Culture Section
New Rules on Foreign Languages in the Classroom by Bethonie
Waring
British people are not known for being multilingual, and this
could be our downfall. In this new age of globalisation, and
with the growing importance of economies like China, a report
warn that if our attitude to foreign languages doesn’t change,
the UK is likely to lose out economically and culturally.
The British council have published a list of the top ten
languages they believe people should learn, but A YouGov poll
of 4000 people found that only a quarter of people could use
any one of these languages to hold a conversation.
Being able to speak a foreign language is important for a wide
range of reasons, from finding your ideal job abroad to going
on holiday. Even the premier league are disappointed at our
lack of ability. The report was endorsed by the head of
education at the premier league: “Being able to speak another
language opens up a world of opportunities to play and coach
in football leagues across the globe”.
To try to counteract this, all schools in England will be
expected to teach language lessons to children aged seven to
eleven from September. The only problem with this is that many
of the teachers themselves do not have the language skills
necessary to teach. Almost a quarter of primary schools in the
country do not have any staff with a language qualification
higher than GCSE. Being taught a language by somebody who
themselves is not confident can be worse than not being taught
at all, it has been suggested
Personally, I was taught French from the age of 10 until I was
14 and do not have a GCSE level qualification in any foreign
language. Looking into the future, having chosen a career path
with most job opportunities abroad, this does not fill me with
confidence.
British Council Top 10 languages:
1 Spanish, 2 Arabic, 3 French, 4 Mandarin Chinese, 5 German, 6
Portuguese, 7 Italian, 8 Russian, 9 Turkish, 10 Japanese