Margaret Hodge
Foreign Language Teaching
The Minister for Lifelong Learning and Higher Education (Margaret Hodge) : I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant) on securing time for a debate on language teaching and learning in the United Kingdom. I have to say that I am personally passionate about the importance of language learning. I was fortunate enough to have learned four languages by the time I was five years old. That has stood me in very good stead; one never forgets them, and can then build an ear for languages. I dare not try too much after what has been said, but I can even manage the odd Arabic sentence. One is something along the lines of, "Bukara ei mish mish", which means "Tomorrow we shall have apricots". That underpins the debate, in a sense, because one puts off all decisions until the next day.
I came to Britain with my family when I was young, so I know the importance of being able to communicate across linguistic and cultural barriers. That is not just about promoting economic prosperity, as my hon. Friend said, but also allows one to make oneself understood and promotes intercultural understanding, tolerance and international citizenship. I think that that is crucial.
We have made a lot of progress in Britain since the development of a national strategy for languages, which arose out of the Nuffield report and inquiry in May 2000. We have now set out some of our ambitions to improve this country's performance at languages over the next decade. Alongside our Green Paper on the agenda for 14 to 19-year-olds, we published a paper about language learning. Some of the issues that my hon. Friend raised related to higher education, but higher education and the training of teachers cannot lie in a vacuum; they have to be built from the blocks underneath. That means establishing, as he said, a culture and lifelong interest in language learning right through from primary school and into secondary school.
We have set out our ambitions in the pamphlet "Language Learning". At present, we estimate that something like one in five primary schools have some sort of language provision. We want all primary school children to be entitled to study a language by 2012. We have started putting the building blocks in place. The Teacher Training Agency is now funding specific places for primary French initial teacher training.
Hywel Williams : Will the Minister give way?
Margaret Hodge : I will, but I am very short of time.
Hywel Williams : Would the Minister agree that having two languages is an aid to learning a third, or does she agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda that two at one time is quite enough?
Margaret Hodge : My personal experience was that I was not muddled by having four. Very young children can adapt quickly to language learning, so I am keen that they do so as early as they can. I support the initiative of our Department to base it in the primary curriculum. There are also 141 specialist language secondary schools. Each secondary specialist school will be expected to link with another five schools as part of the functions for which it receives its additional resources.
We are developing virtual links with schools in other countries through the use of the information and communication technology to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda referred. In Europe we have signed an agreement with the Spanish to try to develop an internet link for schools and the teaching of language to facilitate some of the deficits in our ability to provide a cohort of language teachers. We are trying to address the issue of transition from primary to secondary. We want to increase the number of people studying languages in further and higher education and in work-based training, and we want to increase the number of people who teach languages.
I shall pick up one point made by my hon. Friend. He said that the university of Glamorgan had closed its modern foreign languages department—but it has adopted a new approach. My hon. Friend said that we should look at innovative ways in which languages can be taught. What the university has done is interesting. It has established a unilang centre in which it has invested substantially in a state-of-the-art, self-assessment, tutor-supported language-learning facility which is open to all students, whatever they are studying, to learn at their own pace and at a variety of levels. Students can have assessments and gain credits for language studies, but without the pressure of working to specific deadlines. I hope that my hon. Friend will support such initiatives.
Mr. Bryant : My biggest worry about the unilang proposal and the general route of providing a little modern language teaching alongside another course, which many universities are taking, is that it will not provide teachers in the long term.
Margaret Hodge : I accept that unilang will not provide teachers, but it will provide the facility for individuals to learn a language that they can use in their jobs and in the wider cultural community.
The difficulty that we face in the United Kingdom is that English is, to some extent, the lingua franca of the 21st century. My hon. Friend referred to that fact, and I accept that it is true. To give one instance, students from outside Europe who are studying in France may take their degrees in English. The purpose of that is to attract international students and compete with British universities. Although the French would not like to admit to that, it is the reality, and it shows the strength of English. That is why United Kingdom students are reluctant to study modern foreign languages at degree level. They simply do not need them to the same extent as in the past. It would be wonderful if more of our students could quote freely from Moliere to Goethe, and from Dante to Cervantes, but they must be convinced that it is important.
My hon. Friend referred to the research by the Languages National Training Organisation last year which revealed the important fact that 20 per cent. of employers said that they had lost business because of a deficit in language skills, and 45 per cent. reported that language or cultural issues were a barrier to international trade. We must build on that as we try to encourage more young British people to learn a whole range of modern foreign languages.
I have recently reviewed the Socrates Erasmus programme, and we import twice as many people to study here as we export to study in foreign universities. I hope that simplifying the fees and student support arrangements, talking to some of the agencies and so on will help to increase mobility.
There is a shortage of language teachers. In January 2002 there were 190 vacant modern language posts in secondary schools in England—about 1.2 per cent., down from 1.5 per cent. We are trying to tackle that with training bursaries and golden hellos, which have led to an increase, but we are also finding that students who undertake a modern languages degree, whether that is a single or joint honours degree or part of a joint degree with another subject, do not necessarily move into language teaching. We must be constantly vigilant and take whatever initiatives we can to encourage more and more people to do that.
I hope that in my very brief response I have demonstrated to my hon. Friend and to the Chamber the importance that we place on learning modern foreign languages. A huge range of challenges must be addressed. There are exemplars of good practice and achievement throughout the education system, but there is also evidence of pupils losing interest and dropping languages at key stage 4. We must work to keep young people engaged in language learning from an early age, and we must demonstrate the value of language competence, not least the future employability benefits that are open to language graduates. We must look at flexible and innovative ways of delivering language in the curriculum. That is the reason for the action we have taken to date—
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