Fiddling with the school curriculum

[Taf]

Learning a foreign language will be compulsory from the age of seven....

Under Mr Gove's plans, primary schools could offer lessons in Mandarin, Latin and Greek, as well as French, German and Spanish from September 2014.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18384536

I think they should concentrate on getting the kids to read, write and speak English first! Especially those who have arrived in this country unable to speak English at all.

[Lord Nikon]

perhaps for those english will be their 'foreign language'?

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Taf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18384536

I think they should concentrate on getting the kids to read, write and speak English first! Especially those who have arrived in this country unable to speak English at all.

Couldn't agree more especially in light of this story

THOUSANDS of school-leavers are unemployable because of poor teaching, top bosses warn.

They claim too many youngsters finish their education without the skills needed to hold down a job.

Many teenagers applying for work are not only unable to read, write and add up properly — they often cannot even hold a simple conversation.

Bosses say too many turn up late for interviews and lack basic manners, such as shaking hands and wishing somebody good morning.

[Damien]

Couldn't disagree more. Learning another language doesn't mean you can't learn English, I am not even sure where that logic comes from. In fact it might even help you learn your own language as you start to pick to notice the difference grammatical structures between the them.

[Gary L]

I'm of the opinion that kids are a lot thicker than they used to be.

they don't get enough edukation.

[Russ]

How can kids learning another language NOT be a good thing? The younger they are the easier it is to pick up languages.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Russ

How can kids learning another language NOT be a good thing? The younger they are the easier it is to pick up languages.

But which language?

when I was at school they taught us how to speak French. obviously someone thought that in the future we were going to merge or something.

they should have taught us how to talk Arabic. that would have been really useful today.

[heero_yuy]

If a language is to be taught it aught to be one for the developing future, that means Spanish, or an Asian one such as Japanese or Mandarin.

I still think that being able to actually speak English properly is essential to actually understanding spelling and grammer. Those skills are then needed for other languages.

[Damien]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

If a language is to be taught it aught to be one for the developing future, that means Spanish, or an Asian one such as Japanese or Mandarin.

I still think that being able to actually speak English properly is essential to actually understanding spelling and grammer. Those skills are then needed for other languages.

In France (and presumably other countries) they teach English quite young.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Taf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18384536

I think they should concentrate on getting the kids to read, write and speak English first! Especially those who have arrived in this country unable to speak English at all.

Tackling poor spelling and grammar is also in Gove's plans. As for foreign languages - they are far more easily learnt while the brain is young and growing. We most definitely should be teaching them at a younger age than at present.

[martyh]

Originally Posted by Damien

In France (and presumably other countries) they teach English quite young.

As far as i know most other non English speaking countries learn their own and a foreign language ,only us brits think everyone should use ours

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by martyh

As far as i know most other non English speaking countries learn their own and a foreign language

That'll be English.

But how many languages are there in the world. why learn a specific one and not others?

[martyh]

Originally Posted by Gary L

That'll be English.

But how many languages are there in the world. why learn a specific one and not others?

Wonder if the "language of the street" that the young 'uns all speak these days counts as foreign ,it's gibberish to me

[Gary L]

It qualifies as foreign because you can't read it

[danielf]

Originally Posted by martyh

As far as i know most other non English speaking countries learn their own and a foreign language ,only us brits think everyone should use ours

We learned three foreign languages (English, German and French), but we only started a secondary school. I think they start earlier these days.