>One academic said language learning improves brain health and reduces prejudice.
Meh, I’m not sure it’s that important. I’d presume most people who move abroad move to some city full of expats where even locals know English, like Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Stockholm or Copenhagen, and eventually if they stay there long term learn the local language as well. Yes, knowing another language well does open some opportunities, but rest of western world is so divided in what the main language there is that I’m not sure any single language will help that much.
Just be like the most of the nation when abroad, speak slowly and loudly with the expectation *they* should have learnt English by adulthood.
The problem with learning a language is if you have no reason to use it you lose it. I studied German for my GCSEs but, aside from times I have visited Austria, I haven’t had reason to speak German and the knowledge is disappearing. My mum used to be almost fluent in French. I think the basics will always be lodged there though.
The weird thing about languages is that everywhere else in the world, you can learn English and that opens up loads of opportunities to you all over the world, because English is the lingua franca. In an already English speaking country, when you choose to learn German, what countries does that give you opportunities in? Germany, Austria, arguably Switzerland.
I reckon if we’re going to go really hard into learning a second language, it should be Spanish, not French and especially not German.
Foreign language education has always been fucking dire in this country, but considering we already speak the worlds most widespread language natively we’re fighting an uphill battle. For the spanish/german/french/russian speaker it is easy to maintain your english fluency because english is EVERYWHERE, i mean christ 95% of the internet is in english. If you’re in this country looking to maintain your fluency in another language you have to actively seek it out. I learnt german for GCSEs, didn’t get an amazing grade but I still passed, now 6 years later i couldnt even tell you my name and where I live in german because I never had to use that language ever since leaving school.
Post-brexit ‘global’ Britain doesn’t need open doors for young people. Ending free movement was one of the biggest “fuck you”s from the boomer generation to their grandchildren.
I’ve always been of the view that it would be better to Latin over say German, French, Spanish etc..
If after your GCSE’s you want to learn more languages, having a good understanding of Latin will be much more useful then being good at say German.
I did two language GCSEs and it was a waste of time. I’d have been better of focusing on another academic subject rather than putting all that time into something which left me still unable to speak either language.
It’s not really surprising Britain has a terrible attitude to the learning of foreign languages when it has a long history of antipathy towards native non-English languages.
Not as much as Brexit. Now theres even less point to learn another language.
I was always shit at languages. I put a Learning Mandarin CD in my car for journeys to work. I can basically say “hello” and that’s it. When president xi jinping was on tv giving a big public address I tried following with looking at the subtitles. Didn’t understand a word of it, except I thought I made out vaguely the words “teach them a lesson” which according the subtitles, I was completely wrong on.
Why should our kids learn all the other FOREIGN languages? This is Britain. Everyone should speak British. We didn’t win two world wars and one world cup so our kids can speak German.
Brexit Means Brexit!!!
Adding an ‘/s’ as it’s difficult to tell sarcasm from genuine stupidity these days.
When I was at school we had the option of dropping our language subjects at the start of Year 10. Looking back, I wish we had been forced to have at least taken one through to the GCSE.
In my school it was mandatory to take at least one language GCSE
French, Spanish or German were offered (French we learnt from Year 7, and we did either Spanish or German from Year 8)
Everyone despised the languages (especially French despite having done it more). They were miserable GCSEs and barely anyone did them at A Level. It’s only been 2 years since my GCSEs but speak to anyone and they will have completely forgotten the language
Language education here is God awful, no coordination between Primary and Senior school, and at GCSE level it’s more about preparing for an exam than learning a language
Loved doing my language GCSE at the time, but never had to use it again so now the cogs really have to whirr if I want to say anything beyond my name or a very basic sentence. Which is a huge shame.
I would love to see language learning made available to more people, especially with a more diverse language set.
Speaking as someone who is trilingual (Danish, German, English), its really largely useless for me. Its a nice to have, but especially in the western world its largely unnecessary, at least in tech and engineering. You get locked out of the occasional job opportunity at a small company, but given the massive time investment required to learn a language I still think you’re better off sinking that time into your job’s primary skills. I lost the occasional job opportunity from not speaking the local language well enough, but I lose far more by not being good enough for the role.
One of the reasons for the decline may actually be due to the growth of apps like Duolingo. Essentially it’s possible to learn a new language yourself with online aids without need for doing so in a classroom. So you probably get alot of students who instead prefer to pursue STEM courses (for which the perceived return at A-Level and university level is greater) whist self-teaching themselves languages on the side.
Also, given globalization and the commonality of the Latin script in Western Europe, there’s a perception that nearly all tertiary-educated people under the age of 40 in countries such as France, Germany, Italy and regions such as Benelux, Scandinavia and Iberia are generally proficient in English anyway. This means most British students likely see far more value in learning languages such as Mandarin and Arabic, which generally aren’t that well catered for in UK schools anyway – hence Duolingo.
I’ll tell you what closes doors – the loss of freedom of movement across Europe that we all had, before one half of the country voted it away from all of us.
Learning a foreign language is damn hard when you’re English. I’ve made some headway with italian and Hindi (and mandarin in my youth) but it’s impossible to consolidate what you’ve learned because the minute you speak to a native they DEMAND that the dialogue takes place in English.
Some of the issue is that languages that are being learnt differ at every school.
Admittedly, I changed schools more than the average kid but I was taught German, French, Spanish and then back to German.
I picked up the absolute basics of them all, i.e. my name and how I’m feeling.
I have a friend in Norway who learned English from the age of 3 and now speaks perfect English, really shines a light on how bad our system is.
The decline in the English GCSE standards should be more of a worry!!
No, Brexit closed those doors. No point learning if you’re not allowed to go live somewhere you’ll use them.
Sincerely, someone who speaks French, German, Italian, and has no real use for them anymore thanks to Brexit.
Not that it matters much now that Erasmus and freedom of movement is gone for most Brits. I was lucky enough to meet a French girl and move to France 21 years ago – I learned a little French while at school and became fluent after a year in France. I have had some excellent careers as a combination of having good French/English. I have/am being paid to travel all over Asia/Europe/USA for my French employers. It has also been a massive plus for my bilingual son who has just started university here (the first in my family). Not bad for the son of an uncouth Lancashire peasant. Brexit + loss of interest in foreign languages can be seen as nothing other than a sad thing.
Speaking to a Brazilian guy who was teaching me some Portugese, and I taught him a *little* Japanese, it was hard to explain why native English speakers tend not to learn another language. If you’re French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Columbian, Mexican, Egyptian or *whatever,* you’re likely to choose English as your second language. So much so that English speakers don’t really *need* a second language.
On top of this, which one do you choose? If you’re not a native English speaker, you’re much more likely to get value out of speaking English with a bunch of other ESL folks than an English speaker who learns, say, German or Russian. A lot of the time it’s just simply too much investment learning a language you’re likely to never actually *need* to use.
As a welsh person I really wished my school focussed more on our native language over foreign language – but instead there was far more focus on French, which isn’t all that useful in WALES.
I did French and Spanish at A Level and got a C in both. A* at GCSE.
I think the actual subject matter is useless. It fails to teach the language in a meaningful way. It doesn’t let people explore and immerse in their new language. Instead it is an endless list of vocabulary tests and the most banal reading and speaking exercises.
Instead, encourage natural communication, writing real life letters, etc. One of my favourite GCSE Spanish Lessons was my teacher transforming the classroom into a Tapas Bar. We had to order drinks and food, make complaints when the order was wrong and speak to our friends in the language. The Language Assistants (native speaker on placement) and Language Mentors (year 11s) were also in the class as well and acted being natives and listening into conversations.
Lot of people in this thread seem to think language GCSE = fluency. You know youre meant to keep up with learning it right? You can’t complain that the GCSE was pointless because you forgot the language if you never spoke it or continued learning it after…
Tbf, I’ve learnt far more from french netflix and duolingo than I ever did in school. Not that hard to do 5 minutes a day. I’d say I’m almost fluent now. I’d be fine day to day in France.
Languages teacher here. Our goal is to get 75% uptake for out next gcse cohort. I reckon we will get 25%.
Kids just can’t see the point. We bust our asses to deliver interesting lessons with lots of planned repetition of key, high frequency structures. We are hampered by the GCSE content which was chosen by people who haven’t been in the classroom for years.
I believe that post Brexit, language learning will be more important.
I like languages, and I have an A level in one. But unless you enjoy it, and want to pick it as a subject for its own sake – and how many kids have the luxury to do a GCSE or A level just because they like the subject? – I can certainly see why kids don’t pick one.
Everyone in the countries we’re likely to interact with speaks English, in some cases better than we do. And what language do you pick? There is no obvious second language that opens enough doors to be worth it. I’ve never used mine apart from a couple of brief holidays.
The article quotes someone who moved abroad and lives in France at 23. That kind of thing was always an extreme minority pursuit, and is much less available now anyway.
It would be good to be taught a basic level of our other native British languages as part of learning about our history and culture, though.
People are saying school language learning was useless at making them able to communicate in a foreign language, which I agree with, but even just being introduced to language learning is a big benefit down the line, if you ever choose to pursue language learning yourself as an adult, because your subconscious and conscious brain has already been introduced to the concepts of foreign language grammar, used to thinking about different language rules, thinking about foreign pronunciation, word memorisation etc. I’m sure I watched a video where they referenced a study where people who’d learnt some language (I think it was Spanish) in school and thought they’d forgotten everything did the same school level Spanish test again and they actually found the people who’d done Spanish before were able to get significantly higher marks in the tests than complete newbies, even though they weren’t aware of remembering any Spanish.
The problem is that the way we teach languages is crap.
English is one of the hardest languages in the world to learn but most other countries teach English well enough in school that the kids who take those lessons are fluent by eighteen.
This tells me we’re doing something very, very wrong when it comes to language teaching here compared to other countries.
My French is so basic after my French lessons in school that I am ashamed. My French peers however are fluent in English.
What are we doing wrong? What are they doing right?
33 comments
>One academic said language learning improves brain health and reduces prejudice.
Meh, I’m not sure it’s that important. I’d presume most people who move abroad move to some city full of expats where even locals know English, like Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Stockholm or Copenhagen, and eventually if they stay there long term learn the local language as well. Yes, knowing another language well does open some opportunities, but rest of western world is so divided in what the main language there is that I’m not sure any single language will help that much.
Just be like the most of the nation when abroad, speak slowly and loudly with the expectation *they* should have learnt English by adulthood.
The problem with learning a language is if you have no reason to use it you lose it. I studied German for my GCSEs but, aside from times I have visited Austria, I haven’t had reason to speak German and the knowledge is disappearing. My mum used to be almost fluent in French. I think the basics will always be lodged there though.
The weird thing about languages is that everywhere else in the world, you can learn English and that opens up loads of opportunities to you all over the world, because English is the lingua franca. In an already English speaking country, when you choose to learn German, what countries does that give you opportunities in? Germany, Austria, arguably Switzerland.
I reckon if we’re going to go really hard into learning a second language, it should be Spanish, not French and especially not German.
Foreign language education has always been fucking dire in this country, but considering we already speak the worlds most widespread language natively we’re fighting an uphill battle. For the spanish/german/french/russian speaker it is easy to maintain your english fluency because english is EVERYWHERE, i mean christ 95% of the internet is in english. If you’re in this country looking to maintain your fluency in another language you have to actively seek it out. I learnt german for GCSEs, didn’t get an amazing grade but I still passed, now 6 years later i couldnt even tell you my name and where I live in german because I never had to use that language ever since leaving school.
Post-brexit ‘global’ Britain doesn’t need open doors for young people. Ending free movement was one of the biggest “fuck you”s from the boomer generation to their grandchildren.
I’ve always been of the view that it would be better to Latin over say German, French, Spanish etc..
If after your GCSE’s you want to learn more languages, having a good understanding of Latin will be much more useful then being good at say German.
I did two language GCSEs and it was a waste of time. I’d have been better of focusing on another academic subject rather than putting all that time into something which left me still unable to speak either language.
It’s not really surprising Britain has a terrible attitude to the learning of foreign languages when it has a long history of antipathy towards native non-English languages.
Not as much as Brexit. Now theres even less point to learn another language.
I was always shit at languages. I put a Learning Mandarin CD in my car for journeys to work. I can basically say “hello” and that’s it. When president xi jinping was on tv giving a big public address I tried following with looking at the subtitles. Didn’t understand a word of it, except I thought I made out vaguely the words “teach them a lesson” which according the subtitles, I was completely wrong on.
Why should our kids learn all the other FOREIGN languages? This is Britain. Everyone should speak British. We didn’t win two world wars and one world cup so our kids can speak German.
Brexit Means Brexit!!!
Adding an ‘/s’ as it’s difficult to tell sarcasm from genuine stupidity these days.
When I was at school we had the option of dropping our language subjects at the start of Year 10. Looking back, I wish we had been forced to have at least taken one through to the GCSE.
In my school it was mandatory to take at least one language GCSE
French, Spanish or German were offered (French we learnt from Year 7, and we did either Spanish or German from Year 8)
Everyone despised the languages (especially French despite having done it more). They were miserable GCSEs and barely anyone did them at A Level. It’s only been 2 years since my GCSEs but speak to anyone and they will have completely forgotten the language
Language education here is God awful, no coordination between Primary and Senior school, and at GCSE level it’s more about preparing for an exam than learning a language
Loved doing my language GCSE at the time, but never had to use it again so now the cogs really have to whirr if I want to say anything beyond my name or a very basic sentence. Which is a huge shame.
I would love to see language learning made available to more people, especially with a more diverse language set.
Speaking as someone who is trilingual (Danish, German, English), its really largely useless for me. Its a nice to have, but especially in the western world its largely unnecessary, at least in tech and engineering. You get locked out of the occasional job opportunity at a small company, but given the massive time investment required to learn a language I still think you’re better off sinking that time into your job’s primary skills. I lost the occasional job opportunity from not speaking the local language well enough, but I lose far more by not being good enough for the role.
One of the reasons for the decline may actually be due to the growth of apps like Duolingo. Essentially it’s possible to learn a new language yourself with online aids without need for doing so in a classroom. So you probably get alot of students who instead prefer to pursue STEM courses (for which the perceived return at A-Level and university level is greater) whist self-teaching themselves languages on the side.
Also, given globalization and the commonality of the Latin script in Western Europe, there’s a perception that nearly all tertiary-educated people under the age of 40 in countries such as France, Germany, Italy and regions such as Benelux, Scandinavia and Iberia are generally proficient in English anyway. This means most British students likely see far more value in learning languages such as Mandarin and Arabic, which generally aren’t that well catered for in UK schools anyway – hence Duolingo.
I’ll tell you what closes doors – the loss of freedom of movement across Europe that we all had, before one half of the country voted it away from all of us.
Learning a foreign language is damn hard when you’re English. I’ve made some headway with italian and Hindi (and mandarin in my youth) but it’s impossible to consolidate what you’ve learned because the minute you speak to a native they DEMAND that the dialogue takes place in English.
Some of the issue is that languages that are being learnt differ at every school.
Admittedly, I changed schools more than the average kid but I was taught German, French, Spanish and then back to German.
I picked up the absolute basics of them all, i.e. my name and how I’m feeling.
I have a friend in Norway who learned English from the age of 3 and now speaks perfect English, really shines a light on how bad our system is.
The decline in the English GCSE standards should be more of a worry!!
No, Brexit closed those doors. No point learning if you’re not allowed to go live somewhere you’ll use them.
Sincerely, someone who speaks French, German, Italian, and has no real use for them anymore thanks to Brexit.
Not that it matters much now that Erasmus and freedom of movement is gone for most Brits. I was lucky enough to meet a French girl and move to France 21 years ago – I learned a little French while at school and became fluent after a year in France. I have had some excellent careers as a combination of having good French/English. I have/am being paid to travel all over Asia/Europe/USA for my French employers. It has also been a massive plus for my bilingual son who has just started university here (the first in my family). Not bad for the son of an uncouth Lancashire peasant. Brexit + loss of interest in foreign languages can be seen as nothing other than a sad thing.
Speaking to a Brazilian guy who was teaching me some Portugese, and I taught him a *little* Japanese, it was hard to explain why native English speakers tend not to learn another language. If you’re French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Columbian, Mexican, Egyptian or *whatever,* you’re likely to choose English as your second language. So much so that English speakers don’t really *need* a second language.
On top of this, which one do you choose? If you’re not a native English speaker, you’re much more likely to get value out of speaking English with a bunch of other ESL folks than an English speaker who learns, say, German or Russian. A lot of the time it’s just simply too much investment learning a language you’re likely to never actually *need* to use.
As a welsh person I really wished my school focussed more on our native language over foreign language – but instead there was far more focus on French, which isn’t all that useful in WALES.
I did French and Spanish at A Level and got a C in both. A* at GCSE.
I think the actual subject matter is useless. It fails to teach the language in a meaningful way. It doesn’t let people explore and immerse in their new language. Instead it is an endless list of vocabulary tests and the most banal reading and speaking exercises.
Instead, encourage natural communication, writing real life letters, etc. One of my favourite GCSE Spanish Lessons was my teacher transforming the classroom into a Tapas Bar. We had to order drinks and food, make complaints when the order was wrong and speak to our friends in the language. The Language Assistants (native speaker on placement) and Language Mentors (year 11s) were also in the class as well and acted being natives and listening into conversations.
Lot of people in this thread seem to think language GCSE = fluency. You know youre meant to keep up with learning it right? You can’t complain that the GCSE was pointless because you forgot the language if you never spoke it or continued learning it after…
Tbf, I’ve learnt far more from french netflix and duolingo than I ever did in school. Not that hard to do 5 minutes a day. I’d say I’m almost fluent now. I’d be fine day to day in France.
Languages teacher here. Our goal is to get 75% uptake for out next gcse cohort. I reckon we will get 25%.
Kids just can’t see the point. We bust our asses to deliver interesting lessons with lots of planned repetition of key, high frequency structures. We are hampered by the GCSE content which was chosen by people who haven’t been in the classroom for years.
I believe that post Brexit, language learning will be more important.
I like languages, and I have an A level in one. But unless you enjoy it, and want to pick it as a subject for its own sake – and how many kids have the luxury to do a GCSE or A level just because they like the subject? – I can certainly see why kids don’t pick one.
Everyone in the countries we’re likely to interact with speaks English, in some cases better than we do. And what language do you pick? There is no obvious second language that opens enough doors to be worth it. I’ve never used mine apart from a couple of brief holidays.
The article quotes someone who moved abroad and lives in France at 23. That kind of thing was always an extreme minority pursuit, and is much less available now anyway.
It would be good to be taught a basic level of our other native British languages as part of learning about our history and culture, though.
People are saying school language learning was useless at making them able to communicate in a foreign language, which I agree with, but even just being introduced to language learning is a big benefit down the line, if you ever choose to pursue language learning yourself as an adult, because your subconscious and conscious brain has already been introduced to the concepts of foreign language grammar, used to thinking about different language rules, thinking about foreign pronunciation, word memorisation etc. I’m sure I watched a video where they referenced a study where people who’d learnt some language (I think it was Spanish) in school and thought they’d forgotten everything did the same school level Spanish test again and they actually found the people who’d done Spanish before were able to get significantly higher marks in the tests than complete newbies, even though they weren’t aware of remembering any Spanish.
The problem is that the way we teach languages is crap.
English is one of the hardest languages in the world to learn but most other countries teach English well enough in school that the kids who take those lessons are fluent by eighteen.
This tells me we’re doing something very, very wrong when it comes to language teaching here compared to other countries.
My French is so basic after my French lessons in school that I am ashamed. My French peers however are fluent in English.
What are we doing wrong? What are they doing right?