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<h1 class="gmail-headline gmail-semi-loud">Teachers ‘ill-prepared’ for primary language strategy</h1>
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<p class="gmail-hero-caption"><span class="gmail-x-small">Teachers are
concerned the Scottish Government's languages strategy lacks focus and
that training is variable for primary teachers</span></p>
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<span class="gmail-timestamp gmail-formatTimeStamp">14 hrs ago</span>
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<a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/author/profile/76703.Andrew_Denholm/" class="gmail-author-name gmail-primary-color gmail-loud">Andrew Denholm</a>
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<a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15153661.Teachers____ill_prepared____for_primary_language_strategy/#comments-anchor" class="gmail-small gmail-comments-button"><span class="gmail-fa gmail-fa-comments"></span> 5 comments</a>
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<p>TEACHERS have warned an ambitious strategy to expand language learning in Scottish primary schools lacks direction.</p><p>The Educational Institute of <a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/search/?search=Scotland&topic_id=8820" target="_self">Scotland</a> (EIS) teaching union said training for school staff was variable and had led to lower confidence levels in some areas.</p><p>The criticism centres on the Scottish <a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/search/?search=Government&topic_id=8816" target="_self">Government</a>’s
flagship 1+2 languages policy under which 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>The government
has argued primaries should incorporate as large a pool of languages as
possible, including Portuguese, Punjabi, Urdu and Polish.</p><div class="gmail-teads-inread" style="width:100%"><div><div class="gmail-teads-ui-components-label">ADVERTISING</div><div class="gmail-teads-ui-components-credits"><a href="http://teads.tv/inread-outstream/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span class="gmail-teads-ui-components-credits-colored">inRead</span> invented by Teads</a></div></div></div><p>However,
critics say schools and teacher training universities need a much
smaller group of languages to focus on to ensure continuity of study and
expertise among staff.</p><p>In a letter to
councils, Andrea Bradley, EIS assistant secretary for education, said
information from primary teachers had identified training that was not
of a consistently appropriate standard.</p><p>She
said members had highlighted a “lack of direction” as to which
languages would be taught at which stage as well as “variable quality of
teachers’ experience of training course delivery”.</p><p>She
also said there was “inconsistency” in the duration of training courses
and therefore inconsistency in “outcomes for our members in terms of
their levels of confidence to teach foreign languages”.</p><p>She
added: “The EIS therefore calls upon all local authorities to work with
Scottish Government to address the issues that are raised here, with a
view to ensuring coherence of approach and adequate resourcing in order
that the worthy aims of the policy can be met.”</p><p>The concerns were echoed by Gillian Campbell-Thow, chairwoman of the Scottish Association for Language Teaching.</p><p>She
said: “We have raised the issues of training before and we agree there
is variable access and quality. A lack of staffing available at
authority level to lead this is a huge issue.</p><p>“There
are example of authorities sharing training resources, but the needs of
linguistically competent teachers are not being met and there are
instances of teachers with degrees in languages having to attend courses
for total beginners.”</p><p>A Scottish
Government spokesman said local authorities were making good progress
towards expanding and improving language learning in schools through
1+2.?</p><p>He added: “We have provided £21.2
million directly to local authorities over the last three years to help
them implement 1+2, recognising the importance of teacher professional
development within this.</p><p>“We welcome
increased collaboration and strategic planning both within and across
local authority areas as a key means of establishing sustainable,
high-quality provision over time.”</p><p>The
1+2 policy was introduced against a backdrop of a historic decline in
the number of pupils taking modern language Higher exams which has put
some such as Russian and German at risk.</p><p><a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15153661.Teachers____ill_prepared____for_primary_language_strategy/">http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15153661.Teachers____ill_prepared____for_primary_language_strategy/</a><br></p></div></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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