Hansard

Bonjour. Guten Tag. I am delighted to open the debate on why languages matter—improving young people’s opportunities. This is a welcome opportunity to discuss where Scotland stands in terms of language learning and what aspirations we should have for our young people and society in engaging with an increasingly globalised world. The debate follows on from the publication last week of the languages working group report, which meets our commitment in the curriculum for excellence action plan that the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning announced on 21 September last year.

As someone with a passion for languages, I believe that the case for languages is pretty self-evident. It strikes me as intrinsically interesting that Norwegian puts the definite article on the end of a noun or that Gaelic has no words for yes and no. However, as last year’s modern languages excellence group report set out, in Scotland and elsewhere in the United Kingdom, we are often confronted with negative or lukewarm attitudes towards learning other languages. Perhaps the most disappointing of all such attitudes was one that I heard in the media this week, when someone suggested that teaching languages might somehow be “wasted” on children from working-class backgrounds. I am happy to say that that was not the dominant reaction.

The excellence group report stated the positive case for language learning, framing it within the benefits that language learning offers the individual learner as well as the economy and society. The report also sought to debunk common myths about languages, such as the idea that everyone in the world speaks English and that therefore learning other languages is unnecessary. In fact, 75 per cent of people in the world do not speak English and, of those who do, most do so as a second language. In any case, that view ignores research that points to the competitive advantage that multilingual youngsters from other countries bring to the competition for jobs with their UK counterparts in global companies and organisations.

The Government is determined to be ambitious for the people of Scotland. In last year’s election, our manifesto included a commitment to introduce, over the course of two sessions of Parliament, a norm for language learning in schools that is based on the European 1+2 model, to create the conditions in which every child will learn two languages in addition to their mother tongue.

We therefore set up the languages working group to consider how a 1+2 model might be delivered, taking account of Scotland’s circumstances. In particular, the group was asked to consider how such a model could be delivered within the framework of curriculum for excellence. The working group report, which was published last week, and the accompanying report on the link between languages and employability further emphasise the economic benefits of improving the language learning experience of Scotland’s young people. The reports also present a strong argument for giving our children and young people the opportunity to learn languages from an early age, thereby providing them with similar opportunities to those that are available to their counterparts in many other countries.

We need to recognise that multilingualism among children and young people is viewed as a norm in many parts of Europe in a way that is almost difficult to believe in Scotland. When I visited Luxembourg some years ago, I was astonished to see that almost every nursery school, it seems, advertises the fact that it is capable of operating in not two but five languages: Luxemburgish, French, German, English and the main immigrant language in that country, which is Portuguese. In Friesland, in the Netherlands, I know of at least one school where children are expected to be fluent in Frisian, Dutch and English by the age of eight. In France, they are rethinking their language teaching with a new plan that includes an increased focus on early years learning, on improving the language teaching skills of kindergarten teachers and on how primary school staff can learn language teaching skills from secondary school teachers.

By way of contrast, in Scotland we have seen a steady decline in the overall uptake of languages at secondary over a number of years. That is inconsistent with a modern globalised world in which people travel widely for jobs and leisure and speak several languages. I believe that it is now time for Scotland to create a cultural and educational environment that can help to attract children and young people to learning other languages; one that shows how languages can open doors to new cultures and literatures and that helps young people to see the world in different ways, as well as offering them many practical and economic advantages.

Many schools are already working hard to provide young people with opportunities to develop a deeper understanding of other cultures, both European and non-European, through the study of languages. In addition, over the past couple of decades we have developed in Scotland a successful example of bilingual education in the Gaelic-medium sector. We now have many excellent examples of Gaelic-medium education in schools throughout Scotland and our aim is to see that ideal promoted and expanded. We are also seeing young people using their Gaelic language skills in post-school education and in employment.

The introduction of Chinese into some of our schools and the contribution of the Confucius hub schools have helped many children and young people to develop a better understanding of a culture that is considerably different from our own, ranging from an introduction to tai chi, to an understanding of what it is like to be a pupil in China.

Confidence in languages can lead young people to form strong relationships with their peers in other countries, as pupils at John Ogilvie high school in South Lanarkshire have done with young people in Spain. Such examples show that it is possible to overcome the cultural, societal and attitudinal barriers to language learning that we often encounter in Scotland.

As a Government, we recognise the possibilities for young people’s life chances that come from learning other languages. We want schools to work towards a new model of language learning and teaching that is based on the mother tongue plus two additional languages, as first set out in the European Union’s Barcelona agreement of 2002. We acknowledge that this is a bold and ambitious objective—one to be delivered over several years.

The languages group has come forward with 35 recommendations. I am grateful for the work of Simon Macaulay, who chaired the group, and to all those who contributed to its deliberations. The group has sought to strike a balance between the level of ambition that a 1+2 model represents and an honest critique of where we are starting from.

I asked for a radical report, and the group did not disappoint me. I welcome the group’s key messages: that Scotland can and must do more to provide our young people with a better language learning experience; that language learning is life enhancing and can enable our young people to participate more fully in a globalised society and economy; and that Scotland’s increasing diversity of languages, including Scotland’s own languages, should be celebrated. I also welcome the group’s considered view that although introducing two additional languages is an ambitious goal, it is one that, over time and with the engagement of all those with a broad mind or an interest in languages, can be delivered.

I do not intend to respond today to all 35 of the group’s recommendations. Some of them will need some time for careful consideration and discussion with stakeholders. However, I am particularly pleased to see the group’s recommendations in relation to language learning at primary school—in particular, its recommendation that Scotland needs to start language learning earlier, from primary 1, rather than from primary 6, which is currently the norm for most schools.