British Nix Hebrew From Foreign Language Options

[rug]

Seven Languages Would Be Among Those Taught in Schools

By JTA
Published December 17, 2012.

London — The British government reportedly is planning to exclude Hebrew from a list of recognized foreign languages in the national education system.

Board of Deputies of British Jews warned last week that the exclusion of Hebrew could damage Jewish education in the country, the Jewish Chronicle reported.

Education Minister Elizabeth Truss announced plans last month to make it compulsory, from September 2014, to teach a foreign language to children ages seven to 11. Schools would be required to offer at least one of only seven recognized languages, which excludes Hebrew, the newspaper reported.

Many Jewish primary schools, which have to fit in Jewish studies alongside the national curriculum, currently offer Hebrew as the only foreign language. According to the Board of Deputies, the schools would find it impossible to continue teaching Hebrew if compelled to offer another foreign language as well.

http://forward.com/articles/167817/british-nix-hebrew-from-foreign-language-options/

[cbayer]

1. And the British continue to march towards completely marginalizing

minority religious populations.

What is the problem with including Hebrew in the list?

[JDPriestly]

2. Will they teach Arabic or Greek?

Seems to me that if they teach Arabic or Greek, they should teach Hebrew.

Maybe there wasn't enough demand.

[cbayer]

3. I can't find a list of the 7 recognized languages, but this is not about demand.

It's about exclusion, imo.

The schools that currently offer Hebrew appear to be private and very willing/able to continue to do so. The issue is that if Hebrew if not recognized, they will have to add other languages, which they say would result in having to eliminate Hebrew.

[LeftishBrit]

4. It is a strange list of languages

I could only find 6 of the 7 languages listed: French, German, Spanish, Mandarin, Latin and Greek. I would guess that the 7th is Welsh, which is already taught in schools in Wales.

To clarify, they are not banning Hebrew lessons, but it doesn't count in meeting the foreign-language requirement.

Why they need to have an approved list at all is beyond me -learning any foreign language is a good thing - and the other question is why a dead language like Latin trumps living languages like Hebrew, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Russian or Italian.

Bureaucracy run mad.

Our ministers of education are walking disasters!

[cbayer]

5. Hebrew is the only language listed that has a tie to a religion.

Do you think that has anything to do with it?

[LeftishBrit]

8. Actually it's not really the only one...

as many Muslims consider it as important to learn Arabic to read the Koran. Most British Muslims are not Arabs and do not speak Arabic as a first language, but often study it for religious purposes.

I doubt that the religious links to the languages are the reason for not including them in the standard list; it's probably more linked to which languages were and weren't taught in fee-paying schools in the 1970s and 80s, when our Ministers were children. Michael Gove in particular seems to think that the main criterion for a good school is that it should teach in the way that he was taught, though personally I think that any system that produced Michael Gove should be suspected of having something wrong with it! However, the links between certain languages and religious minorities make the use of a restricted list particularly insensitive.

[cbayer]

11. So the two languages most closely associated with religion are not on the list..

Interesting information about Gove.

I find this more than insensitive. I think some of the more insular european countries would like to keep it that way and take active steps to marginalize populations of "others". This seems to be just another example of that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Italian is the 7th

At least one subject from a seven-strong shortlist – French, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, Latin and ancient Greek – will be offered to seven- to 11-year-olds.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9683536/More-primary-schools-to-offer-Latin-and-ancient-Greek.html

[cbayer]

12. This makes no sense at all to me. Include all the European languages, which are so similar, two

dead languages and Mandarin.

Really, really old school thinking, imo.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. The dead languages are 'old school', certainly

and that's probably Gove's influence (though a lot of Tories feel the same, that Latin is 'good for thinking', 'made me the man I am today' and other nonsense). I'd be amazed to see any school teach ancient Greek without teaching Latin, anyway, so it being on the list is probably irrelevant. Italian is pretty surprising to see there too, as well - in practice, I wouldn't think any school would opt for that before one of the 3 other European languages (it's not that widely taught in British schools, and if you happen to have a teacher qualified to teach it, you'd be hard pushed to pick up another easily if they leave), and it's not that widely spoken.

There'd be a case, I'd say, for adding Japanese, Russian and Portuguese to the list, in terms of people speaking them in economically powerful countries, though they'd suffer from the same problem of not many British teachers being fluent in them.

In practice, I expect the vast majority of schools will teach French, because they won't be able to afford to take on teachers specially for this, and French will be the most common languages among their existing ones.

[cbayer]

15. French. That's what I was taught and while I am glad to have a little of another language,

it hasn't really been of much use.

In retrospect, I wish I had learned something that was totally different than what I already know.

I guess I don't understand why they are limiting it at all.

[dimbear]

6. There are about 5-7 million Hebrew speakers, about 400 million Spanish speakers.

Not so many for Latin or classical Greek, which are surely going the same way as Hebrew in the near future.

[cbayer]

7. While I think the number of speakers has some sway, it certainly should not

be the only factor.

Well, it clearly isn't the only factor.

[Jim__]

9. Was there any specific criteria used to select the languages?

Just based on the article, it doesn't sound like Hebrew was excluded, per se; it just wasn't included.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. They're admitting the religious teaching is bad for the children

They're trying to teach them so much of their religion (using my taxpayer money, let's remember), they haven't got time to teach a useful language as well. So they're whining, and hoping they can play the religion card to get the sub-standard education accepted.

They could try joining forces with Muslim state schools who no doubt would like to junk a language in favour of Arabic (though at least modern Arabic is spoken by a large population). Good for inter-faith outreach, but crappy for the children's education. But that wouldn't worry them.

Best solution of all - defund religious state schools in Britain. All of them. Tell these schools to either drop the religious privilege, or pay for it themselves. But that stands about as much chance of happening as repealing the US 2nd Amendment.