UK’s Huge Languages Skills Deficit Revealed By Erasmus Exit

By deciding to withdraw from the EU’s world leading international education exchange programme ‘Erasmus+’, the UK has undoubtedly shot itself badly in the foot. Simon Sharron writes how this Brexit 'surprise' serves to underline again the lamentable state of language learning in the UK.

The move brings back into painful focus the crisis of languages learning in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It sheds a dim light on the government’s woeful lack of a national languages strategy. Its myopic reliance on the currency of English as a global language is widely disputed as a cogent strategy to expand ‘unfettered’ international trade with Europe and the rest of the world.

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      string(387) "... languagelearning. Each comes with CDs, audio, teachersguides and pupil’s activity books. They havebeen designed for use on the InteractiveWhiteboard as well as individual PCs.ModernForeign Languages (French)Petit Pont 1 & 2Children can get a real feel for France whenusing these resources. They explore a virtualreality world with characters they ..."
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      string(2634) "39SUMMER2008eQUIP – new softwareNEW Software titlesFilm EducationFilm is now embedded in the new PrimaryFramework for Literacy where there isan emphasis on visual literacy and theuse of on-screen texts. Picturacy fromFilm Education is designed to addressthis need. Pupils engage with the movingimage  helping them understand narrativeand develop an ability to become creativecomposers. The disc includes a media bankof film resources which will be familiarto many young children such as Pooh’sHeffalump Movie, Madagascar, Bee Movie,Heidi, Robots, The Magic Roundabout,Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium andChicken Little..Published by Film Educationwww.filmeducation.org/eLT reviews the latests releasesLanguage LearningThree new software packages for languagelearning. Each comes with CDs, audio, teachersguides and pupil’s activity books. They havebeen designed for use on the InteractiveWhiteboard as well as individual PCs.ModernForeign Languages (French)Petit Pont 1 & 2Children can get a real feel for France whenusing these resources. They explore a virtualreality world with characters they get to knowand language learning is placed in contextand comes alive. The presentation of theseresources is of high quality with stunning 3Dgraphics.  There is a multitude of activitiesincluding games and new language is regularlyrevisited, in a way that is never boring orrepetitive, but ensures the laying down of firmfoundations. Specially written poems, songsand stories are woven through the program,encouraging creativity and participation.These two resources are appropriate forspecialist and non specialist teacher and theaudio CD and CD –Rom serve as a modelfor punctuation.Published by Manic MonkeyLittle Bridge Level 1EALLittle Bridge offers a similar interface to PetitPont but is designed for young learners ofEnglish. It supports the Cambridge ESOLStarters exam. The virtual reality world giveschildren a feel for life in the UK.Published by Manic MonkeyReading Success 1,2,3A Series of three new BRAINtastic titles,Reading Success are available for key stages1 to 3. Each product includes around 1000activities and 4 reward games to motivatechildren to learn to read.The series includes tools to help managechildren’s learning and activities can betailored to each child’s individual needs.When children achieve a content goal theyare rewarded with a game before returningto the reading activities.These resources are designed to be usedat home as well as school and offer anopportunity for parents helping their childrenread in a fun way.Published by EdAlive£29.99 per resource"
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Digital Learning

New software titles

3 May 2009

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      string(393) "... Most separate (triple) science teachers also taught general science (perhaps to younger year groups or entrants of different KS4 qualifications); combinations of subjects within modern foreign languages were also common with more than half of Spanish teachers also teaching French, and more than half of German teachers also teaching French ..."
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      string(4591) "‘returners to the publicly funded sector’ and teachers who were ‘new to the publicly funded sector’; accounting for 20% and 29% of entrants respectively.· Leavers from teaching can be grouped into retirements (25%) and movements out of the publicly funded sector (75%). Some of the latter group will have remained in teaching, in the independent sector, further education or teaching outside of England.· Inflows to and outflows from the publicly funded schools sector have been broadly in balance at 9-11% each over the last decade, causing teacher numbers to rise slowly but steadily as the inflow marginally exceeded the outflow in each year.· An average cohort of 100 teacher trainees will consist of 75 postgraduates (PGs) and 25 undergraduates (UGs). Typically 63 PGs and 17 UGs complete Initial Teacher Training (a total of 80/100). Five years after completing ITT, on average, 56 of the 100 trainees will be teaching in the maintained sector (43/75 PG trainees and 13/25 UG trainees), with a further 6 in the non-maintained sector (5 PGs and 1 UG).· Factors statistically associated with non-retirement teacher wastage (potentially cases of ‘burn-out’) included part-time working patterns, having less than 5 years of teaching experience, overseas or Teach First training, and being aged over 40 for male teachers or over 50 for female teachers.· Protective factors that made leaving less likely were work-based or undergraduate training routes, more than 10 years of experience and being a head or deputy/assistant head teacher.· Teachers known to have moved from publicly funded schools to independent schools were disproportionately likely to be male, aged under 40, and of classroom teacher grade.· Retention within the maintained sector declined more quickly following promotion to a leadership grade for teachers who were aged 35 or over when they were promoted, whereas retention was stronger for teachers aged under 35 when promoted.· The length of classroom experience before promotion made much more difference to retention for newly promoted leadership teachers aged under 35 than it did for those aged 35 or over. Retention was considerably lower for under 35s if they had less than 5 years of classroom experience.· Within the group of teachers aged 35 or over at promotion to a leadership grade, there were similar retention rates whether the new leadership teachers had at least 5 years of classroom experience or not.· Core subjects account for just over half of the total hours taught to years 7-13 in publicly funded schools, but this varies between Key Stages, with the non-core subject share of hours taught shifting from a minority (46%) at Key Stage 4 to a majority (58%) at Key Stage 5.· Increasingly for later Key Stages (4 and 5), this masks variations between schools and pupils in how the curriculum is experienced, but provides a picture of how the total publicly funded schools investment in each Key Stage is divided between subjects.· Modelling of the relationship between the number of GCSE entrants per subject and the numbers of hours taught estimated that 1,000 extra GCSE entrants in a given subject equated to approximately 300 extra taught hours per week, or 50 extra teachers in that subject.· The subjects most frequently taught by teachers without post-A level qualifications in a relevant subject were modern foreign languages (other than French), physics and chemistry, with one fifth or more of timetabled hours taught by such teachers. The least frequent were general science, biology and history, with one in ten or fewer timetabled hours taught by teachers without post-A level qualifications in a relevant subject.· Teachers of modern foreign languages or maths were the least likely to spend more than one fifth of their timetable teaching other subjects (less than one fifth did so), while teachers of separate (triple science) biology, chemistry or physics were most likely (more than four fifths did so).· Most separate (triple) science teachers also taught general science (perhaps to younger year groups or entrants of different KS4 qualifications); combinations of subjects within modern foreign languages were also common with more than half of Spanish teachers also teaching French, and more than half of German teachers also teaching French.ActionNotesAuthorR ChimaDate CreatedOctober 2011Enquiries to:raspal.chima@yahoo.co.uk(Authoring Unit)Month / YearPage 1 of 1©Birmingham City Council"
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Leadership

A Profile Of Teachers In England

6 Oct 2011

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      string(5749) "Leadership BriefingLeadership Briefing – www.teachingtimes.comReports Summaries – a weeklyservice of essential summaries,in-depth reports and criticalanalysis that’s new and relevantto education, linked to originalsource documents.MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGES INSECONDARY SCHOOLS IN WALESKeywordsModern ForeignLanguages,compulsorylearning,secondaryschools, Wales,improvement,financial andtimetablingpressures, pupilliteracySummaryModern foreign language learning in secondary schools in Wales is declining rapidlyaccording to this major study carried out by CfBT and the British Council.Budget cuts, overloaded school timetables and Welsh government assessment systems wereblamed, and the number of pupils taking French and German at GCSE has halved since 2002.The report by the British Council and CfBT Education Trust found no sense of dynamism and littleprospect of improvement.In 2005, 12,826 children studied a language at GCSE, but by 2014 the number had fallen by a third to8,601.According to the report: Languages other than English and Welsh are not part of the primarycurriculum in Wales, making Wales, along with Northern Ireland, the countries with the shortest periodof compulsory foreign language learning in Europe.Wales is very likely to fall even further behind in future, with serious implications for the comparabilityof Welsh and English GCSEs in foreign language subjects.The report finds little prospect of improvement or of the decline being stemmed as things stand.Key Findings: ■ Modern Foreign Languages are being increasingly marginalised as a result of a number ofchanges being made by schools in response to challenges they face. 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Such views are notWeek Commencing 8th June 2015http://cdn.cfbt.com/~/media/cfbtcorporate/files/research/2015/r-language-trends-wales-full-2015.pdfhttp://cdn.cfbt.com/~/media/cfbtcorporate/files/research/2015/r-language-trends-wales-full-2015.pdfhttps://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/359483/DFE-RR286_-_Are_free_schools_using_innovative_approaches.pdfLeadership BriefingLeadership Briefing – www.teachingtimes.comReports Summaries – a weeklyservice of essential summaries,in-depth reports and criticalanalysis that’s new and relevantto education, linked to originalsource documents.being countered by the messages from policy makers and influencers.Key Stage 3 ■ Almost one third of schools (29 per cent) disapply pupils or groups of pupils from studying aforeign language at Key Stage 3. This is a result of an increasing emphasis on English andmathematics. ■ Despite Estyn guidelines in relation to curriculum time for MFL, as many as 43 per cent of schoolshave reduced the lesson time allocated for MFL over the past three years. ■ While 50 per cent of schools report that some pupils coming to them from Key Stage 2 have hadexposure to a foreign language other than Welsh or English, their knowledge is rarely more thana few words or phrases. Pupils with more than this are most likely to come from England or fromabroad. ■ A range of factors are limiting the extent and effectiveness of continuing professional developmentfor MFL teachers in Wales.Key Stage 4 ■ In the vast majority of schools (93 per cent) MFL is optional at Key Stage 4 for all pupils. ■ Nearly half of responding schools (47 per cent) report declining numbers for MFL in Key Stage4, and in one in five schools this decline is by 10 per cent or more of pupils. 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Leadership

Modern Foreign Languages In Secondary Schools In Wales

4 Jun 2015

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Leadership Briefings Issue 4.03 (39)"
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      string(5725) "ResourcePRIMARY MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGES – LONGITUDINAL SURVEY OF IMPLEMENTATION OF NATIONAL ENTITLEMENT TO LANGUAGE LEARNING AT KEY STAGE 2Original DocumentPrimary Modern Foreign Languages – Longitudinal Survey of Implementation of National Entitlement to Language Learning at Key Stage 2. The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) was commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to conduct this three-year longitudinal study of language learning at Key Stage 2 (KS2). This summary reports on key findings from the study and, where relevant, comparisons are made across the whole survey period, to show the development of provision and progress towards meeting the entitlement.KeywordsLanguage learning, Key Stage 2, KS2 provision, National Languages StrategySummaryThe National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) was commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to conduct this three-year longitudinal study of language learning at Key Stage 2 (KS2) to assess:· the nature and extent of language learning provision at KS2 in schools in England, and· progress towards implementation of the non-statutory target set in the National Languages Strategy (DfES, 2002) that all children should have an entitlement to language learning in class time in KS2 by 2010.This summary reports on key findings from the study and, where relevant, comparisons are made across the whole survey period, to show the development of provision and progress towards meeting the entitlement.Key Findings:· In 2008, 92 per cent of schools were offering pupils in KS2 the opportunity to learn a language within class time – a rise of eight percentage points from 2007 and a 22 percentage point increase from 2006.· 69 per cent of schools in 2008 were fully meeting the entitlement for all year groups – a rise of 15 percentage points from 2007 and 35 percentage points from 2006.· Of the schools that said they were not providing the entitlement in 2006, more than half were providing the entitlement in 2008 (37 per cent fully and 17 per cent partially).· Almost nine out of ten schools that provided languages within class time in 2008 were very or quite confident that their current arrangements were sustainable – 35 per cent were very confident in 2008, compared to 26 per cent in 2006. However, it is estimated that a maximum of 18 per cent of all schools may not be able to offer the full entitlement by 2010.· The majority of schools teaching languages felt that they would be ready to meet the requirement for statutory language teaching in KS2 by 2011. However, it is possible that up to a quarter of all schools may not be ready for the statutory requirement.· French remained the most common language offered (in nine out of ten of those schools providing a language). Spanish was offered in 25 per cent of schools and German in 10 per cent of schools.· The typical model of delivery for languages was through discrete lessons each week, with the most common pattern being one lesson of around 40 minutes per week.· Schools facing more difficult circumstances (with a higher number of pupils eligible for free school meals, a poorer level of performance at KS2, or a larger proportion of pupils with English as an additional language) were less likely to be offering languages, although the number of such schools doing so had increased over the three-year period.· Provision and uptake of languages training had increased between 2006 and 2008 and, for the majority of schools, the KS2 Framework for Languages provided the basis of their school languages programme.· Respondents’ views on the main challenges to current provision were: finding time to deliver languages within what they considered to be an overcrowded curriculum, lack of staff knowledge or expertise and budget restraints.· The use of assessment tools had increased steadily over the three years, but those schools using assessment procedures were still in a minority.· Transition in languages from KS2 to KS3 was still perceived by staff to be under-developed and, for many school respondents, language progression remained a cause for concern.Conclusions:The results of this three-year longitudinal study of language learning show a number of very positive developments in the progress being made by primary schools in England in implementing the entitlement to language learning in class time in KS2 as set out in the National Languages Strategy (DfES, 2002).  These include:· A significant increase in the proportion of schools fully meeting the entitlement to language learning in class time in KS2· Increases in the provision and take-up of training for primary languages· Growing confidence in the sustainability of language provision at KS2· An increase in the number of schools using monitoring and assessment procedures at this level.Assessment is an area that still requires development and further progress is needed in transition arrangements and practices. 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Leadership

Primary Modern Foreign Languages - Key Stage 2

16 Jul 2009

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Leadership Briefings Issue 4.03 (39)"
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      string(5010) "ResourceDecline of Modern Foreign Languages at GCSEOriginal DocumentSome issues on the uptake of Modern Foreign Languages at GCSE. This report by exam board, Cambridge Assessment, has found that the uptake of GCSE modern foreign languages among high attaining pupils in the UK has fallen below the levels of uptake prior to the introduction of the National Curriculum. The report suggests that as well as making languages non-compulsory from the age of 14, languages could be losing out because the curriculum has diversified over recent years, meaning a greater choice of subjects.KeywordsGCSE modern foreign languages, high-attaining pupils, National Curriculum, subjectsSummaryThis report by exam board, Cambridge Assessment, has found that the uptake of GCSE modern foreign languages among high attaining pupils in the UK has fallen below the levels of uptake prior to the introduction of the National Curriculum. The report suggests that as well as making languages non-compulsory from the age of 14, languages could be losing out because the curriculum has diversified over recent years, meaning a greater choice of subjects.The report found that in 2007, grammar schools had the highest proportion of all students taking at least one language – 89%.In independent schools the figure is 72% but in comprehensives it is just 33%.Fewer numbers of GCSEs are taken in lower-performing school, the report found.Languages which have not seen a decline include Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Panjabi, Turkish, Polish, Portuguese and Urdu. But, not surprisingly, the majority of students who enter for one of the ‘world’ languages do so as native speakers. The clearest examples are Bengali and Turkish, where 95 per cent and 80 per cent of the entry, respectively, have it as their first language.Key Findings:· In 1984, 61% of girls and 43% of boys were studying a modern foreign language. These figures rose to 82% and 73%, respectively, in 1997. The trend has reversed since and, in 2007, 53% of girls and 42% of boys are studying a modern foreign language at GCSE level.  · The uptake of modern foreign languages among the high attaining pupils has fallen below the levels of uptake prior to the introduction of the National Curriculum. In 1984, 94% of pupils in the highest achievement group studied at least one modern foreign language. This percentage dropped to 80% in 2000 and it is at its low in 2007, when one in four high attaining pupils is not studying a subject in this area.  · The three main languages continue to be French, German and Spanish. French and German have seen big decreases in numbers of students over the past years. However, the popularity of Spanish continues to grow, and it is set to overtake German as the second most commonly taught language after French. Indian sub continent languages are also declining but other ’world’ languages, such as Arabic, suffered a slight growth.· Among the people who did not study a modern foreign language at GCSE level, 92% have English as their mother tongue and 7% have another language as their mother tongue.  · The percentages of pupils studying French and German are higher among students whose mother tongue is English than among those whose mother tongue is a language other than English. In languages such as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Panjabi, Turkish, Polish, Portuguese and Urdu the percentages are higher among those whose mother tongue is not English.  · A very high percentage of the entry in the community languages has a previous knowledge of them. The clearest examples are Bengali and Turkish, where 95% and 80% of the entry, respectively, have it as their first language.  · Around 68% of the students that took a GCSE in their mother tongue did not study any other modern foreign language. · Most schools have fewer than half their pupils studying a language at Key Stage 4. Those include 65% of the comprehensive schools and 87% of the secondary modern schools.  · The majority of independent (72%) and grammar schools (89%) have more than 75% of their pupils studying a modern foreign language.  · 88% of the low performing schools, but only 18% of the high performing schools have fewer than half of their pupils studying a modern foreign language.  · Students are less likely to be studying a modern foreign language if they go to school in a deprived area.  ActionNotesAuthorRaspal Chima, Imaginative MindsDate CreatedJuly 2009Enquiries to:raspal.chima@yahoo.co.uk (Authoring Unit)Month / YearPage 1 of 1©Birmingham City Council"
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Leadership

Decline of Modern Foreign Languages at GCSE

12 Jul 2009