Modern Foreign Languages

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:19 pm on 27 November 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 2:19, 27 November 2019

Can I say that I agree with the Member? We still clearly have a great deal of work to do to address the decline in modern foreign language uptake at GCSE level. The students that take modern foreign languages do exceptionally well at them, but those numbers are a worry to me and a worry, I'm sure, to everybody in this Chamber.

What was more heartening to read in that British Council report was that, actually, whilst there is still that challenge in the secondary sector, the picture is indeed improving in primary, and those initiatives within primary schools are absolutely crucial. I was pleased to read in the report that there is evidence of more primary schools embracing MFL within their own curriculum.

It is my intention, with the publication of the new curriculum for Wales, that we will be explicit that we would expect to see modern foreign languages being brought in as part of the curriculum at the upper age range of our primary schools to give children an opportunity to engage in those subjects early on. But indeed, in some of our pioneer schools—. I was recently at a new through school in the Valleys where the very youngest class was reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar—many of you, I'm sure, are aware of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, that icon of children's literature—and they were learning the fruits that appear in that book, they were learning the words for those fruits in English, yn Gymraeg, and en Español, in Spanish. And for those children, it was just the love of learning those different words that they were being given, and that demonstrates that it is possible to do this.

With regard to Global Futures, it is my intention to refresh the Global Futures plan, but I have to say, as I said earlier, if we carry on doing the same thing, we're going to end up with the same outcomes. So, I want to be convinced by my officials that, actually, what we're going to offer in a new version of Global Futures is really going to address the problem, because just simply carrying on with the same approach from the Government will not see the step change that the British Council is calling for and that you're calling for.