Saturday March 15, 2008 |
Saturday March 15, 2008 Are the English giving up with foreign languages?Earlier this week, the Guardian reported that Cambridge University had finally dropped the requirement that undergraduate students have a language GCSE (16+). I remarked that I thought it a shame, and that the english education system should teach foreign languages, but it was pointed out to me that the national curriculum no longer mandates a language at GCSE and so Cambridge's previous policy would in future conflict with their and the government's goal of opening Oxbridge up to more state sector applicants. It seems to be a fact that english schools find it harder to get higher grades in languages than other subjects and that the pressure of the league table places has led a number of them to drop languages very rapidly. Its yet another example of allowing the difficult to fall out of the education system. Back in December, when I visited the EU Parliament building. I was taken aback by the number of languages spoken in the EU, since the translation booths are situated around the hall, and it is a very physical demonstration of europe's linguistic diversity. There 23 official languages. I have had it pointed out several times in my recent travels that the ubiquity of English means that I don't have to worry, to which I have two replies. The first is that, when I was at school, no-one had any idea of whether the EU was going to work or not nor how English would become so pervasive. I was offered the opportunity to learn both French and German, which I did with varying degrees of success. Secondly, its very rude to assume that others will learn your language, particularly if you are in their their country. I wish I could do better, but it seems the UK's educators disagree. The map below is off the European Union and references the EU membership page.
On the EU membership page itself, the map has an HTML image map which displays the languages by country as you hover over each country. Interesting how such an old technology has such descriptive power. I wonder if I could have used an <IFRAME> to include this on the blog, although including other peoples material without permission in a way that is not clearly hyperlinked is not very good manners. tags: culture europe belgium bruxelles travel EU democracy euparliament language england education 
(2008-03-15 14:30:00.0) Permalink |
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