So – a foreign language will no longer be compulsory at GCSE level. What a sham. We will get the Euro – it’s just a matter of time. And while the rest of Europe is celebrating in becoming more interrelated and richer culturally because of it, we decide to remove the last vestige of our continental membership by allowing people to grow up without even a basic knowledge of other countries in Europe. 3 years of French is not sufficient – by the end of my first 3 years at my school (an all girls grammar school now less) I went up to my teacher and asked her how to say “I do not understand, I am English” before going to France for a holiday. Oddly she seemed rather impressed with my wanting to learn – the fact I wanted to learn that particular phrase didn’t seem to bother her. My recent holiday in France taught me how shameful my French is, and I had a full 5 years and got a B for my efforts. My Dad who learnt French some 30-40 years ago can speak more than me.
It’s a bloody shambles.
Stupid people, though I agree. I know nothing.. my Oral Speaking exam consisted of "Je ne comprend pas"..
They took the dictionaries away from exams.. gits..
Urg I would have died without my dictionary. My oral exam consisted of the teacher saying "What nationality are you?" and me sitting in silence, completely blank… Which is ironic as it was after all the second half of the phrase I knew best…
I never understood why a foreign language was compulsory for GCSEs in the first place. The school I went to (ok, this little dragon went to a crummy school) made everyone take German – even those who were unlikely to get a pass grade in English.
I think it should be complusory for those who are sufficiently capable at English, but not for those who aren’t.
(runs and hides before Kai can find little minority me ;))
You Europhobe you! 😉 Mwahahaha
There’s only so far you can take that though – some people are truly pants at Science and Maths and yet those are still compulsory – they won’t get a good grade but at least they’ve been exposed to photosynthesis and equations and can appriciate that there is some call for it in the world. The challenge also stimulates the mind into thinking in another way.
Also I think our English should be more like Americans teach it – blasphemy I know. They get taught about tenses and verb tables and sentence structure and stuff and we read To Kill A Mockingbird. So when it comes to learning a foreign language (that is of course taught using tenses, verb tables and sentence structure) we have nothing to cross reference it to as our knowledge of our own language structure is so poor.
I don’t have a problem with people who "can’t" learn, but I do have a problem with people who are ignorant. And it worries me that now the list of things that people shouldn’t be ignorant about has dwindled to Maths, English and basic Science. You know what’ll happen eventually – none of it will be compulsory.
I really regret not having a more complete education, or rather not appriciating and taking advantage of a wider education when it was available to me. I’m very interested in History and I love knowing new languages, I even enjoy learning about other religions. Yet in school I didn’t have to learn those things so I didn’t. Now I regret it. Schools were very few subjects are compulsory worry me – Obviously most kids are gonna choose what they are best at. But certain subjects are space savers and have little respect later on – yes they might get a A in it but what’s the value if the subject itself has little value?
I’s ranting – mustn’t rant before lunch – it’s not healthy. I am an academic snob I’m afraid – I have this belief that everyone should love to learn. 😀