Westminstenders: The Final Week

[RedToothBrush]

Our final week in the EU...

• Hospital bed occupancy - sorry

Farmers are worried about Brexit too

• they are likely to be among those most effected, especially those who export to the EU In particular, meat and meat exports may be stopped in 2021 for many months, unless there is more than a bare bones deal

How long will the govt continue with the replacement of the EU subsidies ?
Also looks like the govt may only want to subsidise though they consider "efficient, useful" rather than just continuing as before

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-51297084

Farmers will be the first to experience the reality of Brexit.

From 23:00 GMT on 31 January, they are out of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), the financial support mechanism Hugh has known all his farming life.

Hugh did not vote for change but now he has to embrace it.
< Hugh is likely pissed off about it, as well as worried >
......
In the short term, there is a guarantee of the status quo and the same amount of money.

Chouette is also used as a slang word meaning cute or cool. I love language.

pointythings I was talking about theatre / performance vocabulary with my U3A English class yesterday. I asked them what we said if we wanted a performer to do an additional piece and they tried bis, again, more etc. They were enchanted by the fact that we said "encore".

missclimpson my DD2 loves language. She has a word collection and is teaching herself Dutch. Young people with open minds are the future.

Someone on the Brexit forgiveness thread mentioned compulsory MFL learning as something bad that the EU would impose - as a Dutch person fluent in 4 languages, my brain just about exploded. I mean, language learning as a downside??

I mean, language learning as a downside??

Well go over to the thread where someone who lives in Wales, but doesn't speak the language is bemoaning that organisations whose sole purpose is to promote the Welsh language 'discriminate' against her because she can't fulfil their terms.

that welsh language thread he me eye rolling.
I moved in my 40s to a country where I didn't speak the language. I took lessons and after 4 months were at A2 level.
dat kan

Well go over to the thread where someone who lives in Wales, but doesn't speak the language is bemoaning that organisations whose sole purpose is to promote the Welsh language 'discriminate' against her because she can't fulfil their terms.

I'm discriminated against by the NHS because I havent got skills as a doctor, because I haven't learnt any. I demand to be a brain surgeon.

I struggle to understand the mentality towards learning another language shown on those threads. I grew up in a household where I regularly had to switch between English and Dutch depending on which side of the family I was speaking to. My grandparents also spoke a very strong dialect which was peppered with French words and often pronounced some sounds more like German than standard Dutch. It made it relatively straightforward for me to learn the rhythm and sounds of French and German at a later age.
It’s left me with a fascination for other languages - love looking at the construction and vocabulary. Welsh I find a bit easier to pick up bits and pieces compared to Irish and Scots Gaelic.

@AuldAlliance, my two dcs are bilingual in french and have to sit their french GCSE (so are going to all the classes with their peers).
Their comment is that none of their peers have any grasps of grammar, even the difference between a noum and an adjective is an issue, let alone all the different tense (the subjunctif etc...). For a language such as french or german, it is impossible to speak the language wo some knowledge of the grammar. So they struggle.

It doesnt explain some of the translation though but I have to say the cup of oil through the window made me laugh

Farmers are also the ones who voted for Brexit BCF.

I have to say, I have less sympathy for them. But that might be coming from several conversations with my PIL (who farmers and leavers). Think FIL telling my dcs that immigrants (which includes me as his DIL) have invaded the UK etc....

So yes they might be worried but surely, they should have realised the consequences of leaving the EU and its grants, easy shipement of livestok to the EU etc...?

Their comment is that none of their peers have any grasps of grammar, even the difference between a noum and an adjective is an issue,

Oh dear, tell me about it. DH and I went to a language class where the youngsters in the class didn't know what a definite or an indefinite article was, and didn't want to know either. They only wanted to speak.

However, the approach of concentrating more on speaking was throwing the baby out with the bathwater, was something of a corrective for those of us who spent five years learning a language, could conjugate verbs until the cows came home, but couldn't ask for a cup of coffee, or buy a train ticket.

This might change again, as now the emphasis on primary schools is on spelling and grammar in English.

The changes should be well into secondary now Peregrina, but I don't think secondary teachers always build on what has been learnt in primary schools as well as they could.
Certainly my Year 9 granddaughter can recognise a fronted adverbial at thirty paces. 😂

language learning as a downside

You only have to look at all the education threads where schools DO make MFL compulsory at GCSE and how unfair it is because their kids have SN etc. There must be kids with SN in the Netherlands or Norway too but they all appear to learn English and other languages without too much difficulty.

As for the Welsh thread, I was an ignorant teen when I went to Cardiff and wondered what the point of Welsh was when everyone spoke English. In my first week I met a guy on my course who I fancied quite a bit, whose first language was Welsh and he educated me very quickly :) And in my final year I had a bit of a fling with a first language Welsh speaker too.

pointythings not just the young though. I have 80 year olds in my U3A class (and I am their 70 year old teacher). 😊

Their comment is that none of their peers have any grasps of grammar, even the difference between a noum and an adjective is an issue, let alone all the different tense

For quite a while now kids have had to do SPAG (spelling and grammar) tests at primary school. I think my son's grasp of English grammar was way ahead of mine at the same age. It was learning French, German and Latin that taught me grammar.

The first cohort of children who sat the new SPAG tests are in year 10 now, I think. I wonder whether it will make a difference.

Half the problem in England is the system of school preference and lack of a specified MFL. So a primary can pick whatever language they like to teach and there’s no guarantee that language will even be offered by all of the secondaries that a primary feeds into.

DS did a SPAG test - may have been pre-Gove reforms as he is now year 12.

As for feeder primaries, my son's junior school picked Spanish because the secondary did French and German...they then introduced French for the younger ones, but by the time ds got to secondary they imposed languages on the kids, they could not choose. One of ds' friends whose father was Spanish got allocated French. DS was allocated Spanish which he was happy about as he'd done it at primary. But as I've mentioned, the MFL you were allocated in year 7 was the only one you got to do. When ds joined the school he should have picked up German in year 8. Then it was year 9. Then they said languages were too hard (and the Gove reforms meant there wasn't enough timetable time, anyway, as it had to be devoted to English, Maths and science) and one GCSE language was enough. Language GCSEs are easy when you are good at languages. Sigh.

It can be very hard to learn a foreign language with the methods typically used in English speaking countries if you have dyslexia. To say that knowledge of a foreign language is a crucial part of education is unfair in some circumstances.

As for feeder primaries, my son's junior school picked Spanish because the secondary did French and German...

And that highlights the issue perfectly. Is there anywhere else where this sort of thinking would happen?

No more so than expecting a kid who struggles with numbers to take maths.

In French secondary schools, 100% of students do at least one MFL and all those doing a general baccalauréat do at least two. My DS (who is by no means a language buff and who is in the science stream) will take 3 MFL for his bac.

Which language to pick is the problem? For other countries English is now the default second language.

Personally I don't yet think Mandarin is the way to go - at the moment I think it's rather a fad and we would be better teaching either a couple of European languages well, or languages like Urdu - given that we have large populations speaking the language. I am only talking about England, incidentally.

I also heard it said that the status of Spanish differs between the UK and the USA - they look down on it because it's the language of poor immigrants, whereas we look to it as a sort of arty, cultural language.

No more so than expecting a kid who struggles with numbers to take maths.

Don't start on that one, Mistigri! How many English people proudly boast that they are "No good at maths," as though it's something to be proud of, instead of something of a handicap.

Hi all, just wanted to say goodbye to you .

I'm Scandi and have posted a little on your threads. To me these threads have been great to be able to keep up, seeing it from a brit point of view. (Even though I saw Farage waving his flag in EU parliament and my opinion of brits took a hit, but then I though of you).

Thank you very much for your threads, may you all prosper and heal.

As the parent of one with both dyslexia and dyscalculia (sp?) I wish that they would introduce a 'living maths' qualification for those who dont want to do pythagoras, trig etc. I think she took maths GCSE 11 times and never passed... she was also dissuaded from taking MFL on grounds of her dyslexia and how hard she had to work on everything else.

However she has a 2:1 which included a dissertation, manages her money perfectly well and is now working in France and picking up the language as she goes.

I reckon Latin from an early stage is the key to understanding grammar and the roots of many languages, which enables you to make a stab.