Eye on Education: Language teaching starts young at day nursery

SCHOOLS could see a return to foreign languages on the curriculum.

And nurturing the love of learning another spoken language could put youngsters streets ahead educationally, according to experts.

Education secretary Michael Gove’s national curriculum review could include a return to a compulsory GCSE in a modern foreign language.

The requirement for all teenagers to choose a language in year 10 ended in 2004 under the last Labour government.

That decision led to a huge fall in the number of students studying subjects such as French or German.

But Mr Gove has now suggested that he may decide to include a modern foreign language in his core subjects along with English, maths, science and PE.

Indeed the government’s latest educational benchmark, the English Baccalaureate, includes English, maths, science, a modern foreign language, and either history or geography.

So children at Hawthorn’s Day Nursery in Skelmanthorpe are being given a head start with their Spanish lessons under the watchful eye of mum-of-two and linguist Rosey James.

Rosey, who has lived in Spain for around four years, has been teaching children at the nursery since September last year, with fantastic results.

She said: “We do lots of nursery rhymes, play games such as Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and sometimes go outside.

“I speak in Spanish the whole time – I leave the room then come back in and only speak Spanish then for half an hour.

“It’s easier that way with youngsters rather than adults, they just soak it up rather than learn it.

“I’m not expecting to produce linguists, but just want to give the children an understanding that there are other languages and that it is possible to communicate with people from other countries and cultures by using their language instead of ours.