Education Secretary Michael Gove has announced his desire to see foreign languages taught in schools from age five. As a foreign language fan myself – I speak French, German and occasional Spanish – I emphatically agree that we need urgently to address our country’s dismal performance in this area. In common with our Eurovision Song Contest entries, our attempts to learn languages lead us straight to the bottom of the charts.
Learning a foreign language broadens horizons by offering a practical, portable skillset, teaching children about other cultures and ultimately opening up career opportunities outside the UK. Is that not enough? OK, here’s more: learning a foreign language boosts the brain’s processing speed, strengthens synapses, and expands or creates functional networks within the brain. In other words, learning a foreign language builds a better brain.
Unfortunately, Gove’s functional networks were on a go-slow the day he came up with his plan to infuse the nation’s children with je-ne-sais-quoi because it turns out to be not so much a considered piece of policy as a piece of empty, teacher-beating rhetoric.
Who is going to be teaching these foreign languages? We don’t have enough trained teachers with the necessary foreign language knowledge. Before the millennium, when FL teachers were in short supply, if you had been to Alicante for a short break and could stutter out the phrase, “No hablo español,” you were given your very own Spanish dictionary and timetabled for GCSE Spanish four times a week. The current primary initiative has, in Trafford anyway, resulted in language learning being led by non-teachers in the form of foreign assistants, who are undertrained and do not have the skillset necessary to devise and develop a programme of learning.
Gove intends to extend the school day by up to an hour per day in order to deliver his vision of shiny, happy language learners across the nation.No money has been committed to Gove’s scheme/ scam (delete as per political preference), so Gove plans to make teachers do it for free! Yes, when money is scarce, simply get some free work from the professionals (doesn’t that make them amateurs?).
Last year the government itself found that primary school teachers work a 50 hour week on average . Never mind the blah about copious holidays; if you work 50 hours per week during term time, that averages nearly 39 hours per week EVERY SINGLE WEEK OF THE YEAR, which in effect cancels out nearly all their holidays. So these are the people Gove is going to make work significantly harder – for free – because young teachers, “want to work as long as it takes to help children succeed,” in contrast, he says, to “staffroom voices saying ‘don’t go the extra mile’.
This is hugely insulting to thousands of experienced teachers. Let me tell you, full time classroom teaching is very, very strenuous: by Friday afternoon, you feel as though you have run a marathon. Adding to the workload in a profession that comes fourth in the stressful jobs league table is not sustainable. I hope it goes without saying that teachers are, as a profession, completely committed to their pupils’ success.
So to conclude then, Michael Gove wants children to learn foreign languages from teachers who don’t speak any and are exhausted, overworked and doing it for free. Bonne chance, Mr Gove, bonne chance.
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