UK economy needs schoolchildren to learn languages

vivatifosi

British Chambers of Commerce say that children should compulsorily learn languages up to 16 if Britain is to compete for export business:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/9198185/UK-economy-needs-schoolchildren-to-learn-languages-BCC-says.html

I agree and disagree with this. We do need more children to speak a foreign language, however if we are going to do this, do we need to look at the languages we teach? If BRICs are the developing economies, should they be Mandarin, Russian, Hindi and Portuguese rather than French and German? I'm also worried that unmotivated kids with no interest in learning a language could put those off who do, if made compulsory.

For that matter, isn't Portugal best placed to be the natural EU trading partner with Brazil? It's a different issue, but isn't there something Portugal can do to act as the springboard for Brazil in Europe that can help its own economy?

wymondham

I think first they need to learn English correctly!

wotsthat

vivatifosi wrote: »

I agree and disagree with this. We do need more children to speak a foreign language, however if we are going to do this, do we need to look at the languages we teach? If BRICs are the developing economies, should they be Mandarin, Russian, Hindi and Portuguese rather than French and German? I'm also worried that unmotivated kids with no interest in learning a language could put those off who do, if made compulsory.

I don't think which language they learn is ultimately important other than it should be fun. If language learning is fun and the teachning good it makes it easier to take up the 'relevant' language later.

I learnt French really quite badly until I was 14 and the experience put me off until adulthood when I learnt Portuguese for both business and holiday reasons. I'm a long way from fluent but I'm surprised at just how far a little can take you.

I'm not sure the teaching is any better. I know, an adult, that recent got an A* in GCSE spanish and still can't put a sentence together in conversation.

aliasojo

My daughter is desperate to learn Japanese.

Needless to say the only school that teaches it, is private.

Today's world is much more diversified than that of years ago. I do believe we should look at the choice of languages we offer in schools now, standard French and German that so may of the schools still only offer is a poor offering imo.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Language teaching needs to start much earlier- young children soak up new words like sponges, especially if it's fun and involves singing and stories.

English grammar dropped off the curriculum for a while when I was at school, so at 11 we started learning French with its "verbs" and "tenses" without knowing what they were in our own language.

kabayiri

I don't agree with this.

If translation issues are holding business back, then business will find a way of overcoming this obstacle.

It used to be that physical geography constrained the economic viability of getting many things made in far off places. Well, the business driver was there and this 'obstacle' has been overcome using globalisation and the container ship revolution.

Today there are several companies out there like Language Line with thousands of employees sat waiting on the end of a line to offer translation. It's been mainly b2b so far, but it's quite conceivable that this sort of service could be offered on demand on the end of a smartphone anywhere in the world, in a few years time.

English should be the predominant language, and if someone doesn't understand you just speak slower and shout louder

Jennifer_Jane

aliasojo, I think that if your daughter is so interested in learning Japanese, I would try to find a way to help her do so (evening classes, online, finding a local Japanese speaker, there has to be something, somewhere, and you might enjoy starting off with her, something extra to share with your daughter, perhaps?).

I'm all for the 'old' subjects being taught to children and am horrified that (English) people don't seem to have a facility to understand other languages. Even though I went to a secondary modern, my French is pretty good, and I've continued with it over the years purely for the enjoyment and stimulation. It does help with your knowledge of your own language as well.

nearlynew

If companies would benefit from their employees being able to speak another language, then they should pay for the language training.

Jennifer_Jane

nearlynew - don't companies pay for the language training, if they would benefit? My old company certainly had teachers coming on site for French, German, Spanish, Chinese, and Swedish, at least those are the languages I remember, and at different times of the day, but obviously just after work was a popular time. Any member of staff could take the courses, but only your line manager could get the course paid for you. One other multinational I worked for (in South Africa) had language labs which you could just go to for free and in your own time.

Percy1983

As it is I was forced to spend 5 years on a second lauguage (German) and 1 year on a third (French).

All great but it really was completely past me and essentially wasted 6 years of a few hours a week which could have benefitted my education elsewhere.

By all means if somebody wants to learn more languages help them, but to many its just not something they can do and will never need to do so why waste thier time?

kabayiri

I never understood why the idea behind Esperanto was never pursued. A common global language has more chance of success than 2m English children learning Cantonese.

It doesn't mean Esperanto was the ideal language of course.

We need a common global language which is simple in structure and tense. One routed in current usage and one which young people find easy to adopt.

Txt Spk it is then ! lol