French is useless!

‘The useless modern foreign languages such as French’. That lovely quote was in an article I was reading in the Independent last week.  ‘Ridiculous’ was my first thought (and still is) but let’s put it into context. The quote came from former government minister Chris Bryant when he was (we assume) trying to defend the [...]

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Is Mandarin the future of language learning?

There has been a lot of controversy lately over Ed Balls’ announcement that all children should be given the opportunity to learn Mandarin, the world’s most popular language. Critics called it a gimmick, saying that there wouldn’t be enough teachers and that the government should instead concentrate on addressing the lack of mainstream language learning.

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Ireland also faces language challenge

It’s a widely held belief that Britons aren’t the best at learning languages. But it seems that the Irish share our lack of linguistic ability. The Irish Independent reports that according to the latest Graduate Recruitment Trends Survey, over 23% of employers complain that Irish graduates lack fluency in a foreign language. The article also [...]

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