Having written on the subject before, I awaited what I thought would be a torrent of protests at the news that schools are losing the vast majority of their foreign language assistants ("Schools lose four in five foreign language helpers", The Herald, November 14).

I don’t know whether the lack of printed responses until Alasdair Sutherland’s reply (Letters, November 18) indicates apathy or despair.

I agree with what Mr Sutherland says, but would also highlight the commercial and economic myopia which allows the quality and aspirations of foreign language teaching to decline.

Your report says the Scottish Government wants Scottish pupils “to learn at least two languages as well as their mother tongue”. This looks like raising the bar so high that no-one will realistically expect any real progress.

The investment should be in introducing foreign language learning (FLL) into the primary curriculum, where songs, little poems and the like could play a significant role in tuning the infant ear to the new sounds; the enthusiasm (I hope) generated by the inter-active approach before the self-consciousness of puberty might encourage more children to keep on FLL into the senior school.

The rigorous teaching of English grammar, including the terms which are common to most European languages (parts of speech, etc.), would simplify the transition from rationalising English syntax on the that of the foreign languages.

At a time when the possibility of Scottish independence is being debated, it ill behoves a small country to delude itself that its inability to provide a large cohort offoreign-language speakers will allow it to flourish.

Remember Willy Brandt: “If I want to sell to you, I will speak English; but if you want to sell to me, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen.”

Christopher Frew,

320 Leith Walk,

Edinburgh.