UK: Mon dieu - A-levels axe foreign literary greats

[Harold Schiffman]

 Forwarded From edling at lists.sis.utsa.edu


Times Online



Mon dieu - A-levels axe foreign literary greats



BRECHT and Molière may have taken their last bow for A-level students. Set
texts by classic European authors are to be axed from modern language
A-levels offered by English exam boards. Voltaire, Pushkin and Mann are
among dozens of established authors who have fallen victim to a shift
towards studying the contemporary culture of countries. From September
pupils will no longer have the option to study set texts; instead, they will
write a short essay on a literary subject of their choosing.The dumping of
the pantheon of foreign literary greats - together with a wider down-grading
of literature - has driven some of Britain's leading academic schools,
including Eton and Winchester, to abandon foreign language A-levels. It has
also sparked accusations that the education authorities are "amputating"
Britain from its European cultural heritage. "Where literature is remotely
present [in the new A-levels], there are no prescribed texts and its
position is optional and marginal," said Josep-Lluis Gonzalez, head of
modern languages at Eton, in Berkshire. Eton is one of 16 schools that have
dropped modern languages A-levels in favour of a new, more traditional exam,
the PreU.

"Language teaching has a double nature - oral fluency and sophistication.
The sophistication is now being dumbed down," said Gonzalez.



Full story:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article3466757.ece


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Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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