2nd April 2014 9:00
By Blue Tutors
New research has revealed that nearly a quarter of primary school teachers in England have no language qualification above GCSE level. The study, carried out by the Education Trust and British Council showed that in 23% of the schools investigated, the highest language qualification obtained by teachers was GCSE, and in 31% of cases the highest qualification in languages held was A’ Level. 30% of schools said that they had a teacher with a Language degree, a drop in 10% from last year. The report has highlighted potential issues in implementing government educational reforms, in which all schools will now be expected to give language lessons to students from age 7.
The annual Language Trends Survey which polled 591 primary schools suggested that teachers were not confident about the introduction of language teaching in primary school, and felt ill-equipped to teach to the required level. Teachers questioned said that many did not have qualifications high enough in languages to feel comfortable teaching them, and highlighted the fact that that many teachers had not studied languages in years. They warned that it was not good enough for teachers to be barely ahead of the children they were teaching, and felt unprepared to teach languages from this year.
The research into language teaching also revealed that England is falling behind other European countries. It noted that many European countries now successfully teach two foreign languages to their students, while in England many students leave school with only a very basic knowledge of one. The government reforms have made language teaching compulsory in primary schools, and while the report welcomed this, it warned that many schools were not equipped to implement this change in September.