To think that moden language teaching in most state primaries is dross

[ReallyTired]

My son had 4 years of french at primary, but in year 7 he is only national curriculum level 2. In primary he did no writing and the standard of french of most his primary school teachers was not good enough.

This clip shows what is possible with ambitious high quality teaching. Its amazing to see small children writing in manderin.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24672295

I would love my daughter to attend a bilingual primary. Prehaps we need careful thinking about the most useful language for a British child. Prehaps my daughter could have a properly qualified French teacher teach one day a week in a primary school. The children could learn though maths, art, geography, history, PE, RE lessons taught in the target language.

My only experience is of my children's school, but based on that I would say YABU. They learn Spanish right from reception and the teacher is actually Spanish herself, so they're picking things up just from listening to her chat to them as well as the structured teaching. So far they've already picked up more than I did in my first year of learning Spanish at high school.

What is a huge let down is the massive inconsistency across modern foreign language teaching at primary level in the UK. It's so important to get at least one additional language under the belt, and we really are a silly country for not taking that seriously.

Still, at least we HAVE primary language lessons now. When I was at school, no such thing existed.

In general i think you are right. There are exceptions of course, where primary schools have properly qualified language teachers, but this does not seem to be the rule. Mostly the class teacher has to do it even if they do not speak the language well enough themselves and often they haven't had much training in teaching languages.

i used to be a secondary French teacher and before i left teaching i tried to get a primary language job but they are like hens teeth as many schools can't afford a specialist teacher.

I did French at primary (in the 70s). I think this was because the schools weren't bound by so much stupid red tape and could teach what they wanted to an extent.

I had a very good, basic grounding in French - things like the seasons, days, numbers, colours and how to ask and reply to simple questions.

I don't see much point in teaching young kids French (or any other modern foreign language) unless it is done well and supports what they will go on to learn in secondary.

I am a secondary MFL teacher and I teach at a local primary, kind of as a 'favour' to the school. The rest of my department does the same in other local catchment schools. It's quite a common 'thing' here as I know my children's school has specialists from their local high school as well.

Our catchment is very wide. Children have done a variety of languages at school so there is an expectation that we start from scratch in year 7 as even if a child has been very well taught in primary, the person next to them may not have been or may have done a different language anyway.

There is a shortage of language teachers as it is, university language departments are closing down and we face the 'oh, I was never good at French at school' or 'they're never going to go to France so we don't mind if he doesn't do well' argument from parents daily. I am not sure that anything other than a massive overhaul of how we teach languages, properly resourced, would have any impact on how we teach languages generally whether at primary, secondary or Post 16. It is possible, of course, but needs a financial commitment by a school or group of schools working together to afford the support they need to look at teaching across the board in the target language. I believe there are bilingual state schools in existence but few and far between generally. I am aware of several schools that adopt the approach of having their form time worked in the foreign language but obviously, it's only the specialists that can provide that kind of approach so school-wide is impossible.

What a great idea, OP. I think that having specialist language teachers in primary would make a huge impact. Likewise specialist sports teachers.
Any ideas on funding them?

Maybe if the government put more money into education, had slightly smaller classes sizes and more teachers then this could happen.

I don't think that French needs to be taught by people with in depth knowledge of French literature. It does require someone who can actually speak the language though!

I think the answer is closer links with schools in Europe. The comenius project allows schools link up via skype so that children can practice their conversation skills. Prehaps we could host trainee teachers from Europe in our schools and some of our trainee teachers could spend time abroad. It might be really cool for a primary school teacher to spend time working in a different educational system like Finland for a year.

I do feel that better coordination between primaries and secondaries would prevent repeatition. Prehaps the use of online teaching could allow better differentiation.

Mine get Welsh as a second language... but they get plenty chances to use it, living in Wales. The thing with learning a second language is lots of practice

I would love to teach languages in a primary school and am currently looking for a PPA cover to do it but they are few and far between.

From next year Gove wants primaries to do verb conjugations in their MFL! Whilst this is not impossible, if done properly, I can see myself spending year 7 putting right all the mistakes that the primary teachers have taught them through lack of knowledge/training/understanding.

I think it's shocking to expect primary teachers to just add a language to the wide range of subjects they already teach and they need to put the funding in for qualified language teachers - goodness knows there are enough of us keen to get out of secondary!! (especially as Gove wants us to cover passive and subjunctive in key stage 3. )