IN his plea for “a method of language tuition that actually works”, Marc A Head (Letters, January 20) conflates two distinct but related phenomena
The Prime Minister is right to insist on competence in basic English for migrants to this country, chiefly because it’s a tool of empowerment, especially for women whom certain men would prefer to keep voiceless; but mastery of the most important language in the world - with the richest literary treasury – is also a good in itself.
Mr Head deplores the slow erosion of foreign language teaching in our schools. One reason is cost-cutting but behind that is, paradoxically, the success of English. He mentions that in the 1960s and 70s most 11-14 year olds learned French; but French has long been displaced by English as the lingua franca of business, politics and academe.
As a pupil who learned French and Italian, alongside Latin and Greek, I feel sorry for secondary school students today. They’re no doubt told, everyone speaks English, study something that will land you a job. But they’re being cheated.
Learning a foreign language is taking your brain to the gym: it makes you better at everything else. Fluency in a foreign language is a key to a people’s culture, because in a crucial sense language is thought. And then there are the priceless moments, such as sitting at a bus stop in suburban Paris, aged 19, speaking with an old lady who seemed happy simply to recall the privations of war, the loss of friends, and the loneliness of everyday living. My French was not fluent, but she was patient and gracious. That day alone was worth the five years’ hard slog learning irregular verbs.
Martin Ketterer,
Tavistock Drive, Newlands,
Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel