Blog feedExperts demand urgent action for multilingualism
19th February
An influential group of experts is putting pressure on the Scottish Government to take urgent action to make Scotland more multilingual, the Herald reports.
Figures show that the number of school pupils taking modern language Highers has slumped by nearly 60% since the 1970s. The group has highlighted an ‘apartheid’ in foreign language study in Scottish universities and fear the nation is becoming less competitive in the global economy as a result.
Other experts have observed what is described as ‘a worrying trend’ towards the increasing dominance of French, which is the result of having a large pool of teachers, rather than demand. Scottish Enterprise said that Mandarin and Russian would be the most relevant to the Scottish economy.
Dr Murray Hill, the Scottish representative on the UK Standing Conference of Heads of Modern Languages in Universities, is spearheading the campaign.
He has gained support from heavyweight language and industry groups in calling for the Scottish Government to implement an effective strategy with funding support to halt the decline, believing the nation is being left behind by European neighbours.
Categories: Ages and stages, Careers with languages, Courses, Take-up of languages
Comments
Comment from couineaux philippe
Time: May 7, 2008, 9:18 pm
Dear bloggers,
I am baffled by the fact that the battle for multiligualism is once again taking the option of boosting one language against another to suit the scottish economy.
Bilingualism is another way of handling the world and what ever language is on offer should be given as an opportunity to inhance the life of children, teenagers and adults.
Our school are full of bilinguals, multilingual children who are already moving from Polish, Latvian, russians and other languages to English. They will be our future nurses, doctors, lawers…. This opportunity is denied to children in England and could become the same in Scotland as French or German are not in demand any more!!! What if these languages became more popular again? Would we drop Mandarin for French again? What kind of strategy is that?
Learning a language is a pool of skills Scottish industries will need in the future. Think about all the strategies, skills required to go to a country where English is not spoken! All of them are not speaking louder in a broken English to make the local think and speak like you!
When the trend to learn a foreign language has been taken then another language is generally easier to learn. Time to move into “in demand languages”!
Scotland has trained teachers in French, German that are highly competent and are fighting against Scottish Enterprise who think spontenious generations of Mandarin Speakers could be available within a couple of years!
Where are the teachers of these fashionable language that our children should have learn to fit in with the economy?
Fifteen years ago Russian was taught in Scotland as a fairly regular subject. Where is it still taught now and who has been trained to be a russian teacher during this last decade? Sorry for the exception!
In England, major universities are not requiring any language for their admissions because they do not have enough students who have any foreign languages… Is Scotland going to follow this trend???
So yes, Multilingualism must be develop but with as many languages and as often as possible…
A language a day….
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