No to utility

This post isn’t about listening. It isn’t even about teaching French, specifically. It’s about teaching languages to students whose first language is English - particularly but not exclusively in the UK / English setting; but I think the same arguments would apply to most monolingual English-speaking nations. In fact the same arguments might well apply to teaching non-English in non-English speaking nations too (ie teaching German in Spain or France; teaching French in Germany, etc.) It goes like this:

Framing language learning as ‘useful for our future’

As we worry about the slow decline of language learning in the UK, the favoured refrain about WHY kids should learn other languages seems to be one of utility: it’ll get you a better job. It’ll get you into a better university. People ‘with another language’ (whatever that means) earn x% more per year. Even the Guardian article discussing this year’s Language Trends report inferred that key reasons to learn a language were related to future prospects (German is the most sought-after language by employers; fewer linguists ‘shrinks the UK’s talent pool’).

While I’m not disputing these reasons, my own feeling is that focussing on them is futile as a way to boost language-learning in the UK, because the counter-arguments are strong and many. For example:

• They speak English better than we speak [French / German / Spanish]. Alas in many cases this is probably true. Like it or not GCSE does not get students to a particularly proficient level and certainly most students who get, say, a grade 6 or below are not conversationally fluent

• Most people in the UK actually DO NOT have a job which requires them to speak French / German / Spanish, regardless of our level of education. Even where people have international roles, they can usually get by with English. 

• Most people do not have international roles. And the kinds of careers chosen by people who complete their formal education at GCSE level or just beyond really do not require a second language.

So: selling language education as ‘utility’ serves only a very small, probably middle class, academic demographic, and excludes most others. 

Is it for going on holiday?

So what is languages education FOR in the UK, then? Is it for ‘going on holiday’? This might go some way to explaining the decline of German compared with French, and the decline of both French and German compared with Spanish. Those who have the means to go on holiday to a non-English speaking country know, too, that although an extra bit of French or Spanish might be nice-to-have, one can get by perfectly well without. Selling language education as ‘useful when you go on holiday’ also serves an affluent demographic and excludes the others. 

Bridging a class divide: learning for the sake of learning

I think that within the English state-school system we are very pre-occupied with education as utility. It’s all about what you might need in the future. While I’m not knocking that in the slightest, if you look beyond the state system you see something a little different and I think there’s a class (and possibly age) divide we should consider attempting to bridge.

What about if we reframed education not as ‘something useful for the future’, but as learning for the sake of learning? That there’s a wonderful, fascinating world out there, that human beings are wonderful, crazy, contradictory, intelligent, stupid creatures that have done great and terrible things to this planet we live on? That human civilisation is the most mind-boggling thing ever, that the things we have created and the discoveries we have made are astonishing? And that learning, and questioning, is at the root of this - and we learn and educate ourselves and each other because human brains are hungry for knowledge and skills FOR THEIR OWN SAKE?

We see this, it seems to me, at two levels of education. Firstly in early primary school - before the SATS come into play. Young children come in and we fill them with wonder about the world. Sure there is some essential learning ‘because they need it’ (think reading writing arithmetic), but a lot of learning is for the sake of learning. The second level of education is the private sector, the affluent: here subjects like Latin, ancient Greek, history of art are taught - not because they are going to help get you a job. Instead, this, too, is learning for the sake of learning. Because it’s interesting.

What if we were to view modern languages in the English context in the same way? We would look at the learning of French, German and Spanish not as ‘useful to get a job’ or ‘so you can order a beer on holiday’, but as an insight into other worlds, into the human condition, into the human mind? To broaden the learner’s mind, to see that people exist beyond the anglosphere, to instill wonder about the world?

Another way to close the gap?

There’s an awful lot of talk in education about ‘closing the gap’ - that is, helping those who have started out with fewer opportunities in life, as this lack of opportunity seems to self-perpetuate from one generation to the next. And we view that through a lens of ‘utility’: if only we ensure that the education we give to these students (and everyone who goes through the state system) is USEFUL FOR THEIR FUTURE then we will narrow the gap. But I don’t think we will. Because those students who are at the most affluent end of the gap are not being educated for utility. They’re the ones being offered Latin, Greek, history of art. They’re the ones who learn debating and critical thinking and whose education instills a wonder about the world. And increasingly, they’re the ones who have access also to German, or to two modern languages at GCSE. 

So I think that being fixated on a utilitarian view of education does nothing to close the gap. Why should learning for the sake of learning be the preserve of the rich, or the upper classes? What would happen if we all celebrated just knowing stuff, being interested and engaged in the world with all its marvellous contradictions? The status quo - where the working and middle classes are subject to a narrative of having to learn ‘in case you need it for your future’ and the rich and the upper classes learn ‘because this is a cool thing to know’ - that’s the fundamental inequality.

To conclude…

And this is how we turn around languages education in the UK (or indeed non-English languages education elsewhere too, because learning English as a foreign language is undoubtedly successful due to its utility!). But it doesn’t just turn around languages education. It could turn around education much, much more profoundly. And I don’t believe, either, that this would stop us as a nation educating students to a range of academic levels and for all the different jobs and roles that the country needs. But such a paradigm shift would make everyone richer emotionally, and close an academic and intellectual gap that we don’t really seem to be talking about when we talk about closing the ‘attainment gap’.

I don’t begin to consider how this might happen, but I will continue to resist framing the teaching of modern languages in terms of utility, because I think it’s a lie we tell ourselves. It’s classist, unrealistic and unhelpful. Instead, everyone should have the chance to marvel at the world, and everyone should be given the opportunity to learn for the sake of learning. 

Updated with a text-message from my brilliant friend Stephen. Let's be radical, anti-capitalist and deeply unfashionable.