Learn, just not listening

"I wrote this speech initially for a speech competition in 2014 because I see this as a big issue and I believe it is very important that we take action," Finnian wrote.

He's talking about doing your your best about an indigenous language as Maori. In this case, it's important to pronounce the language of your neighbors correctly. 

It's not just un effort, it's respect!

Finnian Galbraith

More of us need to say 'nǐ hǎo' to Mandarin Chinese

Languages are crucial for work and life in the global race, and Mandarin Chinese is one of the front-runners, says Vicky Gough.

At the end of last month, George Osborne vowed to invest £10 million in UK schools so that more pupils can learn Mandarin Chinese, just like his daughter, Liberty.

But should we really be encouraging more of our young people to say ‘nǐ hǎo’ (‘hello’) to Chinese? ‘Shì de’ (yes), we should!

The reality is that languages, in general, are crucial for work and life in the global race, and Mandarin Chinese is one of the frontrunners. Not only is it already spoken by more than a billion people worldwide, but China is recognised as the world’s second biggest economy with many expecting it to wrest the top spot from the US by 2050.

If knowing the local language is the tangible tool that provides a vital understanding of local culture – and therefore essential business etiquette in a country such as China – it really can be the ice-breaker for those looking to trade or indeed clinch that high-flying job in a competitive marketplace.

But despite all the signs seemingly pointing in Mandarin’s direction, this year’s official GCSE statistics indicated that only 3,710 students took a GCSE in Mandarin Chinese in comparison to 157,699 who took French and 90,782 students who took Spanish.

Moreover, research for the British Council in 2013 highlighted that only 1 per cent of UK adults can speak Chinese even though that same study revealed Mandarin to be the second most vital language for the UK’s future.

So, if it truly is the case that Mandarin Chinese is more and more important for the UK’s place in the world and China is becoming more and more important on the global stage, does something need to change and if so, how do we do it?

While the overall number of UK school pupils learning Chinese is still low when compared to other important languages like French, German and Spanish, there are promising signs of growth – a striking contrast to the drop most of the other languages suffered this year.

The number of entries to Mandarin Chinese at GCSE level in fact grew by a mammoth 18 per cent over the past year – a hugely encouraging statistic in itself but particularly when read alongside the rather more dismal picture of an overall decline of 4.65 per cent in language exams across the board.

That said, it cannot be denied that, on the whole, we still have a way to go when it comes to boosting language learning in the UK, particularly if we want to ensure that less common but important languages such as Mandarin Chinese become a realistic choice for a critical mass of head teachers and their pupils.

With teacher supply being identified as the most pressing issue for teaching Mandarin in the UK, it is fantastic to see investment in this area and policymakers, educators, businesses and organisations continuing to pull together in this respect, but more needs to be done.

"It cannot be denied that, on the whole, we still have a way to go when it comes to boosting language learning in the UK."

At the British Council, we already have lots of ways that schools can help encourage language learning, including Mandarin Chinese, amongst their pupils, whether it’s through employing a foreign language assistant, partnering with a school in another country or taking on a challenge such as our annual British Council/HSBC Mandarin Speaking Competition.

Let’s do whatever we can to ensure that more of our young people realise the benefits that learning Mandarin Chinese can bring and that more of ourschools are able to realistically make this a language of choice for their pupils.

Vicky Gough, schools adviser at the British Council

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/11912898/More-of-us-need-to-say-n-ho-to-Mandarin-Chinese.html

Highly trained, respected and free: why Finland's teachers are different

In a quiet classroom adorned with the joyful creations of small children, Ville Sallinen is learning what makes Finland’s schools the envy of the world.

Sallinen, 22, is teaching a handful of eight-year-olds how to read. He is nearing the end of a short placement in the school during his five-year master’s degree in primary school teaching.

Viikki teacher training school in eastern Helsinki describes itself as a laboratory for student teachers. Here, Sallinen can try out the theories he has learned at the university to which the school is affiliated. It’s the equivalent of university teaching hospitals for medical students.

The school’s principal, Kimmo Koskinen, says: “This is one of the ways we show how much we respect teaching. It is as important as training doctors.”

Welcome to a country where teaching is a highly prized profession. Finland’s teachers have kept the nation near the top of the influential Pisa performance rankings since they were first published in 2001, leading to an influx of educational tourists as other teachers have endeavoured to learn from the Finnish experience.

Finland is going through a deep economic crisis, and there are financial pressures on schools, just as there are on the rest of the public sector. But the five-year master’s degree for primary school teachers is not in question. Competition is fierce – only 7% of applicants in Helsinki were accepted this year, leaving more than 1,400 disappointed.

Leena Krokfors, professor of teaching at Helsinki University, says: “The beef in the Finnish teacher training system is the time that students have to learn, and while politicians are happy for Finland to produce good teachers, that’s OK.”

The high-level training is the basis for giving young teachers a great deal of autonomy to choose what methods they use in the classroom – in contrast to England, Krokfors says, where she feels teaching is “somewhere between administration and giving tests to students”. In Finland, teachers are largely free from external requirements such as inspection, standardised testing and government control; school inspections were scrapped in the 1990s.

“Teachers need to have this high-quality education so they really do know how to use the freedom they are given, and learn to solve problems in a research-based way,” Krokfors says. “The most important thing we teach them is to take pedagogical decisions and judgments for themselves.”

In Britain, by contrast, academies, private schools and free schools can hire people to teach even if they are not qualified. Labour claimed in 2013 that becoming a teacher in Britain was now easier than flipping burgers.

For a small, agrarian and relatively poor nation, educating all of its youth equally well was seen as the best way to catch up with other industrialised countries, according to Pasi Sahlberg, a Finnish educationist at Harvard who has done much to popularise Finland’s methods abroad.

In the early phase, during the 70s and 80s, there was strict central direction and control over schools, state-prescribed curriculums, external school inspections and detailed regulation, giving the Finnish government a strong grip on schools and teachers. But a second phase, from the early 90s, consciously set out to create a new culture of education characterised by trust between educational authorities and schools, local control, professionalism and autonomy. Schools became responsible for their own curriculum planning and student assessment, while state inspections were abandoned. This required teachers to have high academic credentials and be treated like professionals.The Finnish dream, as he calls it, was for all children, regardless of family background or personal conditions, to have a good school in their community – a focus that has remained unchanged for the past four decades. 

Krokfors adds her own explanation for the high regard in which teachers are held: “If we look back at Finland’s history, teachers have always been seen as the people who brought civilisation to small villages” as the country modernised in the middle of the last century, she says.

Not only is teacher education in Finland strongly research-based, but all the students on the primary school master’s course are engaged in research themselves – a point of pride for Patrik Scheinin, dean of the faculty. The course aims to produce “didacticians” who can connect teaching interventions with sound evidence, he says.

“We want to produce cognitive dissonance. The task of a good didactician is to disturb the thinking of someone who assumes they know everything about teaching,” Scheinin says. “Just because you’ve been doing something for 20 years and it works for you doesn’t mean it works for other teachers, other students, or in other subjects.”

In the city centre at Helsinki Normal Lyceum, another of the 11 university teacher training schools scattered around the country, student teachers are running day-long multidisciplinary workshops for pupils aged 13 to 19. In one, Maria Hyväri, 24, is discussing Dewey, Steiner and Montessori, and asking pupils to think critically about teaching methods at the school. Classes are mixed and there is no streaming.

“I want to make a difference,” she says. “There are all these new teaching tools and ideas, and it’s great because here we can try different things – it makes me feel inspired.” Because the school is full of student teachers, pupils are “used to being experimented on,” she says, although sometimes they might get a bit tired of the constant rotation.

Hyväri is in the middle of an undergraduate degree in French and English, but she has chosen to take an additional pedagogical year in the middle of her five-year degree, which will launch her on to a teaching track in her final two years to emerge qualified as a secondary school teacher. During this year she spends about half her time in the school, and half in the university’s teaching department.

For Olli Mättää, a teacher trainer at the school, Finland’s Pisa scores are a byproduct of the system rather than a central goal. “When we got the results, we were thinking, if we are that good, how bad are the others? We were taken by surprise,” he says.

ducationists point to historically specific factors that have helped to fashion Finland’s schools, such as the country’s small population, its relatively late dash for modernity, and broad acceptance of values such as equality and collaboration that are embedded in its version of the Nordic welfare model. But the decision to make teaching an advanced degree subject has given teaching a high profile in Finnish society.

“Teachers in Finland are autonomous professionals, respected for making a difference to young people’s lives,” says Sahlberg.

As a result, those who choose to train are devoted to teaching for life, he says. “My concern is with fast track teacher preparation programmes turning teaching into something you do for a while and move on, and almost anyone can do it.”

Back in primary school, Ville Sallinen got the teaching bug eight years ago while still at school, when he started coaching football. It sparked his interest in working with children. He is not particularly academic, he says, but like many students his passion for teaching got him on to the master’s course.

“I would like to have more experience in schools like what we are having now,” Sallinen says. “Next year we have no practical element. It is good to get experience in a real school.”

At the end of each day, he sits down with his mentor, Tunja Tuominen, to deconstruct teaching moments and to theorise them. Says Tuominen: “Student teachers come here like little chicks, mouths wide open and eager to learn.”

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http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jun/17/highly-trained-respected-and-free-why-finlands-teachers-are-different?CMP=fb_gu

The school with 42 languages in the playground

With immigration a big topic in the European and local elections, BBC News local government correspondent Mike Sergeant visits a school in north-west London, where there are 42 languages spoken in the playground.

Byron Court in Brent is one of the most diverse schools in the UK.

The playground at lunchtime is an extraordinary mix of vibrant London life.

Children from Iraq, the Philippines, Somalia, India, Nepal, Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia, to name but a few, mingle happily and play together.

One of the most striking things is the almost total absence of children from families that might describe themselves as "white British".

This is not particularly unusual for a primary school in parts of London and some other big cities.

'Celebrating diversity'

As immigration has become a more central political issue in recent years, so the questions have intensified about the effect of such pronounced diversity on the educational achievement of pupils from all backgrounds.

"Keeping unity at school is very important", said Martine Clark, the school's executive head teacher.

"It's vital there's no differentiation between any languages or any culture. We do that by celebrating the diversity of the culture in the school."

She says the children that come here are adaptable and resilient. Having such a rich variety of backgrounds actually makes the pupils better learners, she believes.

Byron Court says adequate funding and enough outstanding teachers are vital to integrating children whose families are often scattered across the globe

Some of the children told me they struggled at first, often not understanding simple instructions in the classroom or the playground, but most said they were comfortable in the school after a few months.

After several years, many have turned the disadvantage of not speaking English into the advantage of being fully bilingual.

Martyn Pendergast, an education officer with Brent Council, said: "Inevitably there is some impact - particularly at the earlier end of primary school.

"It takes time to learn a new language.

"But children learn very quickly. By the time they're 11 they've caught up with national standards and by the time they're 16 they're flying".

Some experts have, however, voiced worries that in other schools those who don't speak English at home aren't getting the level of support they need.

The outcomes that these children can expect, though, vary hugely.

Those who don't speak English but come from a disciplined background and a high level of learning in their original language often progress rapidly.

Concerns are more often raised about those who come from countries which may have been ravaged by wars or other forms of social disaster.

Children who aren't used to any kind of formal education can struggle to adapt.

White children

As a general rule, the younger the children arrive in a school, the easier it is for them to learn English and adjust to the British system of education - but what if your child is not from a migrant family?

Christopher McGovern, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education which aims to promote a greater emphasis on traditional values in state education, has concerns.

"The problem is not the migrant children. The problem is the white working class children who are doing very badly at school," said Mr McGovern.

"White working class boys are at the bottom of the educational pile and I think quite a lot of parents are afraid or fearful that because there's a lot of attention given to migrant children, perhaps rightfully, their own children are being neglected."

In recent years, experts say, there has been a new form of migration.

White British families and second-generation immigrants have been moving out of schools near urban centres to more distant suburbs, or into the countryside.

That's a process which raises its own deep questions about the future of education in our cities.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/education-27263790

Are teachers ready for the coding revolution?

There's a revolution coming to schools across England, one designed to transform a new generation's prospects in the digital age. Come September, a change to the curriculum means the study of computing - and specifically coding - will be mandatory across all state primary and secondary schools.

That also means that something like 16,000 ICT teachers in secondary schools and more than 160,000 primary school teachers face a huge challenge - getting ready to teach the new discipline in time.

Where better to assess their readiness than BETT, the annual education technology fair. I spent yesterday in the vast halls of the Excel exhibition centre talking to teachers, children and even Education Secretary Michael Gove, about what the arrival of coding in the curriculum might mean.

To see two primary school pupils, Ruby and Sienna, working together to make a Raspberry Pi-controlled vehicle move around the floor with a few lines of code, was to understand what's possible. They admitted that coding could be difficult at first - but both were having a lot of fun.

They were benefitting from the work of one of an army of enthusiasts now descending on schools to help prepare for the coding revolution. Tom Stacey, a PhD student, invented the PiBot, the vehicle the girls were controlling. "It's when you combine hardware - something that they can actually touch - with writing lines of code that it actually comes alive," he told me.

Meanwhile, teachers at BETT seemed determined to be upbeat about the arrival of coding. Jonathan Furness, a primary school head teacher, admitted it was "a big ask - we're very much up against it".

With every teacher at primary level having to teach computing, there would need to be resources for staff development, and consultants would be coming into school to help. But he said, "our children are revved up" about coding and the teachers would come with them.

Gary Spracklen, head of digital at an academy in Dorset, said the key was to deal with the fear of learning a whole new language. "Everyone thinks it's a huge step onto a high level - but the message is we need to break it down and start small."

And that was echoed by Carrie-Ann Philbin, a great evangelist for inventive ways of using technology in the classroom, who's just joined Raspberry Pi: "It sounds like a steep learning curve," she admitted when I asked whether older teachers might be intimidated by coding. "But those big words like algorithm and data, when you actually dig deeper you see they're not scary."

So - what of the man who has ordered this revolution in classrooms? Michael Gove told me he accepted that a lot was being asked of teachers. But he insisted, "We're giving teachers all the support they need". He praised "outstanding teachers who understand and get computer science", and said they would be helping colleagues. "And we're making sure we get more talented people from the computing industry who think about teaching and are attracted into the classroom," he said.

And he said there was no alternative to making this work if we didn't want the Googles and Microsofts of tomorrow to be created elsewhere. "Schools will be better places and children will be better prepared for the future if they understand the language of the future - and that is computer programming."

From cabinet ministers pushing a policy and every kind of business promoting their products, to evangelical computing teachers, BETT attracts those with a determinedly optimistic view of the role technology can play in schools.

But in the real world, cynics will point at initiatives from language laboratories to electronic whiteboards to classrooms packed with obsolete desktop computers that have left many teachers underwhelmed. Will the drive to get children coding be different? And will schools be ready? If you're a teacher with a view on your own or your school's readiness for this revolution, please get in touch.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25857276

Languages to be compulsory in English primary schools

It will be compulsory for primary school children aged seven and above to learn another language, from September 2014 in England.

The government is encouraging schools to adopt a wider variety of languages after a study found that teenagers at schools in England had the worst language skills in Europe.

Video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25634118

Speaking with one voice on languages

Why do we have such a problem with modern languages?

Next month the Long Room at Trinity College Dublin will be home to a Babel of tongues as the many language-interest groups in Ireland come together to form a new advocacy movement for language learning.

Ireland is well behind other nations when it comes to languages, and we have no official language policy, beyond Irish, around which a movement for progress could coalesce. Modern languages are not compulsory at any stage of Irish schooling. Last year’s budget saw the abolition of the Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative (MLPSI); our first foray into early-language learning never made it past the pilot stage. Hence the One Voice for Languages movement.

“We have seen what can happen when there is State support for a subject,” says Kristin Brogan, a founder of One Voice and a lecturer in German, intercultural communication and EU projects at the Institute of Technology Tralee. “There has been a huge emphasis on science and technology over the past few years, and it has paid off in terms of uptake at postprimary and third level.”

Brogan and the One Voice group want to light a similar fire under language learning, but, she admits, there are obstacles unique to Ireland. “There is a tendency to assume English is enough, that we don’t need other languages. However, in Europe, the English language is like the European Computer Driving Licence. Everyone has it. Irish people competing for jobs in Europe are up against applicants with English, their own native language and often a third language as well.”

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is moving towards an integrated language curriculum at primary level, but the focus will be on English and Irish, with some element of language-skill learning. This, the NCCA hopes, will “establish a sound foundation for the learning of a foreign language in postprimary school. An integrated language curriculum would enable teachers to achieve learning efficiencies by explicitly drawing children’s attention to similarities and differences between their languages”.

But any hope that French, Spanish or German might find its way back into primary schools, where children are at the optimum age for new language acquisition, has been definitively extinguished.

“The decision to end the MLPSI was made in the context of a very challenging budgetary environment, where difficult decisions had to be taken,” a spokesperson for the Department of Education told the Irish Times. “The programme ended in June 2012, and there are no plans to revisit this decision.”

Irish-language lobby

Irish is the second challenge to modern-language learning in Ireland. Irish-language groups will form part of One Voice, but the native tongue occupies a unique position that sets it apart from other languages in the Irish context. “We don’t want to put down Irish,” says Brogan. “It’s a can of worms nobody wants to open.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/speaking-with-one-voice-on-languages-1.1573725

Foreign language teaching in British schools is in crisis

Foreign language teaching in British schools is in crisis. The take-up for language courses is declining so precipitately that almost half our university language departments may have to close in a few years. Research by the European Commission last year put young Britons almost at the bottom of the European class in terms of their grasp of a foreign language. Only 9 per cent of our 14 to 15-year-olds were deemed proficient in one foreign subject. The average in the rest of Europe was 42 per cent.

In a global economy, which is increasingly dominated by China rather than Anglophone America, it looks like the wrong way to go, which is why it is encouraging to hear that some schools like Harrogate Grammar are vigorously bucking the trend. In this non-selective academy, all students study a combination of French plus either German, Spanish or Italian. Around 24 languages are studied in total, thanks to a deal with the Rosetta Stone language experts. The school’s aim is to create a different culture from the one prevailing in most schools, one where the question is no longer, “Why study languages?” but “Which ones shall I study?”

It is good to learn that experts see Harrogate Grammar as a model because countering the trend towards knowledge of only one language is a noble ideal, as well as profitable from the point of view of Britons competing in the global jobs market. If all  our children learned a foreign language properly it would be almost be a second Enlightenment, because confinement to English alone inevitably limits appreciation of other cultures. Indeed, it is a manifestation of an ugly cultural supremacism.

If we don’t want a situation in which only private school pupils know more than a smattering of French – in which knowledge of another language is another badge of class distinction – we need to look to Harrogate Grammar’s example, as well as revisiting policy changes that made languages optional at GCSE level.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/a-lesson-for-britain-language-teaching-in-schools-needs-a-boost-8907438.html

Of Arianna, Languages, and Cultural Understanding

Look around you. We live in a globalized, interconnected world in which we interact with people who speak different languages and view life through unique cultural perspectives. In most cases, success in these interactions will be based on our ability to bridge differences through language skills and cultural awareness.

Arianna Huffington is a poster adult for how language education and cultural understanding can pave the way to economic opportunities and personal prosperity. While growing up in Athens, Greece, she had the opportunity to study and learn English. This opened the door of Girton College in Cambridge, UK. When The Huffington Post first ventured internationally into France with Le Huffington Post two years ago in partnership with Le Monde and French media giant Les Nouvelles Editions Indépendantes, she fondly recalled that her first trip outside of Greece at the age of 11 was to Paris. She mentioned being able to "shake the rust off my French" and work with French colleagues, although she did admit to having "something of a Greek accent in French, too". She also assured the Huff community that Le Huffington Post would be in French. She reasoned, "It will, like France itself, have a very distinct personality -- it's own way of approaching the world." Arianna recognized that language and culture are powerful and necessary tools that will enable the world to understand France and the French people.

Arianna carried the same important message when she launched El Huffington Post in Spain last year in partnership with El Pais. Her goal was "to invite readers in Spain and Spanish speakers throughout the world -- as well as those who care about Spain's people, issues, and rich culture -- to join the conversation."

However, Arianna also talked about missed opportunities. When announcing the October 2013 debut of Huffington Post Deutschland, she recalled a longtime desire to learn the German language that her mother spoke fluently while growing up in Athens. As the seasons of life have passed, one of Arianna's regrets is not realizing that desire: "When I turned 40, I made a list of all the things that I was realistically never going to be able to accomplish, and learning German -- as well as becoming a good skier -- was on the list. Today I'm very happy about my skiing decision, but I regret my German one. So, sadly, these days my German is pretty much limited to my overuse of "Zeitgeist.""

As Arianna's experiences have demonstrated, cross-cultural competence has never been more important with the growing global economy. In fact, a recent global survey conducted by the British Council found that managers worldwide prefer individuals with intercultural skills because those new recruits could navigate different cultural contexts and viewpoints, adapt to changing environments and work well in diverse groups.

When you get down to the basics, language skills and global competency develop as a result of exposure to other cultures, ideas, education, and circumstances. You do not need to grow up in Europe like Arianna or have the same experiences to develop global smarts. Students can study a second language in school, although we need to begin teaching languages in elementary school to develop truly proficient speakers of other languages. For those of us beyond our school years, exposure can occur anytime, anywhere and in a variety of different ways from reading a news article to following a Twitter stream to practicing a language to visiting a foreign country. The full immersion experiences, such as exchange partnerships, study abroad and travel, are most effective. However, technology now provides opportunities to develop language proficiency and cultural awareness in ways that are motivating, engaging and fun. For example, social networks now allow learners to make personal connections with like-minded people who want to learn or practice a language, share cultures, and explore common interests. Travelers can make connections and find friends before they go, resulting in a more authentic and memorable experience!

So what are the lessons we can learn from Arianna? Lesson One: Bilingual, culturally aware people have a distinct advantage in the global economy. Lesson Two: Language and cultural understanding are the pathways to bridging differences and gaining insight into people and culture. Lesson Three: Technology and innovation provide new ways to connect with the world. Lesson Four: It doesn't matter that you speak French with a Greek accent. Just start a conversation!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com