Posted on 06/02/2002 2:32:18 PM PDT by blam
Drop French, say heads and teach Urdu instead
By Macer Hall, Education Correspondent
(Filed: 02/06/2002)
Head teachers will this week call for schools to teach African and Asian languages instead of French and German in a reform designed to reflect the "ethnic mix" of the British population.
At its annual conference in Torquay, the National Association of Head Teachers will discuss giving African languages, including Somali and Hausa, the same importance as the main European tongues. The head teachers also suggest that Albanian, Punjabi and Urdu be added to the curriculum.
They say that expanding the teaching of such languages will benefit all pupils, but in particular those from the ethnic minorities, and enable them to study for a wider range of language qualifications.
Last night Nick Seaton, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, a parents' pressure group, expressed fears that the change could be counterproductive.
"I would have thought that youngsters would be better off spending their time learning English, most importantly, and then other European languages," he said. "There is little enough time in the school day as it is. That time should be spent learning something useful."
The NAHT motion calls on the Government "to promote the status of Asian and African languages and to encourage their study as a qualification in addition to or instead of languages of European origin".
Tim Benson, the head teacher of Nelson Primary School in east London, who will propose the change, said: "In schools like mine many of the children are speaking and learning English as their second, third or even fourth language.
"The assessment system in this country just does not recognise those achievements. It would be very good for the child's self-esteem if they could be assessed in their own language."
The languages spoken by his school's 865 pupils include Punjabi, Urdu and the southern Nigerian tongue Urhobo. Recently, a number of Albanian-speaking children from Kosovo had also joined the school.
"If I had 100 pupils and 80 of them were speaking French, then my school would be heralded as a great success. Because my children are speaking Urhobo, Punjabi, or whatever it might be, that is not the case," he added.
Secondary schools are required to teach a foreign language until the age of 14, with most opting for French, German or Spanish. Individual schools, at both primary and secondary level, are free to offer other languages if they wish. Supporters of the proposed change say that in future pupils should be able to study African and Asian languages at GCSE, AS and A-level.
Last night the proposal was backed by education groups that advise the Government on education policy. Steven Fawkes, the president-elect of the Association for Language Learning, said: "There should be equality between the languages. We want to get away from just learning French at school. People who come to this country find that their foreign language skills are not valued."
Alwena Lamping, the co-ordinator of the Nuffield Languages Programme, said: "Businesses are short of people with eastern language skills but nobody seems to put the two together."
English is an additional tongue for 607,345 pupils, just under nine per cent of the country's schoolchildren, according to the latest figures from the Department for Education.
Some examination boards offer GCSE, AS and A-level exams in non-European languages, among them Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Persian, Punjabi, Turkish and Urdu, but not African languages. About 10,000 students each year sit GCSE examinations in Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati and Bengali.
An official for the Department for Education said that the head teachers' proposal would be "looked at" if it was formally submitted to the Government.
He added, however, that the idea might prove unpalatable for some staff: "At the same time as this, head teachers are calling for smaller workloads for teachers - but this idea would only increase their work."
I envy you. A number of years ago, I was engaged to a Welsh immigrant who came first to the US and then to Canada. He is a journalist, so he uses the English language beautifully. But when he told me he still thought in Welsh, which amazed me, I asked him to speak it. Wow! What a BEAUTIFUL language!
ROFLMAO
There are more people speaking English in India than in the USA ;-)
I listen to Welsh music performed in the dialect that is common in the mid-valleys. My favorite folk group is "Plethyn". The lead singer in that group in Linda Healy. She has a number of her own albums. You can buy the music directly from Sain in Wales via their website. The Plethyn cassette "Teulu'r Tir" is a nice collection and representative of the typical fine quality of singing in very close harmony. Plethyn literally translates as "entwined".
Before I post this, I'll point out that Welsh is phonetic and those names have more vowels than are apparent. The name "Cwmyswyth" is approximately "koom UHST' with" for an English speaker. Pontrhydygroes is approximately "pont RID' uh groys". Stress is on the penultimate syllable. The "r" is always rolled.
No! I'm an FJC "graduate" (though it was a long time ago...). I know there is an active Bay Area group -- we hear a lot about them here in the Seattle area (Slighe nan Gaidheal).
It is difficult without a "support system." The wife knows a very little Welsh, though her years in the Seattle Welsh Choir gave her native pronunciation. :-) You're right about Scots Gaelic though... it's fallen to about 80,000 native speakers and it's anyone's guess which way it will go from here.
Genealogy is my hobby and from what I can tell, almost all my lines lead back to either Anglo-Saxon England or possibly Celtish Cornwall. My husband's genealogy, from what we know, seems to be all German and English, yet he is dark enough that he was asked by a Morroccan if he was an Arab. When I mentioned this to our family doctor, he suggested that he looks like his Welsh patients, a group who recently immigrated to this country. I thought that was interesting.
Profit=Prophet (bump)
Good luck in the pursuit of your studies. If I can be of assistance in finding resources around Wales for you, please feel free to ask.
Do you live in Wales now? My former finance was from Cardiff and he was still continuing to have difficulties because the building housing his birth certificate burned down years ago.
The vacations I've taken to Wales and contacts made have greatly improved my ability to find the right information with minimal effort. My two oldest sons will be headed back to college in the fall, so they have eliminated any financial resources for a vacation this year too.
If you can't afford to make the trip to the National Library in Aberyswyth, there are many reputable geneologists who can perform specific research on your behalf at the library. My friends in Cwmystwyth arranged quite a nice surprise on one of our visits. They located the actual paper document that transferred parental custody of my great grandfather and his two sisters to their uncle in Llanfihangel y Creuddyn in 1851. That document became a lead that showed that most of the family had come from that village. I had been on a few "wild goose chases" in adjacent villages with no prior success. Many of the original documents are archived in Aberystwyth. The many chapels around the country have consolidated their individual records at the national archive.
Ha. Now you're pretty close to the East Coast center of Scottish Gaelic -- An Comunn Gàidhealach America (ACGA, The Gaelic Society of America) is sort of centered in Virginia -- Herndon, Richmond...
Cheers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.