Speaking in tongues

As the number of British 14-year-olds taking a foreign language plummets, the Economist has spent the last few weeks fearing a loss of competitive advantage for monoglot native English speakers against the 400 million other folk who converse fluently in the language of Marlowe as a second tongue. It hails moves by some universities, led by University College London, to make a modern foreign language GCSE a mandatory requirement for taking a degree. Yet even if such developments would have the positive effect of forcing foreign languages back into the curriculum after the government made them optional at GCSE in 2004, they would have the corollary of excluding from top universities those children who at 14 indeed opted out of an MFL. 14 is hardly an age at which to irredeemably hinder ones future prospects, especially in an environment often hostile to MFLs when language departments are facing cuts as courses become optional and French, German and Spanish are pitted against apparently more appealing subjects. Instead of focusing on the university-end of education, what needs to be addressed is this basic lack of appeal, and this in turn has to be rooted in the irrelevance of basic vocabularies to high school students. The way to reinvigorate the learning of language in Britain is to create a linguistically stimulating environment at a much younger age.

I, at the ripe old age of 22, am currently attempting to learn another language myself - French - to join a GCSE in German and a basic grasp of colloquial English. Theoretically, at least, I have had two opportunities within formal education to learn it in the past. In my final year of primary school we were taught to sing some of the song Sur le pont d'Avignon , but, alas, not actually what any of the lyrics meant. So when I came across French again at 13, as a second MFL after German, I was left learning how to describe the contents of my pencil case at a time when in other subjects I was being encouraged to think on a whole new conceptual plane. The lack of any sophisticated vocabulary thus left my experience of French at school as little more than meaningless, and I had no desire to continue it beyond 14.

In October the education secretary Alan Johnson commissioned Lord Dearing to report on languages in schools and his interim report is due today. Dearing is sadly expected to back the continued optionality of languages at GCSE, but he at least looks set to recommend compulsory schooling within primary schools. Grounding learners in languages at the youngest age possible is surely a more effective way of creating a nation of linguists than curtailing opportunities at 14 then punishing non-linguists four years later. For me, learning French is currently proving a highly enjoyable experience. But had I been taught more than a meaningless song, it could have been so a decade ago.