Mandarin and Arabic...???

[webbo3]

Our schools are now going to teach 11-16 yr olds Mandarin and Arabic...or as they've said... more relevant subjects.
i thought we were in Europe?, so why not just stick to .....
French,German,Spanish ect...........and maybe now polish or czech.
But Mandarin or Arabic.

[johnlambert]

China is the worlds fastest growing economy, it's estimated that within the next decade it will overtake the USA as the richest economy in the world, so it makes sense to teach our kids how to communicate with our potential trading partners. (it also comes in handy when ordering a take away). Dunno why we're teaching our kids Arabic tho

[Oneeyedvic]

Not sure if they are actually planning to stop teaching French etc, but just for info:

Number of people who speak French: 175 Million

Number of people who speak Mandarin: 270 Million

Number of people speaking Mandarin: 867 Million

Admitedly, there will be a lot of people who will never go to an Arab State or over to China, but maybe it will help broaden their knowledge and foster international development.

Depends on how you see the world I guess.

[sp1814]

On the news last night, there was a woman from the CBI who welcomed the proposals, saying it (the expansion
of language tuition to incorporate real world requirements) was something the business world have been calling for, for years.

Also, these will be options, not mandatory lessons.

[Eve]

I'm a lawyer and have to admit that despite studying French, German, Spanish and Italian that Urdu and Chinese languages would have been of far more use in my career.

[saxy_jag]

Languages offered/taught should be relevant to the communities learning them.

During the 70s we in our school were more likely to visit - and be visited by - the French, Spanish and Germans than the Chinese.

These days a good proportion of our local community speaks Panjabi, Gujarati and Urdu, yet the only way people can learn these is by paying for community education classes or by attending Mandir, Mosque or whatever. It would make much more sense to have kids learn them in school.

[Dolly1308]

They are being taught these two languages so that they will understand their future Leaders and be able to obey their foreign masters !!

[joko]

i suppose most people from spain, france etc, speak english, so it is not as essential for us to learn their languages in order to get by.

[horsestache1]

Might be a good idea for schools to teach Maths and English to a reasonable standard.

[youngmafbog]

Smacks of reverse integration. Immigrants wont bother to learn our language so we have to learn theirs - Great one.

[ELVIS68]

No wonder this country is in a mess

Next year it`ll be Bulgarian and Romanian.

[Joe_the_Lion]

Lambert, totally agree with you.

Education is about training our kids for future economic success. China, is the way forward.

If we teach our kids Arabic, it is just a further excuse for muslims not wanting to intergrate. If it goes ahead, it will be one closer step to evil Shariah law being the judiciary in this country.

[Theland]

As long as we parents have the option to say "No!"

[CT]

Mandarin. This would have been cool to learn in school. Arabic would have been interesting too. Many terms in language today are from arabic, including 'alcohol'.

[Le Chat]

Perhaps learing our own language correctly should be priority. ie, Using the term "If I were...." instead of "If I was...." etc,etc,etc.

[MrBen5]

Hmmm, oneeyedvic, you missed out the number of people who speak arabic 876 million...
English will be a 5th language soon. Its patheitc. What happened to the choices of languages you wanted to speak? When i was at school, i got the option to learn other languages, not forced upon...

[sp1814]

MrBen5

These new language streams will be optional.

Where did you read that they would be mandatory???

[drchasuble]

I agree with Le Chat. We need to get back to basics with education. There was an article in the paper last week that stated that a large number of companies are choosing not to recruit current graduates due to a lack of basic language, maths and people skills.

And you can't use etc etc etc. It's just etc.

[MrBen5]

Hmmm, well sp1814, it becomes compulsary when they list it as an option, but only 2 people take up the subject, it then becomes mandatory when all the other subjects are full. Another waste of tax payers money to suit other cultures...

[sp1814]

MrBen5

Right...why on earth would the teaching of Arabic, Mandarin etc be of any benefit to other cultures???

If you're talking about kids who speak these languages...well, they already speak these languages

Is there any way we can stop dailymailing every single story that involves anything 'foreign'.

Really - this is a good thing. Business leaders welcome it and so do teachers.

These are the experts...they're not scared of what may come of expanding the existing curriculum, so why are you?

[sp1814]

One other point...we get free language tuition at work. Three years ago, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic and Russian were added to the syllabus.

They were all deeply unpopular...why?

Because they were all difficult.

French, German and Spanish were all over-subscribed.

I confidently predict that once the kids realise that Mandarin is a 'tonal' language and extremely difficult to master, they'll give it up within days, like we did.