Thank you and au revoir to compulsory modern languages. It was a good idea about 10 years ago, when it was predicted that you would soon have to be bilingual to buy a newspaper. Remember all that about 1992, the year when Europe would appear on our doorstep. There would be no hiding place for Anglophones and we would have to learn to greet our new neighbours in their own tongue.
It did not come to pass and, despite years of multilingual exposure, we remain stubbornly monoglottal, Europhobic and insular. A surreal illustration of this tendency was the recent Conservative party leadership election, conducted with muskets drawn over the issue of whether we should be in the European Union at all. At least it produced a world class statesman - whose name escapes me at the moment - to spearhead the party in the new millennium.
Holy Rood has been experiencing a renaissance in modern languages, with 27 pupils taking Higher Italian and 11 studying for Higher French this session. Pupils are responding to dedicated teachers and to imaginative presentations of the subjects.
As I was doing a bit of classroom observation in recent weeks, I spent some time in French and Italian classes. French was fine, but in the Italian class I could not resist the urge to reply to the teacher in Spanish. The level and quality of the work were at least equivalent to that of the 1960s golden age, when we regurgitated our model essays. “Pierre, Robert et moi, nous decidames de dresser notre tente ...’ I could go on, but I’m sure most veterans recall the story of “Le Camping”.
For a while the fashion was for oral expression at the expense of the written word. Pupils could arrive at the end of Secondary 2 having scarcely written a word of a foreign language and Standard grade French was achievable without a soupcon of writing in sight. This one-dimensional approach eventually joined “Mathematics by Discovery” and “Write Your Own English Grammar” in the dustbin of pedagogical ephemera. Teachers discovered that young people had not mastered the requisite language skills to reproduce the language, just as learning by waiting to see if it will happen had singularly failed in other subjects.
“Languages for All” has, however, trapped pupils in classes in S3 and S4 when their interest and attention have long since been switched off.
Schools have undertaken curricular contortions to produce watered-down language courses, language studies and even European studies clusters to meet the requirements of the national guidelines. Some have never implemented compulsory languages and will have little difficulty in abandoning the concept.
Yet, language learning is a very good thing and I hope that young people in Holy Rood will not abandon language study in droves as national expectations are attenuated. Most should still be encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity to learn a foreign language. Success breeds success and Holy Rood pupils are amazingly judicious in seeking out subjects where high achievement is likely and then voting with their feet. On that basis, languages will continue to prosper.
This week we welcomed to our school community Daniela, a young Colombian pupil, whose family are working in Scotland for a time. Daniela’s mother reported that she found the entire country “muy extra$a” (very strange), while Daniela and her sister in primary school have already adapted to traffic on the left, school buses and the rain.
Speakers of Italian lurk in many corners of Holy Rood, as the staff boasts a Giglio, a Crolla, a Jannetta and a Biagi. Representation of the Hispanic world is more sparse.
Daniela will rapidly develop the patois of east Edinburgh and the headteacher of Holy Rood will have a rare opportunity to dust down his speedily atrophying Spanish. Bienvenida, Daniela. Nuestro colegio es el tuyo. (Welcome, Daniela. Our school is yours.)
Pat Sweeney is headteacher at Holy Rood High School, Edinburgh
