LAST month, the UK government launched a scheme called Children’s Plan to help improve children’s life over the next 10 years. The measures include one that focuses on foreign languages teaching in primary schools, the Daily Telegraph has reported.
According to the plan, compulsory teaching of foreign languages will be introduced in primary schools from 2010. The foreign language teaching may not involve formal lessons but children can see school dinner menus printed in different languages or registers read in French or Spanish so that they become used to different languages. Ed Balls, British Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, said young children were more receptive to learning another language. “Evidence shows forcing 15- and 16-year-olds to learn a foreign language doesn’t work,” he added.
The UK National Union of Teachers (NUT) was in favor of the foreign languages teaching policy, but it warned that primary schools would struggle to introduce modern languages because of a lack of trained classroom staff. John Bangs, the union’s head of education, questioned whether teachers would receive proper training or resources. He also doubted whether the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) had thought through the problem of continuity between primary and secondary schools, in that it was unclear whether 11-year-olds arriving at secondaries after starting different languages at different primaries would all have to start at the beginning again. “We are concerned that head teachers will feel under pressure to introduce modern foreign languages because of the statutory requirement. Teachers will come under stress but the real point is that it will be badly taught,” added Bangs.
In early December 2007, Jim Knight, British Minister of State for Schools and Learners, announced ￡53 million ($105 million) to improve languages teaching in 2008 and 2009 — ￡35 million ($69 million) of it for primary schools. A spokeswoman for the DCSF said an increase of ￡5 million ($10 million) on funding levels for this year would go towards specialist teachers, training and teaching resources. Balls revealed that the UK government had already trained 2,000 primary school teachers to teach foreign languages and a further 4,000 would be trained imminently. On the issue of continuity, Knight has urged primary and secondary schools to work together to support children as they transfer.
