DfES consultation document: Language Learning

Baroness Catherine Ashton
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for School Standards
Department for Education and Skills
Sanctuary Building
Great Smith Street
LONDON SW1P3BT

28 May 2002

‘There is no doubt that, despite the dominance of English as a world language, the ability to speak another language - or several languages - is increasingly important in our competitive and global economy.’ David Blunkett (in his foreword to the government’s response to the Nuffield Inquiry)

Dear Baroness Ashton,

DfES consultation document: Language Learning

I am writing to you as Secretary of the Association for French Language Studies, whose executive committee has studied the above Consultation Document and asked me to send you our collective response. The Association (set up in 1981) provides an international forum for research and scholarly discussion among those engaged in the study and teaching of French language and linguistics in Higher Education.

We note with satisfaction the Consultation Document’s guiding ambitions:

• all primary school children will be entitled to study languages by 2012;
• there will be at least 200 Specialist Language Colleges by 2005;
• all young people and adults will have the opportunity to learn languages and be motivated to do so;
• the number of people studying languages in further and higher education and in work-based training will increase;
• languages will be properly recognized and valued by society and competence will be recognized;
• local and regional networks will support primary schools and harness available resources to provide high quality language learning;
• our national capability in languages will be transformed;
• we will increase the number of people teaching languages, and be innovative about using expertise wherever we find it.

These are admirable aims which we fully endorse, and whose achievement we believe to be essential, if we are to redress the country's lagging capabilities in foreign languages, when compared to those of its neighbours. However, we seriously doubt whether the proposals set out in the Document will, in fact, achieve them. Indeed, some of the proposals, we fear, may substantially harm the provision of foreign languages in the nation's schools.

We will comment firstly on the changes proposed at Key Stage 2, before turning our attention to the changes suggested for Key Stage 4.

Primary entitlement (Key Stage 2)

The introduction, on a generalised basis, of foreign languages into primary schools is, of course, long overdue, but such a scheme can work only if languages are an integral (i.e. compulsory) part of the curriculum. Optionality is an unwise strategy for a number of reasons.

Firstly, optionality subverts one of the central aims of the Document's proposals, namely, to change perceptions of the importance of foreign languages, and to maximise their role in educating our children as citizens of the world, living in a multilingual and multicultural society. Optionality signals that languages do not in fact form a central part of our mission as educators, and that in Britain, unlike in the rest of Europe, foreign languages are merely a desirable extra. Moreover, while the potentially central role of foreign-language learning in supporting literacy (in any language, including the mother tongue) is quite rightly fore-fronted in the Document, it is difficult to see how this may be fulfilled effectively, if the teaching of foreign languages is excluded from the core of the curriculum.

Secondly, optionality risks impeding progression and motivation of pupils. The last attempt to introduce primary French failed, partly because of the difficulty of ensuring continuity from primary to secondary school. If pupils have to start the same language again it is demoralising. It would be important for the lessons of that time to be thoroughly digested before new plans are made. In order for language learning to be effective, at whatever level, pupils need to build systematically on what they have previously learned. They need to be constantly challenged and encouraged by carefully staged injections of new linguistic material. Although a clear sense of progression is provided by an accreditation strategy, we are concerned that secondary schools, already stretched to their limits as regards foreign language provision, will be unable to meet the diverse requirements of children arriving from primary school with different levels of linguistic knowledge. Putting children who have already done one or two years of a foreign language together with children who have not will have predictable deleterious effects: pupils with prior experience of the language will find their enthusiasm killed dead; newcomers to the language will feel a sense of underachievement and inadequacy before they have even started. Unless primary school provision is clearly integrated into a progressive foreign language curriculum, from year 1 to year x, it will do more harm than good. The central role of motivation in foreign language learning cannot be over-stated. Indeed, it lies at the heart of the nation's language problems.

A further point which needs to be made concerns human resources: it is not clear to us who is going to teach these primary school children, given the falling numbers of graduates with expertise in foreign languages. The widely held view that primary teachers with some basic knowledge of a foreign language (a crash course squeezed into the PGCE year?) will be adequate foreign language teachers reveals a dangerously limited understanding of how languages are learnt. Moreover, bringing in untrained native speakers is unlikely to fill the gap, unless they receive serious training in language pedagogy. In our view, it is of crucial importance that further deprofessionalisation of language learning and teaching be halted and that the foreign-language curriculum be based on sound research and practice, in the same way as is the case in maths or science. Furthermore, the materials (videos, books, tapes etc.) which would be required for primary foreign language education need to be developed and adequately resourced.

Key Stage 4

The Document ably identifies the various problems facing foreign languages at Key Stage 4, which need to be tackled if the fall in numbers of students studying languages post-16 is to be reversed. We fear, however, that the proposals contained in the Document may have effects contrary to the ones intended.

One of the Document's explicit objectives is to change the perception that, in a world where English has become the international lingua franca, UK citizens do not need foreign language-competence. Making languages optional at age 14 seems calculated to reinforce this prejudice rather than eradicate it. At a time when most countries in the EU are making two or even three foreign languages the norm in compulsory education, for us to reduce foreign language provision is surely perverse. Moreover, making a subject optional disadvantages it in a multitude of ways; firstly, it gets timetabled against other subjects and even those who want to do it would not always be able to. Secondly, schools under financial pressure are hardly likely to give priority to staffing for optional subjects, and if the department declines, fewer pupils are attracted to the subject, in a vicious circle. And thirdly, if the first foreign language is optional, the chances of any pupil studying two seems remote.

There is no doubt that it will leave our young people lagging behind in a European or global employment market where a knowledge of the local language is a basic requirement. It will do nothing to diminish their fear of job-mobility outside the UK. Throughout Europe, the language of the workplace is still overwhelmingly the native language of the country concerned. Hiding behind English as the 'universal language' is fundamentally misguided. Companies operating internationally are well aware of their need to understand what the natives are discussing and how they think, and of the dangers incurred by understanding only what the natives choose to tell them. Moreover, job-mobility across linguistic frontiers is no longer the prerogative of a university educated elite - plumber, electricians, woodworkers, nurses are all entitled to benefit from the opportunity to work abroad, bringing back to this country valuable hands-on experience of techniques and working practices elsewhere.

Few would doubt that the ‘languages for all’ policy has not seen the success we had hoped for. However, in its favour we should point out, firstly, that this policy is still fairly new, and has not had time to bed in properly, and secondly, that the problems experienced at KS4 are probably not due to the policy itself, but rather to shortcomings in the languages curriculum leading to GCSE. The demotivating impact on young people of GCSE is now well known and is attributable in part to the overemphasis on set routines during examinations, which downplay the crucial role of risk-taking and experimentation in language learning. Pupils are made to learn routines (usually on fairly mundane topics such as home, family, travel, hobbies, which they will revisit time and again) from which they must not deviate in case they make mistakes. This failure in the design of the curriculum and of modes of assessment stems, in our view, from an inadequate understanding of the complex processes involved in foreign languages learning. It is our belief that solutions to the problems experienced at KS4 can be found if the will is there and if research into language-teaching methodology at this level is given the appropriate priority. Optionality is emphatically not the solution: many KS4 pupils do not like Maths nor are they very good at it; but this does not mean that Maths should become optional for them.

In conclusion, as well as reiterating our misgivings about the proposals for optionality in language teaching provision contained in this Document, we would draw attention to the damaging consequences such a policy will have in higher education. A reduced pool of sixth-formers taking languages will result either in the reduction of the number of graduates in this subject - the prime source of secondary teachers - or a watering down of degree content which will impact adversely on the general educational level of the community. Knowing one or two foreign languages is a normal qualification for any citizen hoping to thrive in Europe and in an increasingly global work-place. It is also essential for the economic and cultural well-being of society as a whole, at all levels.

Yours sincerely,