Learning languages in a changing world

Sam Thater, Head of Modern Foreign Languages at Oundle, reflects on his own journey into languages and why the subject matters now more than ever. 

With fewer young people in the UK choosing languages, the conversation explores some of the reasons behind the decline. It also considers what may be lost if the trend continues, and what helps sustain interest in language learning in schools today. Sam talks about the confidence, resilience and cultural awareness that come from learning a language, and why it is about far more than vocabulary and grammar. 

An honest discussion about education, opportunity, and the role languages continue to play in a more connected and uncertain world 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to Amber Voices. Teaching the curriculum and home school. My name is Morena Chapman, director of Teaching and Learning Ambul School. And I was a lot of us to be joined today by my co-host, Lorna Page. Hello.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Good afternoon, Samuel. Tell us first. Tell us about languages. Why you teach languages? Where your interest comes from languages. How did it all begin for you?

SPEAKER_02 0:33

For me, it began um like with many at school. I uh I'm not from a um uh a multilingual background. I learnt French and then Spanish at school. I suppose I was lucky, I felt very successful, so I enjoyed, I thrived on them, and I um I was lucky to have uh a few very in fact great teachers, I would say. Um when I was at school, I uh was born and raised in Kingston upon Thames, which has quite a large um uh Hispanic and and Brazilian um population. So as I worked in restaurants at secondary school, I came into contact with a group of people. Uh and I think at that point I made the connection between learning a language and and learning uh vocabulary, learning and failing uh to learn my conjugations and and and suddenly seeing um the impact that it can have, the the doors it can, the conversations it can lead to. Um and so that took me to university. I studied Spanish and Portuguese at university. Not French, not French, no, I still feel a great uh connection with French. I part of my teacher training I did at a university and at a school in uh in France for a month over there. I suppose um I've got two options here. I could I could admit the truth and say that I was a quite a lazy teenage boy, so I wanted to do something different, but not that different. And I thought that Portuguese would fit the bill. Or I could say when I was ready for a new challenge, um, I like to think it was maybe a mixture of uh of both. We like to askew the false binary in in language learning, of course. Um, and then since then I've been uh I've been uh teaching in uh an international context as head of the IBDP at the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme and a school in London. Um I've been to Hong Kong to teach there as head of languages um for four years and come back to the um uh the similarly culturally diverse town of Aldo, of course.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Amazing. Um I mean there's continual headlines about the decline of MFL and cuts to languages across both the state and the independent sector. What do you think sits behind this? Um, what do we risk losing as a society if this trend continues?

SPEAKER_02 2:43

So there are the big, big questions there, quite a few questions in there. I think you're um uh you're right. Languages um are in free fall, they have been since um the government's decision in 2004 to make them non-compulsory. We we we know what happened then. The eBAC tried, and um uh it was met with some success, I think, in terms of um of keeping the you know, keeping the wheels on, if you like. Um I think there are a few uh factors um at play here, and I think we're stuck in a vicious cycle. I think that as a society we have um sleepwalked to a point where we do not see um languages as vital, uh as essential for our uh increasing role in a in a in a globalized, interconnected um uh community that has happened. The other symptoms include Brexit, I would say, without veering too much into the planet, of course. And I think that we we've become stuck in a in a vicious cycle as numbers declined, it became harder and harder to recruit. And with schools um facing um uh financial difficulties, uh recruitment difficulties, it makes offering languages um as uh increasingly hard. Your point alluded to to both the state and independent sector, but of course that that's not um we we aren't experiencing the same thing, and I think that is cause for concern. We know that in affluent areas you are more likely to be given the chance or encouraged or forced to do a modern foreign language, and that creates and is creating, sorry, a disparity and inequality, and I think that is inherently unfair, it's unjust, and it's it's it's it's going only going to get worse on its current trajectory. So um uh bucking the the trends um are uh uh some schools. I like to think that in at Elnville we've we've got six pupils signed up for for A-level um French and Spanish alone next year. So I think that there are some causes for hope and optimism, which perhaps we can come to later on. But I think, as you say, the the picture certainly at the moment um is is bleak.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

And like you say, it's varied, isn't it? But it's some subjects have suffered more than others.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

They have, you're right. Spanish um in some ways is a success story, and if you if you um uh see it in isolation, um it could be seen um as such. French has been steadily declining uh over um since uh 2004, early 2000s. Um, and in general, uh uh the overall GCSE entries in languages um at GCSE level have fallen. A level the the picture is even starker. Um we've only got 3% or just under 3% of pupils nationally taking an A level in a in a in French, German or in a classical language. That's less than all of the entries for P alone, for example. Um and I think that this is this puts us as an outlier. This in terms of the UK, we are um we are the black sheep in in a world which is prioritizing languages, and I worry for future British graduates they will be competing across borders and they will be losing out.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Well, I know, I mean, I think one of the arguments we often hear about languages is that um we don't need to know them in because everyone speaks English. And I know from myself, when I used to live in Norway quite a few years ago, now everybody spoke English and they spoke it with such competence, and it meant that I didn't have to learn Norwegian when I was there. And I guess one of the questions now is well, what why is learning a language important for young people, particularly those at school in the UK?

SPEAKER_02 6:36

I think there are two uh there are two points to um to answer there. First of all, it matters to young people because in the age um I'm sure we'd have got there eventually to talk about AI, but in the age of AI, I think languages offer the perfect antidotes to an AI-infected classroom. I think that uh learning, as I alluded to earlier, learning conjugations, um making mistakes as every single pupil in the history of language learning has made, with adjectival agreement or wrong case and so on. You learn to fail, and failure is vital, as we know in education. And I think that we should be celebrating that message because it makes our pupils more resilient. I think that learning a language teaches pupils to be empathetic. They study um at a level, for example, they will need to study a vast array of different perspectives, they will learn to break problems down into the in into their component parts, they will need to work with others, they'll need to collaborate, they will need to have a great deal of cultural awareness, and they'll be able to do a lot of things um uh all at once. You think about the listening exam, for example, that's a perfect demonstration of cognitive flexibility. And I think in an increasingly uncertain jobs market where only a handful of years ago, as educators, we were being told that really the only language that people needed to learn was the language of coding. Yeah. To see suddenly within the space of months, not even years, to see the need for um, you know, for coders um to be decimated with AI that can do it. I think it shows that languages give you that adaptability, that flexibility, that openness to uncertainty. I alluded earlier to that sort of a skewing of false binaries. And I think languages celebrate that grey area, the the um, you know, the the the the area that that employers will need um you know their workers to thrive in. And I think that it's easy, isn't it? The second part of the answer to your question is why do we need young people to be to be multilingual? Well, because the world is increasingly multilingual, and we know through hard evidence that it is affecting our GDP. We know that um uh in 2019, for example, that uh the the all party parliamentary group on modern languages alluded to the fact that um for the UK our lack of um language skills costs the country 3.5% of its GDP. So this isn't a case of of bemoaning um you know our sort of multilingual um uh monoglots. This matters, it matters as a country, and and and you've only got to pick up a newspaper or scroll down to see the news of uh and see how important it is to be connected with what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Start too late with the children, you think?

SPEAKER_02 9:34

It's a great question. I think um I I recognize that in other in other countries there exists this one uh common language, the the the the obvious choice is English, as you say, and in many countries their whole curriculum um is built on a longer continuum from primary school to secondary school, where of course in many um countries the study of language is obligatory compulsory up until the age of 18. I recognise that there are practical, pragmatic challenges to that with training of primary school teachers, um uh specialists and so on, not in abundance, particularly um in different areas across the country. I I I I acknowledge that it it would be lovely to have uh an all through three to eighteen languages policy that just allowed all pupils to pick whatever language they wanted to and just learnt it. But the best part of the police.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

In some countries to 18.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

It is indeed, yeah. I mean, most most most um most uh most uh Europeans, for example, expressed total uh completely baffled when you look at how narrow our education system is at the top end. We have 14, 15-year-olds deciding the three subjects, you know, if if if that they're going to study at A level, or maybe the two or three if they're going to continue and to other qualifications, other vocational qualifications. And to be clear, I I I think that specialism is fantastic, it's great. But in a world where, as I've mentioned, uh we are increasingly uncertain as to what what what employers are looking for, surely it would be better to be making uh to be you know to be to be um at the breath. Yeah, surely in a in an unknown world where employers are are looking for um increasingly uncertain skills, uh, surely increasing our students' ability to deal with a number of different challenges across a number of different curriculum areas is doing the right thing for our for our for our students of today.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

And learning languages seems to be fun. I've been in numerous lessons here at Andor, and they are always really dynamic places.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

I think so. I think the the the the the fact that from the exam down there are four different skills that are explicitly taught. We often tell our pupils off, don't we, in secondary schools we're talking in class, we're not in languages, or we actually want them to do it. We want them to talk because we assess them. And it, as you say, it is fun. I think that it's also an opportunity. As much as I bemoan the lack of a continuum, I think that we also have a chance with teaching pupils on a level playing field in year seven or in year nine when we when we get them. If a pupil has felt unsuccessful at maths in year six, when they join a secondary school in this country, they're probably going to feel similarly unsuccessful. And that's the that's the reality, unfortunately. But for languages we offer um, for all that we may miss in teaching in primary schools, I think that we have an opportunity to deliver uh a curriculum to show that they can make progress quickly, to make it fun, to make it varied. And if we can make pupils see that they can make a lot of progress very quickly, then I think that we are on to a good thing. I I welcome the GCSE changes um for pupils in U11. Um this year, they will be entering, uh, they'll be sitting the new GCSE. We have a defined word bank at higher level, for example. Pupils will need to know 1700 of the 2,000 most common words.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

That'll be a good thing for hearing people's former Spanish and French German.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

That's for French, German, and Spanish um for the time being. Watch this space, of course, for future years. Um, and it's it's it's I I think gives us hope that it can be done. We can hone these skills over um over a series of years in a fun way and prepare them for for A-level and for future study thereof.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

And one of the barriers that some people often create, and some parents say as well, that languages are simply too hard. So, what do you think sits behind that and how would you help it feel more accessible and exciting?

SPEAKER_02 13:49

I don't um I I I welcome uh the government's reform of the GCSE as I say it. I welcome the national um uh analysis of languages attainment results at GCSE. Historically, pupils who have often been a self-selecting bunch don't do as well, haven't done as well at GCSE. And that has been changing for a number of years. Um, it's been exciting to be to work at um part of ISMA, the Independent Schools Model Language Association to advocate for um making GCSE's in particular a fairer uh field, a level playing field. So I welcome those changes and see a great deal of hope in in having um having achieved hopefully what we see is a level playing field. I think I I'm very as much as I I love languages, I'm also very uh data driven in what I do. And I like to see evidence for something before I believe it. And I am yet to see any evidence that shows that languages are inherently harder to learn for young people than any other subject. And until I can see that, I will continue on my belief that languages are for all, and every single pupil, no matter where they come from, no matter their religion, their creeds, their learning disability, their um any barrier at all, their their home language, nothing precludes them from feeling successful and making progress in language learning. And I I, as I say, celebrate the fact that we have this opportunity in year seven to teach pupils on a on a level playing field. We have already in this country a multilingual um uh hotbed of of opportunity. We have a um a significant percentage of pupils who go home and speak other languages. Yes. Uh minority languages at GCSE are on the rise. It's a it's it likes the Spanish, another success story of recent years and should give us optimism. I think we have the right conditions. And I think with the right investment, with the right coordination, the like that we've seen, for example, in the Mandarin Excellence program, which invested a lot of time, a lot of resources, and a lot of money in a very particular goal. I think that should give us hope that it can be done, and it must be done.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Interesting what you said there about children going home and speaking other languages at home. When I was learning French at school, I didn't get an opportunity to speak outside of the classroom at all. There was no French exchange trips or anything like that at all. Is that something you have a view on?

SPEAKER_02 16:32

It is. I extol the virtues of any form of trip, exchange, or any um in mixture of the two. I have um I'm aware that here at ALDE we are in an incredibly lucky uh position. We have excellent relationships with schools in our host countries, Germany, France, and Spain. Um so we are able to run successful exchanges every year that are oversubscribed. We also run um trips in those subjects. We are uh we we we believe in their impact. We believe in giving pupils a chance to speak it in context, to fail, to have that opportunity of going to the you know, going to the uh going to a host family and mixing up the Spanish word for embarrass, embarrassada, and having children tell uh tell people that they're in you know they're they're pregnant and and and making these mistakes, all of which, and as I as I mentioned earlier, encourage pupils to be resilient, it open their eyes uh to to other opportunities. But but I think that we as particularly as languages teachers, we we we sometimes I think get lost in in this rhetoric of experience and how wonderful it is to visit a country and to understand other people's cultures and so on. It is undoubtedly that. But let's let's be clear. It is paving the way for future economic growth. It is paving the way for young people that will be able to be agile in the labour market. And it will um a trip, for example, last a couple of weeks ago, we we we took uh 42 uh of our pupils to to Spain and and as well as doing some work experience, some lessons, we also took them surfing and did paddle lessons. And those types of experiences are going to pave the way. Yes. Make no mistake about it for future real terms benefits to our country and and to know.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

And trips are fantastic. We run a lot of trips here at Ondel generally, not just in MFL. But what other experiences and skills do our pupils get here when they choose to study languages here at Alndor?

SPEAKER_02 18:43

We have a, as well as um exchanges and trips, we also have a um a lot of opportunities to reach out to the community. For example, our Sigform pupils on a Wednesday afternoon um in September, they prepared uh a few a series of lessons in French uh last year, and then this year, the program is developed to include Spanish as well. We go around different primary schools in the local area, they teach a couple of lessons, uh, it it's it's pretty basic and um uh it it it's um in terms of of the linguistic level that they achieve over a two-week period, it might not be great, but the impact on the pupils is enormous. They see our pupils and who can speak the language fluently, they realize that 10 years ago they were in a similar situation, they couldn't speak a single word of French or not much uh Spanish at all, and in a matter of years, they'll be able to analyse films, they'll be able to write essays in German, they'll be able to read books in in Chinese and so on. And and that is uh that is really impactful. We organize lots of university visits, we go down to taste the days, we enter competitions like um theatre competitions and conjugation competitions, recitals and so on. And as you alluded to earlier, or whatever, the joy of language learning is uh is multivariate, I think. We have pupils that pick A-level French because they want to research a particular fashion designer, we have pupils that pick Russian because they want to uh research a particular poet or they love Russian cinema. Um learning a language is i in some ways a bit of a misnomer. We like to think that we teach some in other in particular, we teach some geography, some history, some sociology, some politics, some film, some cinema. So we we teach all sorts of things, and yes, admittedly not in as much detail as as in our um uh in our other uh other curriculum areas, but uh it gives pupils a taste of of of of um of of the joy of life that will be. But at A level we teach them a range of subjects that will suit them well in later life.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Are there any trends which you've seen over the last few years in terms of what languages the pupils want to go for, what they enjoy studying more, which languages perhaps they're not so engaged with now? And uh how do you see that moving ahead? Is it going to be the same, do you think?

SPEAKER_02 21:14

So we we know that German is on the decline nationally. We are lucky here in Oundor to have seen um our numbers be pretty stable. We are bucking the trend. Um nationally, we um we've got slightly bigger numbers, in fact, for A-level um next year than we than we have do than we have done for the last um the last couple of years. We know that minority languages are growing. We do our best to support those in Aundor. We um if we can um get put on the Hitler speaking exam and for for a pupil, then we will enter them for a for a for an exam. We are seeing a rise in Spanish, although um it should be said that that's not to the um that's not to the detriment of our other languages so far. We've seen a recent um a recent spike in in in in um to the number of people is uh opting for arabic in year nine and we've still got fairly uh we've still got fairly uh um uh um healthy numbers in in in russian and chinese i think that the national uh figures should give us cause for concern i think the number of uh pupils taking a subject at a level uh can often dictate that the loan output numbers can often dictate in state schools in particular whether or not that class is run and we are stuck again as I mentioned before in a vicious cycle of universities closing down language schools we have fewer and fewer um uh universities now offering language courses um um uh at all but I think therein lies an opportunity this is a chance this is a point at which we must agree collectively to do better. We know that languages will help people stand out from the crowd. So let's do something about it. Let's encourage them to do it. I um welcome the bringing back of the Erasmus program for example which hopefully will give young people the chance uh to um to go and study abroad at university hopefully it will bring with it other exchange opportunities and in so doing as I mentioned hopefully we will ignite that spark that that that passion for for language learning um that was lit in me all those years I think that's a great place to end a call to action yes nice yeah um well it's been really interesting digging into the importance and the relevance of modern foreign languages in today as well so thank you so much Sam for joining us thank you very much thank you so much thank you to all of you for listening to Angle Voices