That £4m on Latin lessons should be spent on a modern foreign language

[newnortherner111]

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/latin-state-schools-england-williamson-b1894202.html

Latest idea from the Education Secretary. Given that the Prime Minister has been in a Catholic church at least once, did he not tell Gavin Williamson that the Catholic Mass is usually in the local language now, and has been for over 50 years?

Encouraging learning Spanish for example would be much better and actually have a use in real life.

Perhaps people who have not studied latin lack the understanding of its importance.

I studied Latin many years ago and hated it . Maybe because it was all Friday afternoon . It must have sunk in because my ex was always impressed at my ability to get the gist of words in other languages that I had never been taught. It’s a great basis for other languages. We had a story book called Fabulae Antiquae I think.

I think Latin is a useful subject to study but it has to be taught well and by teachers who have actually studied it themselves! It sounds like this is not going to happen.

I have a languages degree and doing Latin GCSE is on my bucket list for all the valid reasons listed upthread.

If money were no object, I'd support bringing Latin back to schools, but surely priorities should be getting the basics right - teacher retention, send provision, school funding - and then adding options like Latin as the cherry on top.

Latin was compulsory in year 7 and 8 at my secondary school, so we spent an hour a week on it, however we spent 0 hours on the structure of the English language.

Latin hasn’t been useful to me, instead it was a wasted hour every week. I speak a bit of German and I’m learning Swedish, for those who think Latin is the source of all European languages, it really isn’t.

If the fund is limited to mfl it would be better spent overhauling how mfl is taught in England, at the moment its absolutely shocking (not the fault of teachers).

One of my DC left primary school barely able to read, but able to say several sentences in Latin. She's forgotten them now, but has learned to read. totally misses point of thread

^^ this

@SimonJT you must have been at school at around the time I was, as we had no lessons on structure of the English language, indeed I learnt more about language structure in French lessons.

The lack of interest in modern foreign languages generally that one of the responses on this thread mentioned does concern me. I take great pride in not being the typical Brit abroad and speaking some of the local language, and it does avoid being asked immediately for my views on Brexit.

Perhaps people who have not studied latin lack the understanding of its importance.

I did it to A Level. It was interesting. It waa useful for the linguistucs module I did at university on the transition from Late Latin to Old Early French. It did not, however, help me learn French, German or Spanish.

@MySecretHistory

Caecilius est in horto

Barbillus est vir dives.

I love language and if you know Latin you can very quickly pick up a lot more languages.

If you know Spanish you can quickly pick up a lot more languages. If you know German you can quickly pick up a lot more languages. It is the process of learning a language thoroughly and then learning other ones with similarities that makes it easy, not something magic about Latin.

And what Latin doesn't do for you, which modern languages all do, is give you the vital listening and speaking skills which actually allow you to communicate (rather than just being good at decoding texts and memorising verb endings).

@lazylinguist - it's definitely not being taught in all primary schools. My children have been to three. In their first, there was no MFL taught at all

That's not good. It is supposed to be compulsory. I have taught MFL at 5 primary schools. Some primaries get someone independent in (like me) or some secondaries do outreach to their feeder schools by sending an MFL teacher once a week. Although once a week isn't great - language needs to be little and often.

A pp was right that it would be virtually impossible to achieve continuity in MFL from primary to secondary even if you had the available teachers. The only way to do it would be to have a blanket national policy where all secondary schools started with one language (I'd argue for Spanish), then add a second of their choice if appropriate.

:-) Brilliant! We didn't 'do' Latin at primary.

Did she decline Latin verbs in her sleep? I remember, "Bellum bellum bello...etc"; alternatively, "Amo amas amat...", which is much more friendly.

I decline English verbs in my head to this day if I am unsure about something. If I hadn't done Latin, I wouldn't have known how and would regularly be confusing 'was' and 'were'.

A bit of Latin should be basic education.

To be continued sine die.

@Hatethisplacetho

I studied Latin (at a state school) and still use it to this day with respect to understanding the meanings and etymology of words. It is also a good logical/verbal exercise, exposes you to some history and classical art, and enables you to learn many modern languages with ease. I am a huge advocate for it as a subject and I hope my DD is at least a little bit interested in it! The thing that kept my interest high was being a huge Harry Potter fan and all the spells being somewhat Latin based.

I totally agree. I did Latin at state school and it has been invaluable to me. I have always regretted that my DS never had the opportunity to learn it.

I'm another one voting that they teach Spanish instead.
Personal experience -- knowing Spanish means I understand and have easily picked up a lot of Italian, French & Portuguese. I can pick out bits of Romanian, too.

I'm another one voting that they teach Spanish instead.

Spanish is undoubtedly easier for beginners (obviously they all get more difficult once you hit the point of learning more complex grammatical structures). Spanish is so much easier to pronounce than French. This has been very clear to me since learning Spanish myself as an adult and now teaching both French and Spanish to primary school children. The difference is actually huge.

When DD was 8, she decided she wanted to study Latin and so wanted to take the 11+ so she could go to the grammar school, where it was taught. She got in, took it at both GCSE and A-level and she now holds a first from a top UK Uni in Classics (picking up Ancient Greek too and choosing that particular course for its emphasis on languages). She is now embarking on a completely unrelated career. That said, I think the critical thinking and analysis skills she learned from her studies are highly transferrable.

Interestingly, I sent this news to DD, and her response was 'What a strange way to prioritise education funding'.

I thought many schools were having to make hard decisions about what they could afford because of funding cuts. Weren't TAs being let go ? Teachers having to buy basic equipment out of their own
pockets ? Great idea in theory but maybe direct that money to SEN provision, improving literacy etc first.

@lazylinguist

I'm another one voting that they teach Spanish instead.

Spanish is undoubtedly easier for beginners (obviously they all get more difficult once you hit the point of learning more complex grammatical structures). Spanish is so much easier to pronounce than French. This has been very clear to me since learning Spanish myself as an adult and now teaching both French and Spanish to primary school children. The difference is actually huge.

Spanish is taught, there is usually the option of that or German in addition (or as an alternative) to French.

BytheSea, good for your daughter! A good degree is to be prized regardless of the subject; it shows she can work and, from Latin, she will have a depth of understanding than many others lack.

Spanish is taught, there is usually the option of that or German in addition (or as an alternative) to French.

I know. What I'm suggesting is that Spanish should be the first MFL we teach, rather than French. It's easier for beginners, and would help with picking up French later. Spanish has massively increased in popularity. Partly because it's easier and, I suspect, partly because of Spain's popularity as a holiday destination.

The Latin announcement seems to have made all the headlines but there does also seem to be a plan to support MFL teaching. The text below is taken from the press release that announced the Latin programme.

The Government is also announcing the next phase of the £16.4m Mandarin Excellence Programme, and the fourth year of the £4.8 million modern foreign languages pilot, which supports schools to teach French, German and Spanish up to GCSE...

The Modern Foreign Language Pedagogy Pilot supports 45 schools, training and providing French, German and Spanish teaching resources to teachers for free. The scheme, launched in December 2018 and managed by the National Centre for Excellence for Language Pedagogy, currently covers key stage 3 and will expand to key stage 4, including the new GCSEs, for over 1,350 teachers nationally.

The school Latin courses, whether they be Cambridge Latin or Suburani are half language and half civilisation. So lots of it is learning about Roman history and mythology. This is something which isn’t taught in schools other wise and as the history curriculum is woefully narrow it gives students a chance to study topics they wouldn’t usually.
Equally, latin is not just for the top students, I find more often than not it is something that weaker students can access and thrive with as a) it is totally pattern based so once they have learned the grammar techniques all sentences can be worked out with a dictionary, and b) it doesn’t require speaking which many students struggle with.

Reference points for this; history and classics teacher for the past decade…but don’t listen to someone who knows what they are talking about, it’s just those private school bastards apparently

There's actually quite an over supply of Classics teachers for some reason at the minute.
I think giving more people the opportunity to study Latin is an excellent idea, it is just very low on my priority list for the DfE right now. I'd rather they thought about ventilation in classrooms for September and what's happening in the 2022 exams.

I still miss (Finnish) Yle Radio 1's Nuntii Latini, five minutes of news read in Latin, something to keep the mind agile.

Learning another language is almost always beneficial, and there's definitely still a place for Latin at this time.

@quizqueen

If everyone had been fortunate enough to have been taught Latin at school then the standard of writing on this forum and on other social media would probably be a lot better because, quite honestly, it's often appalling. A lot of people who post online have very poor spelling and an even worse understanding of grammar. 'Would of ' comes to mind, no idea of the difference in usage between 'there, their and they're' and don't start me on the need to proofread before posting.

A good education is very important so don't slate it.

Or, how about teaching English grammar? I went on to do a degree in English Literature, but was disadvantaged by the lack of English Grammar taught at my comprehensive - really, we were taught absolutely nothing. I probably used 'would of', through no fault of my own, I simply didn't know any better. As I've said, I think I would have enjoyed learning Latin and it would have been relevant to my degree, but a lot of the arguments being made for it to be studied here don't convince me that it does, in fact, help with logical thinking. Also, I gained an 'A' in Chemistry A level, no Latin required.