16th January 2012 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Michael Gove has said that students in the UK should learn a foreign language from the age of 5. Reported on the BBC, the education secretary described British people as taking a perverse pride in not knowing a foreign language, which has to change, and that children literally become smarter when learning a new language because it encourages the development of neural networks in the brain.
One of Gove’s suggestions to make foreign language learning possible in schools is to extend the working day for students. Schools outside of the UK and many academies have already adopted a timetable beyond 3:15, and if state primary schools were to do the same then it would allow extra time for foreign languages. The number of pupils taking a foreign language GCSE went from 444,700 in 1998 to 273,000 in 2010, and the government are keen to see this trend reversed.
Obviously many primary schools don’t currently teach foreign languages, and Michael Gove said that we have to ensure that teachers receive the proper training to be able to deliver on his expectations. Christine Blower, general secretary of the NUT, endorsed the proposition to teach languages from a young age, but added that the teaching must be done by qualified teachers.