Tag: Europe

Posted on

Why the English are being left behind in the world of business

Today’s post is a guest post from my lovely husband, Ian.

In my work as a Blue Badge tourist guide, I have the opportunity to meet people from all around the world, from all walks of life.  The job also gives me the chance to use my fluent German in my professional life, which opens up a great many possibilities.

I recently had the pleasure of guiding a group of families from Luxembourg, on a tour of Harry Potter film locations throughout England (one of my numerous special interest tours).  As most people know, Luxembourg is very much a multilingual nation.  The group I worked with had Luxembourgish (which, incidentally, sounds like a mish-mash of German, Dutch, French and bits of other languages, a little like the country and its people I suppose) as their native language but the tour was in German, the main international and media language in their part of Luxembourg.  While I was not surprised to discover that most of the adults had a good level of competence in several languages, including a number who spoke perfect, unaccented English despite never spending more than short holidays in Britain, I was amazed by the incredible language skills demonstrated by the children, who were aged between around 5 and 13.

In addition to their home language they all spoke at least fairly fluent German, certainly enough to have read or watched Harry Potter in German, and to follow my tour and explanations and to talk and joke with me with no problems at all.  Officially, I was told they start to learn German at the age of 5, but it was clear that earlier exposure through the media had given them all a massive head-start.  While the younger ones “only” spoke the two languages, most of the older ones had gone several steps further.  They start to learn English at 12, but those of 9 or 10 already had a solid grasp of the language, and coped perfectly well with being in England for the week.  There were several of them who were capable of reading books and watching films in English.  Most also have at least a conversational command of French, another of the official languages of their country.

One of my abiding memories of the week is a conversation with two of the older children, aged around 12 or 13, who both proudly told me that they were fluent in four languages, and had a good knowledge of two others each.  Having studied for many years to reach fluency in one, I was in awe of their abilities.

Of course, part of the reason for Luxembourgers’ language skills is cultural – their country has several official languages and people live in close proximity to borders with other nations.  But even so, I could not help comparing the attitude of the children I met with kids (and indeed adults) in Britain, for whom learning languages is a chore and largely seen as unnecessary.  The children on my tour took huge delight and pride in being multilingual, appreciating the opportunities for communication and experience it opens up for them.

These are the young people the next generation of Britons will be competing with in education and employment in a few years.  While the oft-cited argument that “the whole world speaks English” does have some validity – and there is no doubt that being a native English speaker is a major advantage – in a multinational and multicultural world, someone with six languages always trumps a comparably qualified person with one, even if it is English.

Apart from the sheer joy of meeting children who take such pleasure in learning and speaking other languages, what I took away from that week most of all was the contrast with the insular attitude in Britain.  Rather than dismissing languages as a non-essential part of the curriculum, how amazing would it be if the average British kid of 12 could enjoy books, films, and conversations in six languages, opening them up to a world of experience, culture and potential?

Ian Braisby works as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide and as a German into English translator. He and I blog together at IAB Tours and he can also be contacted via his tourism and guided tours website.

Posted on

Languages at 5 – what’s all the fuss about?

The government suggest that children should start learning languages at the age of five, and suddenly in true British fashion we are throwing up our hands in horror. We are criticising the government for suggesting such a ridiculous idea. We are throwing up every obstacle we can think of, dismissing as irrelevant the fact that other countries teach their children English from a young age, and focusing firmly on the negative.

One of the poorest excuses for not learning a language I have heard in the last 24 hours is: “It’s different for us. We’re an island so we are more cut off from the rest of Europe.” Maybe you forgot, but we are connected to mainland Europe by train lines now. It’s quicker for someone in London to get to a non-English speaking city, than for someone in Frankfurt to get to a non-German speaking city.

“What’s the point in teaching our children a foreign language when they haven’t got a wide English vocabulary yet, and they are still struggling with the complexities of our own grammar?” The point is that at this age language skills come more easily to them. When they are still mispronouncing some words in their own language they are not afraid to have a go at pronouncing foreign words.

In the last couple of years I have taught a variety of languages to Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 children. They have sung French songs in a presentation for new parents, German ones in school assemblies, and Latin carols in Christmas plays. In fact last Christmas one 5 year old girl I had been teaching was so confident that she sang a solo in Latin!

I’ve told them stories in a number of different languages, and they have taken great delight in joining in with repeated phrases. They have learnt not to get hung up about understanding every single word as long as they understand the important parts.

These children have been praised for their abilities and they now see having knowledge of a foreign language as something to be proud of, not something to be scared of.

Nobody is suggesting that we suddenly expose a five year old to the difficulties of German cases, so let’s do something really radical. Let’s put all our language prejudices aside and examine the positive side of teaching languages to children at a younger age.

One of the main frustrations in learning a new language is not being able to express yourself in that language as easily as you can in your own, and this is what causes a lot of learners to lose heart and give up. The older you are when you begin to learn a second language, the greater the chasm between your ability in your own language and in the one you are learning. By beginning to give children the tools they need to learn a second language, we are closing that gap. At this young age children are happy to be learning just words and short phrases, so there is no need for teachers to worry that they don’t have enough knowledge.

Starting teaching languages at 5 lays foundations for more in-depth language learning in KS2. The children already have 2 years of vocabulary behind them so by the time they start to learn some grammar they have enough words at their disposal to build useful sentences with.

What about the fact that they struggle with grammar in their own language? People are assuming that teaching grammar in MFL lessons, and grammar in literacy lessons have to be mutually exclusive, but this does not have to be the case. Grammar is grammar in any language. Nouns are still nouns, verbs are still verbs, and (in European languages) sentences still have to begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop. A sentence in any language needs a verb to make it make sense, and adding a connective will make it more interesting. Instead of being scared of teaching languages to primary school children we should embrace it as a means to reinforce their learning in English. It can even be used as an aid to expanding their English vocabulary. For example: “French only has one word for small – how many can you think of in English? Let’s use a thesaurus to find some more.”

Why then stop at reinforcing English? I have taught children to tell the time in French the week after they did it in their maths lesson, thus consolidating what they have learnt. The children were happy to do it again because it was in a different language, and those children who had struggled to tell the time when it was taught in English had a second chance to pick it up.

We already have several generations who are terrified by the thought of speaking another language. Don’t we owe it to our children to let them be the ones to whom it is second nature?