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Foreign languages have always been a problem in the UK, but never more
so than now. In an age where the monoglot is likened to the illiterate,
government policy is confused and the results are worrying.
A few months ago, the government announced that it was planning to use
untrained teachers from the newcomer communities to teach foreign languages
in schools. The thinking behind this seems to be no more than that, as
we have a large number of newcomers who would be grateful for the work,
we could attempt to teach languages on the cheap. It doesn't suggest much
thinking about which languages should be taught, nor about the quality
of the tuition. Fortunately, this idea, like so many of the initiatives
floated by the DfES, seems to have disappeared; many of their initiatives
seem to be little more than an attempt to get something into the media
that suggests they are working hard. Selection of foreign language is
desperately important, yet at this stage they seemed content merely to
have a cheap, untrained person with a command of any foreign language
in the classroom.
Since then, sadly, things have got worse. Now, they plan to make the
learning of a foreign language optional
rather than compulsory. Even though we are members of the polyglot
European Union and are in a globalised society, the government thinks
that foreign languages are optional. There are calls for foreign langiages
to be important but not examined.
An educational policy that changes every few months without any clear
direction, and dropping standards, is not the way ahead. Even though English
is the lingua franca of the world, teaching foreign languages is a vital
part of education, yet it is being downgraded. It is impossible to state
what the government policy is because it keeps changing; there is no clarity,
no vision, just flapping around in thevain hope that something might work,
just so long as it's cheap.
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