Language teaching 'lets down Scotland'

Published on Saturday 30 May 2009 19:48

SCOTTISH schools are failing to teach major languages vital to the nation's economic future, it was claimed last night.

New figures last night revealed little or no teaching of most of the world's "big six" business languages – with Higher Spanish offered by just one in three secondaries.

Experts warned that Scottish firms were now losing their edge because they couldn't find staff able to talk to potential foreign customers in their own language.

The Scottish Government admitted yesterday that just seven schools taught Russian to Higher level and none could offer Arabic. Despite enthusiastic all-party support, the teaching of Chinese is very limited.

Labour last night warned that Scotland's failure to get to grips with major world languages would cost it dearly.

George Foulkes, the Labour MSP who obtained the information on school language teaching, last night said: "What we need is a major push on foreign languages if we are going to succeed in the world economy. And we must offer our young people a range of foreign languages, not just the usual French, German and Spanish.

"We need to look at Chinese and Russian and Arabic and Portuguese, the languages of huge and growing economies. If we are going to succeed we are going to have to get people who speak these languages."

The Scottish Government last night insisted the popularity of language Highers had held up in the last two years. It defended its record on what it called "minority" languages, saying its focus was on China and Chinese.

The government has helped create eight specialist classrooms to teach Chinese, and tomorrow a first batch of youngsters will sit intermediate exams in Cantonese and Mandarin. But one-third of the children doing Chinese come from a single private girls school, St George's in Edinburgh.

Leading academics have also warned that Scotland is losing its edge because Scottish firms lack staff who can converse with foreign associates.

Joseph Farrell, professor of Italian at Strathclyde University, said: "Learning languages is indispensable in a globalised society. There's the economic advantages too – it's not cool any more to continue to assume English is sufficient as an international language.

"English is all right for basic business deals, but there's a great deal of other networking which can be done in another language. It's much more beneficial to both parties to be able to discuss business matters over a glass of wine."

The United Nations uses six languages – English, French, Chinese, Russian, Arabic and Spanish – and Foulkes believes all of them should be offered at Scottish schools. But only one, French, is universally available. Nine out of ten schools still offer French and 4,620 youngsters sat a Higher in the language this year.

Successive Scottish governments have committed to boosting Chinese, with a new group of teachers of the language about to graduate. The government, with help from China, has opened eight "Confucius classrooms" to be shared by 14 local authorities.

One is based at St George's, whose head teacher, Judith McClure, said: "We want to start the idea of being able to speak to people in other languages from nursery age, if possible. It's going to be hard – we need more teachers, and young people have to realise learning a language can be tough."

Edinburgh's Confucius Institute, which supports the learning of Chinese languages and cultures, yesterday said the number of adults enrolling for courses had doubled in the last two years.

Other languages are not getting quite as much government support. The Scottish Qualifications Authority yesterday revealed that just 13 pupils would sit Higher Russian this year. Russia overtook Britain last year in the World Bank's league table of economies, pushing into sixth place. German, though still in seven out of ten schools, is falling in popularity, despite the huge economic and tourism links between Scotland and Germany, the world's fifth biggest economy. Arabic, spoken by 200 million people, has been left to madrassahs, religious schools that usually only offer lessons in the language of the Koran.

Around 58 children are this year sitting Highers in Urdu, the official language of Pakistan. In 2008 just 194 people sat Higher Italian. Italy ranked tenth in the GDP world league table. Portuguese is not offered at all, and Brazil is the world's ninth biggest economy.

Overall, the number of children taking modern languages has fallen over the last few decades. However, the government stressed that there has been no fall in the proportion of youngsters taking languages in the past ten years.

A spokeswoman said: "The Scottish Government is particularly focused on China at present as part of a wider economic plan, but if any schools identify a need or demand for other languages, such as Urdu or Arabic, then they can go ahead and make provision."

Polish up your skills

Scotland is to offer its first qualifications in Polish.

Education chiefs said the move was a direct response to rising demand to learn the language.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) will initially offer the equivalent of Standard Grades, Intermediates and Highers to adult learners.

The Polish qualification is part of a series of new offerings from the SQA under its Modern Languages for Work Purposes scheme. Workers will also get the chance to learn another nine languages, including Chinese, French, Russian and Gaelic.

Polish was earlier this year revealed to be the most common second language spoken in Scottish classrooms. However, there are no immediate plans to introduce a Higher in Polish. The new qualifications, unlike Highers, will be assessed by colleges and teachers rather than external examiners.

A spokesman for the SQA stressed the Polish course could be adapted for people working in individual industries, and that "Modern Languages for Work Purposes are intended for ultimate use in more of a vocational setting than traditional language courses."

Karol Chojnowski of Emito, an Edinburgh website for Polish migrants, said: "It seems like the integration effect is kicking in. Acceptance of the Polish community might have grown in recent years, which could explain why more and more people want to learn the language."