Applied Languages

    Posted by Jaiken Struck on February 16th, 2009

A pioneering initiative under which foreign students studying in the UK are hired to teach languages in secondary schools is having a dramatic effect in reviving language lessons in disadvantaged areas.
The scheme, reminiscent of the old-fashioned French assistantes, is being trialled in three secondary schools in Brighton and may spread to other parts of the country. Each school is taking on between 12 and 15 international students at Sussex University who can engage youngsters in conversations in the language they are studying. Speaking is a major part of any GCSE in a modern foreign language, accounting for at least 25 per cent of the overall marks.
At Falmer High School, the number of youngsters studying a modern foreign language for GCSE has doubled since the scheme started two years ago, and 54 per cent of those taking the subject gain a top grade A* to C-grade pass despite academic experts claiming languages are among the hardest subjects to study.
The scheme brings back echoes of the days when schools hired language assistantes from abroad to boost their language teaching. Many have scrapped this because languages have declined after the Government’s decision to make the subject voluntary for children aged 14 to 16, which has cut GCSE take-up of the subject by half.
But the Brighton initiative offers the youngsters more concentrated one-on-one sessions with foreign speakers because of the number of international students employed by each school. Many of the pupils said their new-found enthusiasm stemmed from the fact they were being taught by students who were not much older than themselves and they could therefore relate to them easier in conversations.
Paul Waterworth, from MCS Projects, an educational supply company which co-ordinates the initiative, is planning to widen the scheme to other parts of the south-east and is seeking a meeting with the London Mayor, Boris Johnson to discuss offering it to all schools in London. At about £12,500 per school – the students are paid £10 an hour – it costs less than hiring one extra teaching assistant, he said. All three Brighton MPs are backing the scheme.

Read more: The Independent

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