“We need to make more of our children multilingual”

“We need to make more of our children multilingual”

Thus ran the Daily Telegraph’s headline (October 19) over an article by Peter Tait, former headmaster of Sherborne School.

The article contained all the usual “mom and apple pie” arguments on why our children should be learning foreign languages: “You can never understand one language until you understand at least two”. Well, hurrah for that little gem.

The paper reported that: “In 2012, the Minister of Education announced that from September 2014 it would be compulsory for children aged 7 to 11 years to learn a foreign language.

This ambitious plan, a product of Michael Gove’s term in office and endorsed by his successor as Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, was intended to close the gap between the British education system and school systems abroad, as well as the yawning gulf between state and independent schools in their language provision.”

There followed a cascade of clichés from the great and the good: “best start in life”, “opens up the world”, “compete in the world job market” and of course “improves the brain”.

All these are true of course but it doesn’t alter the fact that fewer and fewer young people are studying languages, and why should they? Apart from President Xi Jinping, currently looking to snap up any part of England not already in the hands of the French or Germans, everyone speaks English. It’s the international language.

The problem in the UK is that only independent schools seem to be really keen on enthusing pupils to study languages. In the state sector, with few exceptions, it seems to be a lost cause. Providing you can order a ham sandwich in the French oral exam, you’ll probably get your A level.

In the past grammar schools did an excellent job of fostering language learning. One of my contemporaries became a highly respected language teacher, with several text books to his name. Another became a university lecturer. Of course then, A levels were much more rigorous than they appear to be today.

If you chose languages for your A level year, you were immersed in the language: translating into (prose) and out of (unseen). Plus, there was a solid dose of literature which required lengthy essays in the exam itself. In French for example, our set books were Flaubert’s Trois Contes, Racine’s Andromaque, Silberman, by Jacques de Lacretelle, and Le Pilote by Edouard Peisson. The German set books were even more daunting: Der Schimmelreiter by Theodor Storm, Leben des Galilei by Bertolt Brecht and Wallensteins Tod by Friedrich Schiller.

When, a few years ago, I gave a talk on languages at a local school, I was met with a blank stare of incomprehension when I asked what the set books were for A levels.

There are glimmers of hope. Concerned parents welcome any initiative to improve language skills. It should start in primary schools but at the moment there is a dearth of qualified language teachers. Perhaps language teachers, especially if they are men (85% of primary school teachers are women) should be paid more. A solution unlikely to be welcomed. One reason perhaps why independent schools seem to be successful in language teaching is that there is simply a better male – female teacher balance. Perhaps we should introduce gender equality in the class room.

There are some useful ideas out there. Schools are looking to the wider community for support and assistance. Technology is another way forward helping students appreciate foreign culture. The BBC is helping too, with the popularity of “Scandi noir” which had led to French and Italian series being shown with subtitles, something that would have been unheard of 20 years ago outside art cinema circles.

It will be a tough uphill battle but there are grounds for optimism.

Or perhaps not. “Teachers go back to the classroom for grammar lessons because so many of them lack skills to help primary school pupils prepare for new tests” ran a recent headline.

If you have no grammar, it is incredibly difficult to explain, for example, how German nouns and adjectives (what are they??) change according to what they do in the sentence. The German for “the” for example (in its masculine form – still with me?) can appear as “den”, “des” and “dem” and that’s only in the singular. As for German verbs, why does the past participle always end up at the end of the sentence?

A special test has been devised to bring such teachers up to speed. Sample question: Re-write the following sentence in the passive voice: “The pouring rain drenched us.”

Another question: Complete the following sentence so it uses the subjunctive form: “If I

—— to have one wish, it would be for good health.”

This looks like the latest instalment in what will be a long-running saga about the status of grammar and spelling in our schools.

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