10. Short Debate: Trilingual Wales: The value to Wales of teaching modern foreign languages

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 7:09 pm on 8 January 2020.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Darren Millar Darren Millar Conservative 7:09, 8 January 2020

I just wanted to congratulate Suzy on a tremendous opening speech and simply to say that, of course, school isn't the only opportunity to learn a second language. I'm using an app at the moment, Mango Languages, to try and brush up on a bit of Levantine Arabic in order that I can communicate with some of my friends out in the middle east, and I have to say I think that the technology that we have available to us makes learning a new language more accessible than ever before. One of the things that is being done in parts of the US at the moment and in some of the other European nations, including the Republic of Ireland, is that apps like Mango Languages are available publicly through the library network so that they can be accessible to members of the public free of charge, and I wonder, Minister, whether—it may not be your direct responsibility—this is something you could discuss with your Cabinet colleagues as a tool to bring us into the twenty-first century in terms of the way that we use these new technologies to learn new languages and give people who didn't have the opportunity in school a second chance.