The sad decline of languages in UK schools

I mean the decline of taught, modern foreign languages, not sweary bad language (I’m sure that’s probably still learnt and applied with enthusiasm).

This article in the Guardian, Who still wants to learn languages?, raises a few key points from recent studies, as well as interesting observations. In summary:

• Funding for languages has been cut and departments are closing across the education spectrum, from schools to universities.
• Since language learning was made optional after the age of 14 in 2004,  numbers have been dropping. (Just in state schools? The article’s not clear.)
• There’s a sharp distinction between provision at state schools and at independents (“38 per cent of 14-year-olds in the state sector were studying one modern language and 1.9 per cent were studying two; 99 per cent of 14-year-olds at independents studied at least one language”).
• As a result, “the experience of other cultures is now confined to an elite”.
• Languages are losing out in the (short-term) education market because they are a long-term choice in terms of competency and gratification.
• German is losing out the most because of its profile, difficulty and competition from non-traditional languages.
• “There is only one UK citizen working in continental Europe for every four EU citizens working in the UK.
• “Studies prove [that] learning a language makes [children] better at learning everything else.”

Learn a language to know your own

However, the end of the article includes two of the more interesting points. Firstly:

“Whoever is not acquainted with languages knows nothing of his own (Goethe).”

I was in school at a time when the state education system decided we didn’t need to learn English grammar. We studied English language, yes, but I remember mostly creative writing rather than covering verbs, nouns, modifiers, the subjunctive and so on.

However, because I also chose to study German and French, I learnt a little about those things. And it’s only now that I’ve taught myself Spanish and help my local friends with their English that I’m learning more about my own language.

(Because I grew up in Wales, it was also compulsory to learn Welsh between the ages of about 6 and 13. I would have chosen Welsh at GCSE too, but the selection process made that a difficult choice.)

Speak a language, understand a people

It’s the comment from a source at the end that resonates with me now; of course, it may well not have done when I was 15. And that’s why it’s so important for the choice not to be left to 15-year-olds (and younger).

“[This trend] is disastrous [because] it leads to people leading insular lives – intellectually, professionally, culturally.”

I’ve learnt so much about the culture I’m living in simply by hearing how they refer to ideas in their own language, and thereby understanding the emphasis of those things in their lives.

Language learning: a great leveller

Learning a new language is one of those great activities that reduces the differences between people. It doesn’t matter what job you do, where you’re from or how much you earn; once you’re thrown together to grasp a new language, everyone’s in the same boat.

This occurred to me while reading one of a series of blog posts in The Guardian by writer Will Self. There’s something reassuring in reading about how a distinguished wordsmith experiences the same challenges in mastering another language (in his case, French) as everyone else.

I can definitely relate to this comment:

I’ve noticed how acutely geared to my general wellbeing my ability to speak French has become: on days when I’m rested and in good spirits, I feel like a saucy Maurice Chevalier in the making, but on down days I’m Antonin Artaud, brokenly raging in a straitjacket of received English locutions.

Some days, I feel as though I could talk forever and my Spanish friends seem to understand me. Other days, I can barely maintain a basic conversation, throwing whoever I’m talking to into a state of confusion.

And while some people swear to a glass (or two) of red wine to make them slip into a fluency they can only dream of normally, I’m pretty certain they’re only fooling themselves. Booze befuddles my brain, making it nearly impossible to string together a coherent Spanish sentence.

Maybe the key’s to get the person I’m talking to drunk, instead; I’ll still be able to hold a conversation and they simply won’t care…!