<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="">'Learning Chinese in schools is irrelevant to children'</h1>
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<div class=""><div class=""><a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/andrew-denholm"><img src="http://www.heraldscotland.com/sites/default/files/Andy-Denholm-wee.jpg"></a></div><div id="article-byline" class=""><a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/andrew-denholm" rel="foaf:publications" content="Andrew Denholm">Andrew Denholm</a></div><div class="">Education Correspondent</div></div>
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Saturday 1 November 2014
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<p>THE current fashion for learning Chinese languages in Scottish schools is misplaced, an academic has warned.</p>
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<img src="http://www.heraldscotland.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/400xY/2014/11/25755224.jpg" alt="BRANCHING OUT: As well as teaching European languages, some schools have "Confucius classrooms"." title="BRANCHING OUT: As well as teaching European languages, some schools have "Confucius classrooms"." class="">
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<span class="">BRANCHING OUT: As well as teaching European languages, some schools have "Confucius classrooms".</span>
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<p>Dr Dan Tierney, a reader in languages at Strathclyde University, said
Mandarin was hard to learn at first and had less relevance to pupils
than European languages.</p>
<p>Instead, Mr Tierney believes the Scottish Government should focus
resources on languages such as French, Spanish, German and Italian in
primary schools to ensure more pupils take up the subjects.</p><div class="">
<p>His comments come on the eve of a major conference in Glasgow on
the future of language learning, hosted by the Scottish Association for
Language Teaching, where he is delivering the keynote address. The past
few years have seen a network of "Confucius classrooms" set up at
schools across Scotland under an initiative funded by the Chinese
Government to generate interest in the country's language and culture.</p>
<p>The classrooms teach not only Mandarin, but also calligraphy, dance, music and traditions such as the tea ceremony.</p>
<p>Mr Tierney said: "I question the current focus on Mandarin because,
although there are a lot of Chinese speakers in the world, it is a
difficult language to learn to begin with and there is less chance of
Scottish pupils travelling to China or needing it in the future.</p>
<p>"Learning a bit of Mandarin might be fun, but we should be
identifying a few languages that are the most important to us and
getting behind those. In terms of export markets, the languages needed
for employment and the countries pupils are most likely to visit, then
France, Spain, Germany and Italy are the ones we should be focusing on."</p>
<p>Mr Tierney will use his speech today to criticise the Scottish
Government's current strategy to increase language learning - known as
1+2.</p>
<p>Under the 1+2 policy, primary pupils are to be taught at least two
modern languages in addition to their mother tongue, starting in the
first year of schooling and adding a second foreign language no later
than P5.</p>
<p>Michael Russell, the Education Secretary, has backed plans for
primary schools to incorporate as large a pool of languages as
possible, including Portuguese, Punjabi, Urdu and Polish. Mr Tierney
said schools and teacher training universities needed a much smaller
group of languages to focus on to ensure continuity of study and
expertise among staff. </p>
<p>He added: "We should also be looking at finishing the work already
done to improve language learning in the upper years of primary school
to make sure that works before embarking on this highly ambitious
approach further down the school."</p>
<p>A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: "Our ambitious
languages policy will enable every child in Scotland to learn two
languages in addition to their mother tongue by 2020 and underlines our
commitment to supporting a future workforce in a global, multi-cultural
world.</p>
<p>"It is a long-term policy and is one which we are committed to
delivering, which is why we have invested an additional £5 million in
2014/15, on top of last year's £4m, to enable local authorities to begin
to implement the work."</p>
<p>The latest concern follows a historic decline in the number of pupils taking modern language Higher exams.</p>
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