The importance of Modern Foreign Languages

I have received the following message from a secondary school teacher in Grimsby called Pat Holland, which makes a well argued point about the worrying state of Modern Languages teaching in our schools, and deserves wider circulation:

"I am in my final year (before retirement) of teaching French and German and have found the last few years very depressing. It has seemed strangely ironic that under Blair, who was supposedly pro-Europe and a French speaker, language teaching shrank, became optional, and lost status and teaching time. When I complained about this to the education department I was told that introducing languages into primary schools was going to bring about a renaissance in MFL learning; sadly, I'm old enough to remember how little impact the Schools Council project made in primary schools in the 70s, and how badly delivered it was by inexpert teachers. Although current colleagues in the primary sector seem full of good will and enthusiasm, the vicious circle of neglect of language teaching means that few of them have good enough language skills to deliver the curriculum effectively.

As I'm sure you're aware, MFL teachers play a most crucial role in teaching tolerance of other cultures. The rapid disappearance of German from state schools means we no longer have a chance to counter lingering prejudices from World War Two, and the lack of exchanges brought about by health and safety fears and the expense of covering teachers means that pupils now miss out on a life-changing experience which teaches self-reliance, linguisitic skill and tolerance. Reduced lesson time (in my school now only two hours per week) means that we have less time for songs, sketches and other creative activities.... All of this depresses me greatly, because it seems that MFL are becoming the preserve of Grammar and Public schools, and that a broad curriculum for all is a dead concept in comprehensive schools, to which so many of us 'baby-boomers' devoted our careers."