UK: Cambridge University's decision to cease insisting that its candidates had to have studied a language at school

[Harold Schiffman]

[snip]

In itself, Cambridge University's decision to cease insisting that its
candidates had to have studied a language at school was inevitable and
unsurprising. After all, every other university had already done the
same. Yet to me it seemed a symbol: of the vanishing of a bygone age
in Britain, when knowing another language was a Good Thing, something
to be proud of and sought after, somewhere between desirable and
necessary.

There was, of course, no such golden age, but surely we have now
reached a nadir in our attitude to languages other than our own. It
was Lord Dearing who put the final boot in; his report last year
failed to propose that learning a foreign language should be
compulsory for the GCSE. Instead, students are allowed to drop
languages at 14, which an increasing number of them do. Those who do
carry on to GCSE with a language will no longer have to do an oral
exam, it was announced last month. Why? Oral exams are too stressful
(really, that was the reason given). Instead, there would be regular
assessments. That was not dumbing down, said the schools minister. Oh
yeah?

I won't go on with the many other examples of the degradation of
language teaching and learning. What makes me particularly angry about
the abandonment of other tongues is the arrogance that lies behind it.
Why learn another language when English has become the international
language of business, finance, trade, new technology, the internet,
etc? Why bother with Johnny Foreigner's lingo? He has to speak ours.

[snip]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/19/law

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