts of the brain which (to borrow a line from the old Heineken advert) other subjects cannot reach.
The EU clearly recognises this, too, and has today announced that they would like to encourage member states to ensure that 80% of pupils in secondary education should be learning two European languages by the year 2020.
Meantime, in Britain (and most especially in England), the number of pupils taking a GCSE exam in languages is plummeting. Even more shockingly, the BBC claims that only 45% of secondary schools in England are in a position to teach two foreign languages to GCSE standard. This is really not good for Britain's long-term future, not good for our schools, and not good for the employability of English youngsters in a job market that is becoming increasingly international.
I may be a linguist, but I also studied maths when I was at school. So I can see that the figures reflect the decline of language learning in England: Across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, there were 216,718 for foreign languages in 2007. In 2008, that figure had dropped to 201,940. Because I had to study a range of subjects at school, I can recognise that this represents a drop of roughly 7% in one single year. And sadly, that merely reflects the trend. Equally sadly, very, very few British schoolchildren could even attempt to read out the number in French (the number of pupils taking French at GCSE has fallen by 30% since it stopped being compulsory for over-14s to learn French in 2004).
So what happened? Well, back in 2002, the British government decided that studying modern languages should no longer be compulsory in secondary schools. I have often wondered why, and in February 2009 BBC News quoted the then-Education Secretary Estelle Morris as saying - well, read her comments yourself. I read it as saying "Truants told us they didn't like going to school because they didn't like having to learn foreign languages." So she did away with the compulsory learning of modern languages. (Interestingly, Ms Morris did not abolish compulsory schooling, which would surely have been the more logical conclusion!).
I despair!
As a professional translator, I clearly place value on the learning of foreign language skills in schools. They bring obvious practical benefits (the ability to communicate when in a foreign country, to order a beer, to book a hotel room, to say "hello" and "thank you" to overseas business partners), but they also bring educational benefits - there is research that shows that learning a second language stretches and develops parts of the brain which (to borrow a line from the old Heineken advert) other subjects cannot reach.
The EU clearly recognises this, too, and has today announced that they would like to encourage member states to ensure that 80% of pupils in secondary education should be learning two European languages by the year 2020.
Meantime, in Britain (and most especially in England), the number of pupils taking a GCSE exam in languages is plummeting. Even more shockingly, the BBC claims that only 45% of secondary schools in England are in a position to teach two foreign languages to GCSE standard. This is really not good for Britain's long-term future, not good for our schools, and not good for the employability of English youngsters in a job market that is becoming increasingly international.
I may be a linguist, but I also studied maths when I was at school. So I can see that the figures reflect the decline of language learning in England: Across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, there were 216,718 for foreign languages in 2007. In 2008, that figure had dropped to 201,940. Because I had to study a range of subjects at school, I can recognise that this represents a drop of roughly 7% in one single year. And sadly, that merely reflects the trend. Equally sadly, very, very few British schoolchildren could even attempt to read out the number in French (the number of pupils taking French at GCSE has fallen by 30% since it stopped being compulsory for over-14s to learn French in 2004).
So what happened? Well, back in 2002, the British government decided that studying modern languages should no longer be compulsory in secondary schools. I have often wondered why, and in February 2009 BBC News quoted the then-Education Secretary Estelle Morris as saying - well, read her comments yourself. I read it as saying "Truants told us they didn't like going to school because they didn't like having to learn foreign languages." So she did away with the compulsory learning of modern languages. (Interestingly, Ms Morris did not abolish compulsory schooling, which would surely have been the more logical conclusion!).
I despair!
posted by Nick at 1:05 PM
4 Comments:
This is terrible, Nick. And how do you read 'we are making languages compulsory in primary schools from 2011 - this will help instil an early love of languages that they can carry through to secondary school.'?
Sounds to me like they will be getting unqualified junior school teachers to teach French and Spanish badly and possibly even put people off even more!
Margaret (transblawg.eu)
Hi Margaret,
Actually, I can comment first-hand here: My son is at primary school, and he is learning French there this year. They teach it in a way that is fun, involving, and which awakens their curiosity and makes the kids want to know more about France and the people who live there. So there is hope yet!
While you're busy reforming primary and secondary education in the UK, perhaps you could include another language in your campaign, which also is no longer being taught properly in our schools: that's English. (That's my personal rant.)
Hi there,
this is a very interesting subject. I had heard that the UK took the decision that learning a language didn't have to be compulsory any more. Well, many people don't know that! So I was looking for some information. I am glad to know from this blog that from 2011 it will be compulsory again, and I agree with David that many people use English improperly, even in written texts for publishing, press releases, direct marketing; they say it works, but are we sure? As a professional translator from EN>IT, many times I had to do the proofreading of the English text before going ahead with the translation; this costs money for the translation agency because they have to pay for extra work, time and money for me when (often) I don't get paid for that extra work, but above all image reputation for the company that text belongs to because the majority of the time they will publish the text will errors in. And I am talking about texts produced by advertising companies or marketing professionals. The other element to consider is that learning another language opens people's mind and let them realize that what works in a language doesn't necessarily do in another. And this principle is valid in society too. To be honest, the only danger I can see for the future (because it is already present today) is that whoever has learnt French, Spanish or Italian at school will be assigned translation projects, leading to the same worst result when a company wants to promote its services in the international arena. Teachers have also a great impact, so hopefully they will be tested and will be able to communicate the passion for languages to their students; which is what happened to me. Thanks for sharing your opinion.
Silvia
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