[EDLING:2165] The Observer: Language lessons for all primary pupils

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Language lessons for all primary pupils
Lord Dearing says dull lessons should be changed to overturn foreign languages crisis
Anushka Asthana, education correspondent
Sunday December 10 2006
The Observer


Languages such as French, German and Spanish should be taught compulsorily in primary schools and made more interesting at secondary level, Lord Dearing is expected to say in his interim report on language teaching, to be published this week.

Dull lessons are causing pupils to switch off and have created a crisis in language teaching, with the UK performing dismally on a world scale, experts have told Dearing during his inquiry into the problem. On Thursday he is likely to say lessons need to be made more engaging to persuade pupils to take part.

However, campaigners do not expect him to call for ministers to reverse the controversial decision to make languages optional at 14. 'We expect Lord Dearing to recommend to ministers that languages are embedded in the national curriculum for primary schools,' a spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills, anticipating the report, said. Lessons for older children should be more 'sexy, engaging and contemporary', using events such as the Olympics to glamorise them, he is likely to add.

Teachers feel that pupils are not encouraged to learn languages because these are viewed as difficult, irrelevant and boring, a poll has revealed. The survey of members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), which has been submitted to Dearing, showed that pupils preferred to take 'easy' options such as media, dance or PE and felt English would be enough for them.

The poll also found that most teachers supported making languages compulsory throughout. While 84.6 per cent felt pupils should have to study the subjects at secondary school, 69.5 per cent thought they should at primary school. The UK currently ranks second to bottom in the European Union in terms of the numbers who can speak a foreign language, behind only Hungary.

Critics have attacked the government for allowing students to drop the subjects at 14 because this has caused a dramatic slump in the numbers taking them at GCSE. Wolfgang Mackiewicz, president of the European Language Council, said the decision was 'sheer madness.' He said: 'When you are 15 you cannot know whether you will need a language.'

But Baroness Estelle Morris, who made the decision when she was Education Secretary, has defended it, pointing out that she also called for primary schools to do more to teach languages. Dearing's report is likely to take that one step further.

That will not be enough to convince the likes of Mackiewicz. He said there was not yet sufficient evidence to show teaching younger children carried over to adult life.

Others agreed that more was needed. Last week 50 leading academics wrote a letter to The Observer calling for the government to reverse its 'crazy' policy. They later sent the letter, with signatories from an additional 20 universities, to Lord Dearing, who responded by saying there was a 'wide variety' of views on the issue and he would wait to gather responses to his interim report.

Ray Satchell, director of the University of Bristol Language Centre, who signed the letter, said that he supported teaching primary school children languages. 'But I worry it is at the expense of kids dropping them at 14. I get students studying medicine and science who regret dropping them and need to recoup them.'

On Friday Satchell gathered comments from students who had taken up foreign languages at university because they felt they were under-taught at school. 'Languages open doors in the working world,' said one.

'We would like to see all children [taught languages] throughout their whole school career, up to 18,' said Linda Parker, director of the Association for Language Learning. 'We do support this in primary but our main concern is secondary.' However, she said teaching languages need not be limited to GCSEs.

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