25 March 2014 - Foreign languages in UK schools
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Primary pupils will be forced to drop their foreign language studies once they reach secondary school
Richard Garner (The Independent)
More than 400,000 pupils a year will have to drop the languages they have studied from the age of seven once they move to secondary school, says a report out today.
Just 27 per cent of secondary schools are able to guarantee that pupils can carry on with the same language, while 46 per cent of primary schools admit they have had no contact with neighbouring secondary schools to find out what languages they teach.
The report, by the British Council and CfBT Education Trust, talks of a “systemic dysfunction” in the relation between primary and secondary schools which, it says, is “a grave cause for concern and cannot help but negatively impact on pupils”.
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Related
Anna Codrea-Rado (The Guardian)
The decline in modern foreign languages in Wales is a social exclusion issue, according to the director of the Welsh national centre for languages (CILT Cymru).
"In 1995, 55% of pupils in Wales took a GCSE in a foreign language, now the figure stands at 22% and in areas of high social deprivation, like Blaenau Gwent, it's 11%," Ceri James said.
James, speaking at an all-party parliamentary group meeting at the House of Lords on Wednesday, expressed his concern at the Welsh government's decision to remove a modern foreign languages (MFL) unit in the Welsh Baccalaureate (Welsh Bacc).
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What if English were a foreign language?
Keith Perry (The Telegraph)
A comprehensive school where native English speakers are in a minority is to start teaching English as a foreign language to all of its pupils.
Teachers at City of Leeds School, a multi-ethnic secondary plan to teach English as a second language even to its British-born pupils in a radical attempt to improve standards at the 314-pupil secondary judged to 'require improvement' by Ofsted.
Head teacher Georgiana Sale said the school was having to “rethink the way we do things” because less than a quarter of pupils have English as their first language and the majority of the children were new to the country within the past four years.
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Context
Staff (BBC)
All schools in England will be expected to give seven to 11-year-olds language lessons from September.
But the annual Languages Trends Survey, which polled 591 primary schools, showed many teachers were not confident about the changes.
The government said its reforms were "driving a languages revival".
The study, published by the CfBT Education Trust and the British Council, examined the state of foreign language learning in English schools in 2013-14.
It found that in 23% of primary schools surveyed, the highest language qualification held by teachers was a GCSE - while 31% said they had teachers with an A-level in a foreign language.
Just 30% of those polled had a teacher with a language degree - down from 40% last year.
One teacher said: "Most staff feel ill-equipped to teach foreign languages. As a teacher you want to feel confident that you know your subject matter well.
"A rusty O-level and only being a page or two ahead of the children is not ideal."
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"25 March 2014 - Foreign languages in UK schools", La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), mars 2014. Consulté le 26/04/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/key-story/archives-revue-de-presse-2014/25-march-2014-foreign-languages-in-uk-schools