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What do you think about your local accent?
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'Twirlies' is the name given to pensioners by Liverpool bus crews. Their free bus passes become effective at 9am but if they arrive before this, they enquire 'Are we too early?'
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Page 2 of 4
 Girls vs boys
Why are the Dutch better at learning languages?
What the Dutch do differently
Multilingual classroom
Classroom talk
by Philippa Law Why are the Dutch better than us at learning languages?
Our stereotypes couldn't be more different. While beery sunburnt Brits are bellowing "Four pints of beer - I said FOUR PINTS OF BEER. Have you got any chips? CHIPS?" at uncomfortable continental waiters, the Dutch are all engaged in fluent, intellectual discussion in whichever language takes their fancy. Our image has elements of truth in it. 70% of people in the UK cannot speak a foreign language. Nine out of ten students give up languages at 16. In a recent report on foreign language skills, the UK came bottom in a league table of 28 European countries.In 2000, the Nuffield Languages Inquiry identified where we could do better.Late starters
Except in Scotland, where most primary schools offer languages, most pupils don't start learning their first foreign language until they're 11, and their second even later (if at all). Yet children learn languages better when they're young. They lack the inhibitions and self-consciousness that take hold in adolescence, and are much more willing to take risks and make mistakes than adults.Lety Wicks from Buckinghamshire says: "I now teach Spanish privately, and I can see the great need that in order to learn other languages it is very important to start as early as possible."Unfortunately, many of those children who do have regular language teaching in primary school currently don't become more proficient as a result, because they can't carry on learning - as soon as they reach 11, they're put into classes with kids who are starting from scratch.Lack of continuity
There's little continuity between GCSE and A-level either. GCSEs rely on a kind of 'phrasebook' language, where students are taught to become 'fluent' in a limited number of topics. This isn't a bad thing in itself, but because lessons in grammar are kept to a minimum, pupils have little flexibility in what they can say. Even those teenagers with good GCSE grades can find it hard to make the step up to A-level.English grammar
Diana from Brussels wrote to Voices proposing that not learning about English grammar in school is "the most likely reason why Brits find learning foreign languages so difficult - if they have no idea what modern English grammar consists of how can they possibly find their way around the minefield of French and German verb conjugation."Philip, an English teacher, from Dakar, Senegal reckons the opposite is true. He told us: "The teaching of first language (or even second language) grammar - as is the case in the French school system - has little or no impact on their ability to learn a foreign language. One learns in communicative situations where the need to adapt to the system of the listener is the only rule."The Nuffield Report sides with Diana, suggesting that an understanding of our own grammar can help us master new ones: "There is obvious scope here for making connections between English and other languages."French, French French...
Offering a wider range of languages could help pupils to find their niche. Scotland is better off in this respect, but for many children in the UK, French is the only language on offer.Missed opportunities
Teaching other subjects in another language is a really effective way of improving pupils' vocabulary and fluency, yet this is virtually unheard of in the UK. In Wales, many pupils attend Welsh-medium classes and successfully become good at Welsh (as well as geography and history...) so why not do the same with Spanish or Urdu or Chinese?Image problem
Girls do better at languages in the UK than boys. Boys see languages as a 'girly' subject, which means that there are fewer male language teachers, which reinforces the belief that languages are only for girls. That effectively puts half the population at a disadvantage before they start.
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