Modern Languages Blog

The BBC reports that the World Cup, holiday homes and budget airlines are feeding an unexpected passion for learning languages.

Rubbish at learning modern languages? Are you still shouting in English at bemused people in other countries? That used to be the stereotype of the English-speaker abroad. But is that all changing? Because this heatwave summer seems to be bringing a boom in language learning. Language courses are reporting a surge in demand, newspapers have been giving away language-teaching CDs and language learning is the theme of BBC2’s latest reality TV show, Excuse My French.

It makes a change, the report says, to hear optimistic news about modern language learning. University language departments have been closing because of a lack of students – and this in turn reflects how few pupils are taking languages at A-level. And there have been repeated warnings from industry about the economic cost of our national deficit in language skills. But rather than an academic or business interest, another driver for the current interest in learning languages is the unprecedented appetite for travel.

A secondary school in Northumberland is to give pupils their own iPods in a bid to help them learn foreign languages, says this article in the Education Guardian.

Twenty-three pupils at Astley Community High School in Seaton Delaval will be given iPods in September at the start of their GCSE year in an attempt to encourage them to practise foreign languages outside the classroom.

The pupils, who are studying French and Spanish, will be able to download tailormade study material to their iPods from the school’s website.

They will be able to use the iPods for the duration of their two-year modern language GCSE course.

One Year 11 pupil at the school said that the scheme was a great idea. ‘I will listen to my podcasts on the school bus. You can look cool and revise at the same time. I’d never get a book out on the bus.’

New on the MFLE is a guide to using mobile phones in the classroom. Many see the mobile phone as an irritating distraction – or a banned piece of hardware – but this guide shows how it can be useful in many ways, from timing and scheduling tasks to making videos and taking digital photos. There’s also advice about using your mobile safely, which you can discuss with your students. 

France’s battle to repel the invasion of English words and phrases has tried to produce a new batch of official alternatives destined to be ignored by the French public. Working deep in the ministry of finance headquarters in Paris, a team of 40 experts assembled to discuss terms the French should be encouraged to use, says this article in the Daily Telegraph.

A RECRUITMENT officer has been appointed to encourage more Gaelic speakers to take up teaching to tackle a classroom shortage. Angela Gillies will start a two-year secondment with Bòrd na Gàidhlig in the autumn.

Read more about this in the Scotsman

Too many teachers are being trained to teach languages, geography, biology, history and music, figures suggest. In an article on the BBC website, research by Education Data Surveys says there were 30,000 adverts for school teaching posts over the past year. Its analysis suggests a mismatch with the supply from training institutions, there being too few teachers of drama, English, physics, chemistry and design.

A third of children in the UK use blogs and social network websites but two thirds of parents do not even know what they are, a survey suggests. In this article on the BBC website, the children’s charity NCH warns of ’an alarming gap’ in technological knowledge between generations.

This PDF file from The National Centre for Languages (CILT) highlights the 12 projects which have won a European Award for Languages this year. Awards will be presented at a ceremony on the European Day of Languages, 26 September, in the Chamber of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Scottish winners are Shawlands Academy’s Litterhitters, a cross-curricular environmental project which uses French and Heriot Watt’s multilingual debate.

Date: Thursday 19 – Sunday 22 October
Venue: Paris

Scottish primary schools are invited to nominate a teacher to meet potential French partner schools. This seminar in the autumn term offers the opportunity to find out more about the French education system and explore ways of working collaboratively.

There will be approximately 15 places for teachers plus two or three places for local authority representatives on behalf of schools in their area. Travel, accommodation and subsistence expenses will be covered, but not school supply costs.

This seminar is organised jointly by the British Council, Scottish Executive Education Department and the French Ministry of Education as part of the France Scotland Cooperation Agreement.

Invitations to nominate will be issued soon. We may also be able to include some secondary schools.
For further information e-mail sarah.montgomery@britishcouncil.org or telephone +44 (0)131 524 5735.

Tailoring language learning to the actual or likely needs of learners is increasingly seen as the best way to build language skills. Read a short article about this in this week’s TES Scotland. You can also consult the full article on the SCILT website