Modern Foreign Languages in the Primary School By Keith Sharpe Kogan Page pound;22.50 There is a widespread assumption that the British are poorer at learning languages than virtually any other nation.
So, the reasoning goes, why don’t we give children the chance to start learning languages earlier? After all, young children pick up languages more easily than teenagers, don’t they? If the French, Germans, Italians and Spanish, not to mention the Dutch and Danes, can offer languages to children as young as seven or eight, why can’t we?
Keith Sharpe is aware of this argument. He has been associated with primary languages for many years, and has been instrumental in setting up programmes in schools and giving support to teachers through initial and in-service training. He has also been on many working parties and think-tanks, and supervised research into aspects of provision and practice.
In this book, he has managed to distil all this knowledge and experience into a logically sequenced and coherent text that tackles the “why?”, “how?” and “what?” of primary language teaching.
He writes authoritatively and in a language and style that will make the book readable for new and experienced teachers and, equally important, parents.
In many ways, Sharpe’s position epitomises the dilemma facing local authorities and policy-makers. He favours embedding languages in a primary curriculum in which generalist teachers take the lead in delivering the syllabus. This, essentially, is his answer to the “who?” question. In this way, he argues, foreign languages become “routine” and “unremarkable” for the young child, just a part of everyday school experience. But you get the feeling that, for all his enthusiasm, he is against converting non-statutory guidance into legislation - for the time being, anyway.
He provides several examples of good practice, and the chapters on teacher training, primary pedagogy for languages and linguistic progression and continuity provide clear guidance. But he advocates “gradualism” rather than a “big bang” approach to expansion of the subject.
On the issue of “which language?” Sharpe is a realist. He recognises that French is likely to dominate provision in the future. But it is a shame that too little attention is given to possible models of diversification; the book uses only French examples, justified as “maximising the likelihood of easy comprehension”.
It is all the more regrettable, therefore, that the text bears signs of inadequate proof-reading in those parts where French is used: crie de coeur (p.73); pacques (p.83); recreation (p.84 - why not recre?); entrangeres (p.204) to cite a few examples.
It is a pity, in a way, that the publishers did not wait a month or two before going to press. The one page “Afterword” refers to the re-election of the Labour government and to the deliberations of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority working group, of which Sharpe was a member. The author’s informed but brief speculation on the vexed question of whether to make primary modern foreign languages statutory could have been the starting point for more substantial and topical comment on official government policy and the recommendations that have emerged during the summer from the QCA and others.
Bob Powell
Bob Powell is director of the language centre at Warwick University.
