Let’s talk about: The state of language teaching in the UK
Perhaps you have a child unsure about their GCSE options this autumn, or you or someone in your family have mock exams in the coming year and need some motivation - rest assured, a brief glimpse on the headlines over language learning will provide this.
Since the Brexit referendum in 2016 (yes it was already that long ago!) there have been plenty of column inches spent on debating language learning, English as a foreign language, and how we should be prioritising teaching our children in a rapidly changing geo-political climate. One thing’s certain, Britain’s place within the EU is changing, and the best thing we can do is to remain part of the conversation, literally and figuratively.
In this blog, I’ll be gathering a few press clippings that have caught my eye in recent months, and sharing some of my own experience from my students, and key learnings from my former days as a language teacher in schools.
Leave a comment below if you’ve also got a story to share, or a viewpoint to air! I’d love to hear from you.
In April, as students broke up for the Easter holidays, typically a time for a lot of revision for GCSE students, this article from the Guardian got me thinking about how the government prioritises language learning in UK schools, and a fact many parents might be shocked about - that for many years now, UK schools have been turning to foreign governments to fund languages.
The article details how around 16,500 British primary school children pupils benefit from a scheme whereby Italian teachers have been paid by the Italian government to work in UK schools to promote the language. UK schools are increasingly turning to foreign governments to fund languages. The Portuguese embassy also pays for full-time Portuguese language teachers, albeit on a smaller scale, as do the Spanish embassy, who offer free material, resources, teacher training and advice for UK primary schools.
“Since 2014 it has been compulsory for all schools to teach a modern or ancient foreign language to children aged 7- 11. Yet progress has been patchy, at best. Last year’s Language Trends report by the British Council found that “languages remain a marginal subject which many primary schools find challenging to deliver alongside many other competing demands”.
Back in the 1990s, when I taught in British Forces in Germany I was seconded for two years to deliver German to our six primary schools and to provide the poor, over-worked primary teachers with training, so that they could teach their pupils German too. I know from this experience that primary school children just soak up language at that age and they had no inhibitions to speak it. I’m 100 per cent convinced that it’s the best time to learn a language, and this is why our counterparts in Germany, Sweden and Finland and Italy, for example, are so confident and competent in speaking English.
If we teach our children from a young age that learning a foreign language is an essential component of their education, (as it is a life skill, after all), then we could be up there with our friends over the Channel. Back in the UK I’ve had made several attempts to work alongside our primary colleagues to replicate the model I started in Germany, but SATs, league tables and a very tight curriculum have unfortunately hampered our efforts.
Relying on other countries to fund language learning in the UK is a trend that’s likely to continue, with the Goethe-Institute in London contacting 21,000 primary schools to help introduce German.
“We work with 200 primary schools: we give them free teaching and learning materials, which are designed for anyone, even if you don’t speak German,” says Karl Pfeiffer, director of educational links at the Goethe-Institute.
While the government has set a target of 90 per cent of pupils in English schools taking a language GCSE by 2025, progress on actually achieving this has been slow.
“The number of pupils sitting an A-level in a Modern Foreign Language have slumped, and in March the all-party parliamentary group on modern languages published a report with proposals on how to turn things around, including measures to improve language provision in primary schools. The report calls for compulsory language teaching from the age of five, a wider range of languages taught and for all schools to have a language assistant.”
This is a typical stunt by the government to ‘talk the talk’ about foreign language provision in the UK, as there are no concrete plans to fund this. The current workload of primary teachers is not fully acknowledged and there remain two crucial flaws with the making languages compulsory in our primary schools: who is going to have the knowledge and expertise to teach these? Are we finally going to make foreign languages compulsory at GCSE Level? What’s the point in languages becoming compulsory at primary level, just to dropped again at the age of 14?
This brings me to another press clipping that’s been on my mind, “Brexit Britain cannot afford to be laissez-faire about its languages crisis”, written by British Academy president David Cannadine.
Here Cannadine questions why, as a small island off the coast of mainland Europe, we remain famously bad at speaking other languages. A-level entries for languages are down by a third in 10 years, while recent analysis from the British Academy shows that between 2007-2008 and 2017-2018, the number of students studying languages at university has fallen by another half.
Yet more than half (58 per cent) of UK adults wish they hadn’t let the language skills they learned at school slip, 77 per cent agree that language skills increase employability and just over half (53 per cent) regret not having made the most of studying languages when they had the chance. Clearly we are a nation that values language learning, even if we have not always rushed to do it.
Whenever I teach adults to speak German or French, the first thing they say is that the regret not taking this subject seriously enough at school, or not taking it to exam level, as they now realise how their career opportunities could differ if they had a language to offer. Now that these adults are actually paying for tuition in their own time, face to face or online, their progress is always so dramatic; they now see the value in learning a foreign language.
Another part of this article really struck a chord with me: “At some point in our history, we seem to have accepted the idea that we do not need to learn languages and that we are not very good at them anyway. This is curious, given that we are an island nation that needs to trade to survive.”
It is quite clear that Brexit is changing the business landscape in Europe. Over 80 per cent of Yorschool’s clients are now businessmen either working in, or selling to Germany. They come from all corners of the Globe and have to come to use because they expect that post-Brexit, German, not English, will be the business language of Europe.
All of my current non English clients are fluent in English and yet they are still committing their time effort into learning how to speak German. What is also just as important here, is that their place of employment is funding the lessons and they take place during the working day. So do we want to be on the short list for a top job which could involve travel and business talk, or do we want to out of the running?
“Languages can no longer be regarded as an optional extra. Britain must meet this challenge head-on and prove to the world that it is, after all, an outward-looking, global nation.”
Which brings me to a final, and perhaps most inspiring press clipping from this brief overview, “Learn another European language”.
While we await a decision on Brexit, it’s helpful to focus on the benefits language learning brings, that will never change, no matter the result in October (or sooner):
“Speaking foreign languages is about meeting people halfway, building bridges and accepting differences – all skills sorely in need of some practice, judging by the current tone of public conversation [...] above all, languages open so many doors to understanding. There are few better ways of grasping why so many British negotiating gambits flop in Brussels than reading a German newspaper’s take on them.”
Whichever side you fall on for the Brexit debate, it’s hard to ignore this sentiment:
“It’s true that English remains the lingua franca of big tourist resorts and business conferences. But the trouble with grandly relying on everyone else to speak your language is that it can make you oddly vulnerable. What stubborn monoglots often don’t realise is that they will only ever hear as much as the people around them want them to hear; that private conversations and whispered asides will remain a closed book. If you really want to take back control, then learn a language, and with it the small covert thrill of eavesdropping on conversations that people don’t realise you can understand.”
“But it’s Brexit that could turn an abstract intellectual pleasure into a small private act of defiance, both for grieving Remainers and for those liberal leavers who actually meant what they said about leaving the EU but not leaving Europe. For those who can’t bear to see Britain defined by belligerent isolationism, who don’t want the rest of the world to think that this is who we are, then one tiny but practical way of showing it is brushing up on a European language and making a determined effort to use it. Cold comfort, obviously, for those who would rather Britain never left at all. But if the great rupture is coming, then we still have a choice over how culturally isolated we become. The least we can do is keep talking.”
For those students in Year 8 or 9 who are currently still considering taking a language at GCSE, this is the time to make the right decision for your future. From my experience as Head of MFL in a secondary school for 16 years, some find it difficult to justify taking a language when there are so many other Options, and especially when headlines are constantly telling us that GCSE Modern Foreign Language grades are lower than other subjects.
Learning a language is undoubtedly hard work, but I know from all of my feedback and years of teaching that it is such great fun at the same time, as it opens up a whole new world: the experience is enriched by learning about the country, culture, traditions, food and history, not to mention the fact that they we learn so much about our own language at the same time! Have you thought about taking the GCSE or A Level language option, but outside school? One to one or very small group lessons outside the conventional classroom are so much more enjoyable, rewarding and successful.
