Everyone knows that modern languages are under pressure in Scotland’s schools.
Despite the Scottish government’s 1+2 language policy, those who believe in the importance of languages as part of a school leaver’s toolkit cannot but be disappointed in the low numbers of pupils making it through the system to achieve a National Qualification in any language. Not that getting a National 5 or Higher is the only measure of success, but it’s a fairly good gauge of how a policy is working out in practice.
Background: Secondary schools failing to deliver ‘right’ to languages
News: The state secondary school where the only language taught is Mandarin
Big read: ‘The future’s still Mandarin’ despite lack of interest
The figures: The subjects on the rise and on the slide in Scotland
The Chinese language has been among the languages taught in Scotland for almost a decade and can boast a modest success in bucking the prevailing trend. The number of schools teaching Chinese and the numbers of learners studying it are both increasing, albeit gradually, from a low base and patchily across the country.
Gaps in Mandarin provision in schools
However, it remains a newcomer when compared to better-established and better-understood languages such as French, Spanish and German. It is usually marginalised both in the timetable and in the thinking of those who have its future in their hands.
The Scottish government will claim that there is no hierarchy in the 1+2 language policy, yet even in schools where it is available, Chinese is often designated as language three, with fewer teaching hours and fewer resources.
Specialist teachers, where they exist, can be faced with a merry-go-round of learners in large classes taking the subject as part of their broad general education experience, often with no prior knowledge from primary and little opportunity to progress.
There’s nothing wrong with “taster” courses, but their function should be to entice learners to try the whole meal, not just to fill up gaps in the timetable. Even the Scottish government sometimes seems unsure whether Chinese should be considered a “community language” or a fully fledged part of the school curriculum for all pupils.
In truth, it can be both, but it will only truly flourish as such with a firm commitment from local authorities and school leaders to provide equality of opportunity and support for pupils to learn Chinese throughout the school system.
Current economic and geopolitical events make even a basic understanding of Chinese look an even more essential part of a school leaver’s toolkit than we might have thought just a few months ago. Learning Chinese provides a vital contrasting perspective in a school curriculum where so much is viewed from the point of view of the Scots, the British, the Europeans or the Americans. It also provides an alternative approach and a discipline that pupils from all backgrounds and interests can find refreshing and exciting.
The current Chinese teaching workforce may be small but we are diverse, emphasising that speakers of Chinese do not all come from one country. The eight of us who teach as part of the Swire Chinese Language Centre in Edinburgh are a mix of native and non-native specialist teachers of Chinese from six different countries.
This August we welcome four newly qualified teachers to the ranks of Chinese teachers in Scotland. Give a thought to them and to all our established colleagues undertaking their sometimes lonely and overlooked work in schools across the country. Appreciate their hard work and tenacity.
We are on the journey together; we are rowing the same boat. Jiayou! 加油！
Maggie Sproule is head of the Swire Chinese Language Centre in Edinburgh, a principal teacher of Mandarin at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh and currently on secondment as the Swire Fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Moray House School of Education
