Languages have always been something that I have been very passionate about, after studying them in high school from first to sixth year. I studied both French and Italian from standard grade right up until higher. Despite the fact I have studied languages for so long, I personally feel like my French and Italian is still not at a level in which I could have a conversation with someone from France or Italy and this got me thinking.

I began to do a lot of research into languages and how others learn them, and one thing I constantly kept seeing over and over again is that we learn languages easier when we are really young, compared to when we are older. So the question I would like to ask, is why are we not enforcing languages upon primary schools from as young as primary one? If it is proven that children pick up languages easier compared to teenagers then why are we waiting until high school to teach them languages. Personally I even feel that we should be teaching the basics of languages such as numbers and colours to children in nurseries so that they are beginning to pick things up.

I then looked in to the 1 + 2 system being brought in to primary schools and it made me intrigued in to what languages would be getting taught and how they would be getting taught. The first language I came across that was being taught was French, and this slightly annoyed me. It got me thinking why we are always teaching French. Why French? As a country we are no longer doing as much trade with France as we used to. We used to do a lot of trade with France before we have things such as planes and trains, as we only had boats, so then it made sense for us to be learning French. However this is no longer the case. Since we now have various modes of transport we now do most of our trade with countries such as japan and china, therefore it would make sense for us now to be teaching languages such as mandarin, Japanese etc. It is clear that if a child is learning languages as such, and they were able to gain such qualifications, then it will massively impact their futures as big companies will be looking for people who can speak these languages.

Another thing I began to think about is our ignorance as a country with languages. It almost appears as if Britain has a fear of learning languages. When we go abroad we almost expect to speak to a foreign person and for them to know English, although when a tourist comes here we expect them to speak English to us, and do not make an attempt to speak their language. It is ignorant as a country, as personally, I believe that this is an issue that the government need to look further in to.

Languages have always played a big part in my life and they are something that I constantly wish I was better at. This year I am sitting a language module and I am hoping to see an improvement with myself. In the years to come, as a teacher, I hope to have make a huge impact on children’s lives with languages and it is something that I cannot wait to teach within my classroom.