Students are encouraged to mind their language!

May 22 2009 Irvine Herald

FIGURES released this week by the Scottish Qualification Authority have highlighted some concerns regarding the uptake of modern languages by secondary school pupils over the past decade.

Across Scotland as a whole, uptake for French at Standard Grade level by school pupils has fallen from 38,356 to 30,780.

For German courses, the drop has been nearly 40 per cent from 16,019 pupils to 8,560 in 2008.

While at first glance this is of some concern, there is evidence to suggest that part of the drop in the number of pupils accessing these courses is the result of the diversification of languages that are now available in schools.

A good example of this is the increasing number of people who are learning to speak Spanish.

Today, over 350 million people speak Spanish as their native language making it the world’s third most spoken language.

In Scotland 1,327 pupils took Higher Spanish exams in 2008, compared with 874 a decade ago.

Standard Grade Spanish candidates have almost doubled in number over the same period.

The figures also show that Gaelic has been something of a revival in recent years with the numbers taking the subject up, increasing by almost a third.

Interestingly, Mandarin Chinese is already available in some schools at Intermediate Level, and there are plans for a Higher course to be introduced within the next year.

Make no doubt about it, modern languages are important. The days when English was the main language of business is now a thing of the past. With emerging economic superpowers in China and India and the European free market, modern language learning should become an integral part of any young person’s education.

Having been involved in European matters over a number of years and worked alongside colleagues from across the continent I am struck by their fluency in English.

Staff who work behind the scenes also have a wide range of languages at their disposal, some as many as five.

I am often asked by young people about the requirements to work in an EU institution. As well as speaking the mother tongue, staff are expected to be fluent in another language, and have a working knowledge of a third.

With the enlargement of the EU, skills in Polish, Czech and Russian all assist.

Multinational companies are also increasingly placing a greater emphasis on language learning. Many people from the UK are now in jobs which require them to live in foreign countries, sometimes for years at a time, and there is a requirement to be fluent in the local language.

In Scotland, as a result of the increasingly multicultural makeup of our communities, there is an opportunity to take advantage of the range of languages that are now available at the local level in our community.

Studying a language is not only something that you can be taught when at school.

It is never too late to start studying and a range of services can be accessed by people of all ages. Local colleges offer classes in a wide range of languages while the market for self teaching DVDs and books has mushroomed in recent years.

While I am disappointed by some of the figures released this week, there are encouraging signs that school pupils still want to engage in learning a language.

The range of opportunities, in terms of subjects and technology available, has never been better. Through podcasts, video conferencing and online classrooms, our children will be better prepared and ready to take Scotland into the new economies of the 21st century.