THE SALT conference, attended by more than 400 practitioners, heard from Frank Pignatelli, a member of the UK-wide Nuffield inquiry investigating the place of modern languages in education and commerce, that the main target must be to win over key decision-makers in business and politics.
“If we cannot convince businessmen and politicians to value foreign languages, we won’t convince parents,” Mr Pignatelli warned.
“And if parents don’t value languages, pupils won’t value them and then we are on a downward spiral.”
Mr Pignatelli hoped the Nuffield inquiry, which aims to report by April, will endorse the importance of having business “champions” for languages.