Dr Dan Tierney returns to comment on the Scottish Government's plan to introduce 1+2 language learning in our primary schools ("Academic warn as of muddled language strategy", The Herald, November 26).
Language one would be started in Primary One and language two in Primary Five if not earlier.
I cannot quibble with his analysis of the minefield ahead which he kindly calls a muddle, but there are greater worries and obstacles for the Government.
It is interesting to read director of education Neil Logue's take on the place of modern languages in present-day Scotland. Mr Logue, a former modern linguist, is one of the members of the Languages Working Group (LWG) that advises the Government in Scotland.He asserts, and he is right, that, in addition to all the many well known barriers to a more international attitude to language learning, some of the opposition comes from within the Education World in the form of teachers, headteachers,and even directors of education.
As for the LWG, it has merely two teachers in its composition, only one of whom will necessarily teach a modern language on a daily basis. I wonder what steps will be taken to consult with those who deliver French, German,Italian or whatever in Primary Schools. However noble the aims of increasing languge learning in our primaries, an honest appraisal of where we are now, given by those who teach and manage the teachers, would be more than helpful.
I last taught in a primary school in 2009.If I had been asked then about the possibility of our schools starting soon to teach two languages in addition to English, I would have laughed the questioner out of court, such were the disparate experiences I had encountered over the previous 10 years and all related to how just only one language, was perceived in each centre of learning by those responsible for it.
Alasdair Sutherland
2 Quarry Park, East Kilbride
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