That doesn't mean
that the idea is without merit. Indeed,
in principle it's something I'd support.
There are one or two little difficulties with it however.
The first is that
so few primary school teachers are themselves fluent enough in a foreign
language to teach it. There's a "chicken
and egg" question there, obviously.
How do we make sure that our adults are multilingual if we don't teach
them languages as children; and how do we teach the children without the
multilingual adults? It's not an
insuperable problem, but neither can the cycle be broken by simply passing a
new law changing the curriculum.
The NUT
representative was also right to draw attention to the already over- full
curriculum. (And that's something given
a further relevance by the proposal put forward by some in the wake of the
Olympic Games that children should have six hours of sport every week.)
Again the
curriculum should not be an insuperable problem - other countries manage it
after all - but there does seem to be something of a trend amongst politicians
to be forever tinkering with the curriculum. And it’s invariably about adding to it, not
taking away.
But my biggest
concern is about how effective such a policy would be. The Tories talked glibly about Wales
now becoming a bilingual nation, and aiming to become trilingual. Worthy words.
However, that glosses over the fact that the teaching of Welsh as a
second language in our schools has been a massive failure to date.
Children are
leaving primary schools in Wales -- even so-called Category A schools, where
Welsh is supposed to be the medium of instruction - unable to function in
Welsh. Most people involved in the
system know that; but few are willing to say it.
It isn't inevitable
that this should be so; nor is it a reason, in itself, not to try and teach
other languages as well. It is, though,
a reason to look at how we teach languages and how we can do so more
effectively. If we can't teach two
languages effectively where both of those languages are highly visible and in
use every day around us, there seems little hope that we will add a third and
teach it effectively.
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My grandchildren (English mother, German/Dutch father) live south of Brussels. They speak English and German fluently at home - at 4 and 6 - and the eldest goes to a Dutch speaking school where she'll also learn French.
I am barely fluent in English, have spent 15 years not learning Welsh and am grateful for my bad, school, French and German.
Guess who is better off?
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