LondonNet News Headlines
| 08/08/02 |
| Foreign Language Learning Gets Worse
- Less British kids take French and German than before BRITISH people have always had a reputation abroad for not bothering to learn foreign languages, an image likely to be bolstered from today by the news that less school children are studying French and German than before. The number of pupils taking French at GCSE (the exams sat by children aged 16) fell by 8,500 to 338,000 while those for German dropped by 9,000 to 126,000. There was a slight, 3,600, rise in the numbers taking Spanish but language teachers are worried. The Association for Language Learning (ALL) predicts even fewer children will take French and German in the next school year, which begins in September, because the government has taken modern languages off the compulsory list of school subjects. "The government talks about widening participation but this will not achieve that," said ALL director Linda Parker. |
