According to a report by China National Radio's "Global Chinese Broadcasting Network," the UK government recently plans to revise the national curriculum, mandating that foreign languages, including Chinese, be taught starting from the third year of primary school, which is approximately age 7. This means that foreign language classes will become a compulsory subject for British primary school students, with the goal of enhancing the UK's competitiveness in the global economy.
UK Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove announced on the 10th that the national curriculum would be revised, with plans for all children to begin learning a foreign language from age 7, with Chinese among the options. Furthermore, media outlets anticipate that in a later speech, Gove will propose that children starting school at age 5 begin learning and reciting poetry, with this plan set to be implemented in September 2014.
The new plan also includes measures to improve students' spelling and grammar skills. Gove stated, "This will be the first time in the history of British education that foreign language instruction has been made mandatory in the primary school curriculum." The new curriculum stipulates that schools can independently choose which foreign language courses to offer, including French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Latin, or Greek. According to the teaching plan, students will begin learning a foreign language at age 7, and by age 11, they will be able to speak sentences with correct pronunciation, clearly express simple viewpoints, write phrases or short sentences from dictation, understand basic grammar, and be familiar with songs and poems.
Under the current British education system, compulsory foreign language education begins in secondary school at age 11. According to the latest official data, 1 in 10 public primary schools in the UK has no foreign language instruction at all, and another 20% of primary schools only teach foreign languages to students in certain grades. A report released last year by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) stated that 25% of primary schools rely on external professional teachers to teach foreign language courses, and if students only have 30 to 40 minutes of class per week without other time for consolidation, it is difficult to achieve significant progress.
Many secondary schools have also complained about the lack of continuity in knowledge and skills for students transitioning from primary to secondary school. Some point out that the decision by the former Labour government in 2002 to allow students to wait until age 14 to study a foreign language led to a decline in secondary school language teaching. As a result, between 2002 and 2010, the number of students taking modern languages in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exams dropped by 200,000.
The UK government hopes that this education reform will help increase the global competitiveness of British students while also reversing the destructive collapse of language subjects in the GCSE exams. Of course, research also shows that the earlier children are exposed to a foreign language, the better they may learn it. At the same time, learning a foreign language can help improve British students' English conversational skills and reading ability, which is conducive to learning other subjects.
As for the British public, since some parents previously complained that public schools lagged behind independent preparatory schools in providing high-quality language instruction, the new measures are expected to be welcomed by some middle-class parents. The earlier children learn a foreign language, the better; the younger they are, the faster they learn. In fact, some argue it would be even better if the government mandated starting foreign language learning at age 5. Of course, other netizens have expressed that there is no need to make foreign language teaching mandatory, and that people should learn it voluntarily if they have the need. In addition, teaching foreign languages requires a large number of qualified teachers, and the UK government's decision seems somewhat hasty given that the teaching force is not yet fully prepared.
