As a German teacher by trade, I welcomed the renewed commitment to modern foreign languages set out by the Department for Education this week. The declining take-up of MFL at GCSE, A level and beyond is regrettable and anything that can reinvigorate interest is a good thing.

My fear, though, is that this latest “marketing” initiative will do little to help. And, indeed, schools minister Nick Gibb’s injection of cash for language champions and specialist hubs focuses too narrowly on promoting the subject to have much impact.

Instead, we need much more meaningful policy change on how MFL is perceived and taught. And this is why. 

The context for learning languages

The first thing to admit is that there is nowhere near enough incentive for children in England to learn a foreign language, compared with the incentives for their peers abroad to learn English. 

Children overseas want to learn English because of its dominant use in the film and music business. They also recognise (as do their countries and teachers) that learning English will help them tremendously in a global employment market.

Consequently, the core learning of English takes place organically, outside of the classroom, and lessons are where they go to refine it. So they are at a far higher level earlier. I taught English in Austria, and I was teaching Shakespeare to the 16-year-olds. This was only possible because most are fluent by age 11 - but that would never happen here, because there isn’t the motivation in our culture or our education system to enable it.

What we have, instead, is a system where at secondary school especially, modern languages are force-fed.

What we’re teaching  

What makes matters worse is that our language pedagogy and curriculum can feel dry and dull. MFL is dominated by learning phrases just to be able to answer an exam question.

Students know how to order off a menu, but rarely are they taught how to manipulate the language or understand how it is constructed, and so they are unable to always express themselves how they want to.

And it is this - self-expression - that is exciting, but students only get exposed to it when they get to degree level. 

I believe that, rather than just getting students through exams by learning catchphrases, the curriculum needs to change and aim for fluency and language manipulation.

Learning in this way will excite far more children, as well as raising the standard of competency in the language. As a result, it would motivate more pupils to engage in the subject.   

Early years and primary curriculum  

If learning a modern language is important, then it should start early - even from nursery, when children’s brains are far more receptive to “naturally” learning language. 

For example, I went to a bilingual nursery as a toddler (Welsh and English) - and I was fluent in both languages by the time I started school. 

Of course, what this requires are early years and primary school teachers who are confident in speaking the foreign language.

For that to happen, we would need to raise the standard required in MFL oral and written competency at GCSE level, so that more school leavers (and, therefore, more future teachers) can confidently communicate in the language. 

Two-year initial teacher training

There is a role to be played by initial teacher training, too. Postgraduate early years and primary trainees might be lucky to receive a day’s training in the teaching of modern foreign languages, which is pitiful.

That’s not a criticism of ITT providers, but one of numerous indicators that many one-year ITT courses fall some way short of adequately preparing teachers to do the job well enough. 

A two-year course would help, but to do justice to primary and early-years teaching of modern languages, graduates coming into teacher training would need to have a better grasp of the language than, for example, how to order a beer or ask where the town hall is.   

That’s the kind of investment of resource and ambition that Nick Gibb’s hubs just don’t get close to. Yet it is the kind of depth of thinking that is needed to make a difference in the standards of teaching and learning - in MFL and across the board. 

Cash injections into small-scale projects might gain some headlines but they won’t solve anything - certainly not on a national scale. 

Instead, government needs to think of the bigger picture and realise that solving problems in the education sector requires long-term strategies that look beyond the superficial.

In the case of MFL, it requires a plan that addresses the curriculum, pupils’ competency and, subsequently, teachers’ confidence, capacity and ability to roll out improvements country-wide, not just in a handful of so-called best practice areas.  

It’s great to have languages on the agenda - but it has been on the agenda for quite some time, with very few green shoots sprouting up.

Now the ambition needs to be raised beyond the plans that Nick Gibb has announced, otherwise MFL won’t become the subject of choice that he, and linguists like me, desire.  

Professor Geraint Jones is the executive director and associate pro-vice-chancellor of the National Institute of Teaching and Education, Coventry University