22 The Linguist Vol/62 No/3
thelinguist.uberflip.com
FEATURES
Secondary school language departments, where the
real language specialists and expertise lie, have largely
only received support through the Student Mentoring
Scheme and Routes into Languages Cymru Language
Ambassador projects, which are supported by the
universities. These are cheap add-ons for teachers as
we look to encourage learners to continue with their
language studies, but the continued decline in GCSE and
A-level opportunities indicates the limits of what they can
achieve. If secondary school language departments are
closed, there will be no pupils to influence.
What needs to happen next
There is still time to save languages in our schools but
we are at the eleventh hour. Firstly, the closure of
language departments in secondary schools must be
halted immediately. These closures are leading to
secondary school language specialists leaving their
posts, many even leaving the profession. In a climate
where difficulty in recruiting teachers is a serious issue,
losing the languages experts who can teach to exam
level is foolish. The Welsh government is aware of the
problem but asserts that it has no influence over the
curriculum that individual schools offer and is unable to
enforce its own curriculum.
Secondly, school leaders must be engaged and
challenged on the curriculum that they intend to offer to
meet the AoLE LLC requirements. On the flipside, they
must also be listened to by the government. It will take
time to reseed languages in our schools. If school
leaders feel unable to run a course due to low numbers,
or schools require more finances to subsidise
international languages, then providing this resource
should be a priority.
According to the Welsh Conservatives, the Welsh
government has spent almost £6 million on languages
alone in the new curriculum. Any future funds should be
spent on supporting successful language departments to
maintain their success and share best practice. Funds
need to be made available to all schools where the
staffing is available to teach a language to exam level.
The promotion of the benefits of language learning is
equally crucial. This message is not being heard in
secondary schools, where STEM has excelled in tuning
young people – and, indeed, some school leaders – in
to the value of maths and science, often to the
detriment of languages, as well as the arts and
humanities more broadly.
The project to equip pupils, as citizens of a bilingual
Wales in a multilingual world, with the ability to use Welsh,
English and other languages in a plurilingual international
environment unravels when secondary schools lose their
languages departments. This is most certainly not the
curriculum that teachers devised or envisaged.
Written by the All-Wales Network of German Teachers.
Notes
1 cutt.ly/deraCurriculum
2 cutt.ly/deraGF
3 cutt.ly/LangTrends22
4 cutt.ly/qwwrhBJo
5 Pitt, G (2023) 'Wales Leads the Way?'. In The Linguist, 62,1
BIG DIVIDE
Primary schools have
received a much-
needed boost in funding
while secondary school
language departments
are closing at an
alarming rate
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PEXELS
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