The Linguist

14 The Linguist Vol/61 No/5 thelinguist.uberflip.com FEATURES A new approach to primary language teaching can solve the issue of transition to secondary, argues John Claughton In 2014 CE, a decree came down from Caesar Augustus – or at least the Department for Education – that the teaching of languages should be compulsory in England for children aged 8-11. Of course, this should be a Good Thing, but it would also be fair to say that it has not yet been a Great Success, despite the best efforts of teachers, and initiatives such as the Mandarin Excellence Programme and Classics for All. Ofsted's 2021 inspection of language teaching in outstanding primary schools concluded: "Given that many pupils should have been leaving Year 6 with four years' worth of language study, it was disappointing to see how many schools were barely out of the starting blocks with their curriculum." The reasons aren't hard to identify: it's not easy to find teachers to teach languages well; and languages don't matter to Ofsted in the same way as numeracy and literacy, so they are squeezed in terms of time and regard. Transition to secondary school is even more problematic. Since primary provision is so diverse in content and quality, and every secondary school takes pupils from a range of primary schools, there is little alternative to starting a language afresh in Year 7. A further factor is that 20% of primary pupils are designated as EAL (speakers of English as an additional language), which means they are already on the road to bilingualism/ multilingualism, yet it is unlikely they are allowed to use, share or celebrate their rich linguistic and cultural heritage at school. Some of these issues can be addressed piecemeal, of course, but the founders of WoLLoW (two classicists, of whom I am the more ancient, and two language teachers) think there is another way. Our solution began as 'World of Languages and Languages of the World', a programme aiming to give primary school pupils an enthusiasm for languages and language learning, and a foundation on which to build the learning of any language in secondary school. The abbreviation WoLLoW led us to our hippopotamus logo. The word 'hippopotamus' contains many linguistic delights (its spelling in Greek and the possible derivatives Philip, hippodrome and Mesopotamia), conveying the fun to be had from the connectivity of language and languages. But the WoLLoW programme, devised over the last three years, aims to do that and more. Introduced in schools in 2021, the resources have five further functions: 1 To create an understanding of how languages work. 2 To encourage curiosity about languages, their histories and links, their similarities and differences. 3 To enable pupils from bilingual/multilingual backgrounds to use and celebrate their linguistic skills and thereby value their own cultural and linguistic heritage. 4 To show pupils the relevance of languages to other aspects of the curriculum, including English (literacy and oracy), history (local history, the history of empires and migration), geography, maths and science. 5 To engender dialogue, understanding and thought. We also think that WoLLoW can be effective in KS3 (the first three years of secondary school), because it encourages thought and understanding across all languages: English, classical languages, heritage languages and modern languages. A look at the materials So what might a set of lessons look like? One place to start might be 'Multilingual Me' in which pupils are encouraged to think and inquire about the language and history of their own families, thus enabling them to share their experiences, and perhaps quiz their grandparents. Or there's my favourite, 'Days of the Week', in which we explore the many ways in which the days are named in different languages. Lots of questions – and suggestions – quickly emerge. Why Tuesday, or Thursday for that matter? How do French and Spanish and Italian differ from English, and why are they so similar to each other? What have the gods and planets got to do with all this? How is it different in Swahili or Urdu or Polish? Such a topic can encompass history and geography, migration and empire, religion and astronomy. And in this open-ended game, it's not the teacher's job to know more than the pupils – so anyone can teach it. As a classicist, I cannot pass over the lessons on Latin and Greek. The materials are not designed to force-feed the ablative absolute or the aorist optative. In the Latin topic, the aim is to give pupils the chance to break a code where meaning is generated by word ending, not word order. In Greek, the aim is to help pupils realise that they can, more quickly than they might think, master a taste for language

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