UK: French is no longer enough

[Francis Hult]

Guardian

 

French is no longer enough


Britain is multilingual yet there are few teachers of community languages and even fewer training courses

 

>>From right to left on the whiteboard Shazia Siddique writes the names of the five seasons in Urdu - yes there are five, including the rainy season - and explains to her attentive class of year 9s that by the end of the lesson they should be able to read, write and speak about them fluently. 

 

Her class in Lister community school in east London is very much an exception to the rule and, based on present trends, that is unlikely to change. A new report published by Ofsted found that in 2007 just 35 individuals were training to teach Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Mandarin, Punjabi, Turkish and Urdu, and that no courses existed for training to teach Gujurati.

 

Full story:

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2266120,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=8

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