Modern Languages Blog

A recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research estimates that 5.5 million British citizens now live overseas. Spain is second only to Australia as a destination, with 790,000 Brits choosing to make it their home. The Costa Blanca, the stretch of coast south of Valencia, is host to one of the biggest concentrations of expats, and not just pensioners seeking warmer weather. In the endless ‘urbanisations’ that crowd the land between the mountains and the sea, Spanish is at best a second language to English, and often third after German.

Read the full story on the Telegraph Online.

Kamila is one of around 500 Polish pupils now attending Highland schools. Since European Union enlargement in 2004, many East European families have arrived in the area, including Czech, Latvian and Lithuanian migrants, attracted by employment opportunities in the construction, catering and fish processing industries. But the vast majority are Polish. This presents a huge challenge to Highland, especially on top of the 41 other home languages which Highland schools share, ranging from Tagalog (Philippines), Tamil and Bengali to French, Spanish and Vietnamese. But it also presents a great opportunity.

Read about Kamila in the TES Online.

Cheap living and charming students make working in bustling Ho Chi Minh City an unexpected pleasure.

Vietnam is the twelfth happiest country in the world, according to a recent survey by the New Economics Foundation (the UK ranks 108th). This may seem surprising, considering the country’s not too distant past and the low incomes of a large percentage of the population. But, since starting work in Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) six months ago, Rebecca Norris has found that Vietnam is full of surprises.

Read her article in the Education Guardian.

Skilled workers and other migrants applying to settle in Britain will need to prove that they can speak English under new rules announced by the Home Office this month.

Read the full story in the Education Guardian.

Hugh Henry, Minister for Education and Young People, has announced that he would like Learning and Teaching Scotland to organise the Teachers’ International Study visits and promote international education in Scotland as of 1 April 2007. This decision reflects the fact that LTS is the organisation best able to operate the international teacher study visits and, crucially, to integrate international education into the curriculum.

You can read more about this subject in today’s TESS (paper copy): ‘Rethink will boost study trips abroad’ (page 8).

GCSEs in foreign languages should be changed and marked more generously as part of a radical shake-up in the way languages are taught and examined in secondary schools, a report said yesterday. Headteachers should also set targets for the number of teenagers in their schools continuing at least one foreign language beyond the age of 14 to reverse the trend of students dropping the subject.

Read more on the Education Guardian website.

The Education Guardian reports that business leaders are urging that Mandarin should be taught in schools rather than Spanish, French or German. This is ahead of today’s release of Lord Dearing’s review of modern foreign languages. A report by consultants the Hay Group said British business leaders expect sales to China to be worth 10% of their global revenues, equivalent to £200bn a year, by 2009, making the South East Asian country the UK’s most important export market. However, the leaders believe a lack of language skills and understanding of the Chinese market is holding Britain back.

Read more on the Education Guardian website, or check out the MFLE’s Chinese language special for more information on how Chinese is being taught in Scotland. You can also read about current practice at St George’s School, Edinburgh, where Chinese is taught at primary and secondary level.

The BBC reports that studying a language could become compulsory for all primary school pupils in England, a government adviser is expected to say. Lord Ron Dearing is likely to say he wants languages to be a standard part of the primary curriculum. It is estimated that 60% of primary schools are already teaching languages. His interim report into how to tackle a decline in languages is also expected to rule out a return to compulsory language studies in secondary schools.

Read the full article on the BBC website.

More than £100m of public money is spent on translation services in the UK, the BBC reports. Local authorities spend £25m, NHS trusts £55m and the courts £31m on interpreting languages.

Speaking through a translator, a Bangladeshi woman who has lived in the UK for 22 years and does not speak English questioned this spending. She said: ‘When you are trying to help us, you are actually harming. Even before we ask, all we have to do is say hello, they are here with their interpreters. We just sit here doing nothing and we don’t need to speak in English at all.’

The BBC reports that one of the UK’s leading universities is to make a language qualification a requirement for entry in an attempt to stop schools abandoning the subject. University College London has agreed in principle that a language GCSE will be compulsory for admission from 2012.

Read the full story on the BBC website.