PeteSpencer wrote:..
Reinforced by the fact that Tony Blair’s mob removed from the schools curriculum the need to learn any foreign language , even French... .
<continuing drift
but only to correct a commonly repeated myth >
on the contrary: what that government did was to remove the requirement that secondary school Y9-10 pupils in English [
sic] LA schools [
sic] continue with a foreign language to GCSE. This was in response to complaints from some such schools that pupils were uninterested to the point of disaffection. At least 1 foreign language was still required in the first 2 secondary schools, and must still be offered in all schools in those GCSE years, but now pupils could choose to study other subjects instead to other GCSEs, if the pupils and parents had by then discovered and agreed that such language(s) held no interest for them.
At the same time, and importantly, all English LA Primary Schools had to start offering at least 1 foreign language, initially only for last 2 Primary years and either in class or as an after-school club; but eventually to lead to some foreign language in the classroom timetable at least once a week for all such Primary pupils. The intention was that any language teachers now not needed in Secondary would (if they wished, and with retraining support grants available) be able to retrain for and find ready employment in Primaries, which would also provide more opportunities for new language graduates.
It was the incoming Cameron government which prevented the fruition of this carefully planned long-term scheme by abolishing the requirement for any language in Primaries with their first overhaul of the National Curriculum. As a result, it remained true that many pupils had their very first encounter with another language at age 11, ie at an age where lots of early 'fun' activities in language like songs and games are too 'childish'. Unsurprisingly, many did not keep it up after those first 2 years.
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Language teachers from Secondaries, made redundant (by schools whose budgets were anyway being eroded by other cuts), whom I knew, simply abandoned teaching. Many found employers very willing to use their talents; some came to my last employer. I'm please to say that our local LA Primary, where all 3 of ours went, carried on with some French for all years by paying a native speaker teaching at one of the local Secondaries to come for 1 day a week. I (after retirement) volunteered to join in conversations (not speaking anything except French in pupils' hearing). Unfortunately, that French lady left at the end of her Secondary contract after the Brexit vote. The Primary still tries to do some French, using its own regular staff, but none of them is French-qualified.
(mere guide at) Jet Age Museum, Gloucestershire Airport
http://www.jetagemuseum.org/TripAdvisor Excellence Award 2015
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction ... gland.html