Hansard

Yes. I speak of my wife, who has taught French for all that time.

Yesterday, I was putting the bins out when I met a former colleague, who is a modern languages teacher. He had just had a German exchange group at his school and two of the teachers had stayed with him for about 10 days. When I went into my house and read the post, I found a request to sign a document for the local twinning association: it wants to obtain a lottery grant because it wants to explain local culture to visitors from Hendaye in the Basque country.

I pay tribute to modern languages teachers and people in twinning associations who have taken on the idea of spreading and sharing culture: language is at the heart of understanding other cultures and how people think. Language is an instrument of understanding. If ever the world needed instruments of understanding, it needs them now. People who have taken the time and trouble to help share cultures and spread their knowledge of other cultures are doing us all a service.

I welcome the day of languages and the year of languages. It is important that we should understand the value of those initiatives. As we stand back and consider the global position, we can see a problem with English spreading to the point at which it offers not only opportunity, but danger. It provides the opportunity for broader communications, ease of trade, business, travel and other matters, but when everyone shares something, there is a danger of blandness, uniformity and a lack of subtlety.

English is continually changing. The language is not set in stone. Many local dialects exist and there is international influence even on standard English. The language develops. We must not pretend that in linguistic terms we can escape the fate of King Canute if we try to stop change, development and the spread of English. However, it is vital that we should cherish and protect all languages—minority languages included—and recognise their importance in a world that would be impoverished if languages and the cultures that they represent were lost or damaged.

"Citizens of a Multilingual World" is an excellent report that sets out a rationale for the importance of including and promoting the teaching of modern languages in schools. I have no time to go into the details, but the arguments are substantial and well argued. Old assumptions about language teaching are brought into the modern context and much is made of the fact that Britain itself is now a multilingual society—Gaelic, Scots, Urdu and so on are mentioned. The case for multilingual provision in our schools, which Irene Oldfather mentioned, is argued and its authors regret the fact that French is perhaps squeezing out other languages as the second language of choice in the school system.

The arguments in the report are powerful, but practicalities tend to work against diversity, so we need to be careful. Irene Oldfather mentioned some examples of how it can be difficult to make diversity available unless we really work hard at it. Although I support the rationale behind the report in full, I would enter one or two caveats about the suggested way ahead. The proposals for the primary curriculum would involve substantial changes to initial teacher training. The McCrone settlement can make a difference to teachers who are already in the classroom, but the proposals for initial teacher training would take many years to work their way through. We must be careful that we do not assume that by saying that we approve of something it will be done straight away.

When language teaching was introduced into primary schools, the practicalities were not observed and there were difficulties with teachers shifting from one class to another. There was also the difficulty that if the teacher with language skills left the post, the school was left without someone who was trained for it. I worry about the practicalities of the proposals.

Having expressed those reservations, I would like to concentrate on the more positive aspects of the European day of languages. Like everyone else, I express the hope that practical difficulties can be overcome. The opportunities are many; the rewards are even greater.