The Yorkshire Post says: Language lessons. An own goal over linguistics
EVEN THOUGH Britain has voted to leave the European Union, the world is getting smaller when it comes to global commerce. Yet, while English is still the international language of business, this is not universal and this country's laissez-faire attitude is extremely short-sighted.
For, while football’s World Cup has seen players, and fans, of all nationalities converse in English, here the British Council has expressed fears that the new GCSE syllabus is so tough that children from more deprived backgrounds will simply choose not to learn a foreign language because it is ‘double Dutch’ to them.
With language learning in declining, perhaps the time has come to make introductory lessons more fun – and more relevant – to future careers so this country does not commit even more faux pas when it comes to linguistics and engaging with the rest of the world. For, if young pupils in other countries can become multilingual from an early age, why is it still so difficult in this country?