{"id":413,"date":"2012-06-12T11:19:11","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T11:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/changes-to-english-school-curriculum-highlights-governments-short-sighted-approach-to-learning-a-second-language\/"},"modified":"2012-06-12T11:19:11","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T11:19:11","slug":"changes-to-english-school-curriculum-highlights-governments-short-sighted-approach-to-learning-a-second-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/changes-to-english-school-curriculum-highlights-governments-short-sighted-approach-to-learning-a-second-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Changes to English school curriculum highlights Government\u2019s short sighted approach to learning a second language"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: medium;\"><strong>Changes to English school curriculum highlights Government\u2019s short sighted approach to learning a second language<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;\">Sinn F\u00e9in Education Spokesperson Se\u00e1n Crowe has said that the decision to make learning a foreign language compulsory from the age of seven in England\u2019s primary schools highlights why the Modern Language in Primary Schools Initiative should never have been ended.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;\">Deputy Crowe said:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;\">\u201cAs part of an overhaul of its national curriculum, the teaching of a foreign language from seven upwards will be compulsory in English primary schools. In Scotland, a report published in May recommended that children should start learning a second language as soon as they start school at the age of 5.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;\">\u201cThis is a concerted effort on the part of our nearest neighbours to instil a love of foreign languages in children from an early age and I understand that there will be classes in Mandarin, Latin and Greek, as well as French, German and Spanish.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;\">\u201cThe vision being shown in England and Scotland is in sharp contrast to the Government\u2019s approach to learning a second language and highlights just how short-sighted its decision was to end the Modern Language in Primary Schools Initiative. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;\">\u201cHere we had in place a successful programme that was encouraging primary school children to learn a second language at a young age. Ending the Initiative made no sense and contradicts the aim of creating a knowledge based economy where having a second or third language is an essential skill that enhances the opportunities for Irish graduates and allows them to compete in an increasingly competitive employment market.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Changes to English school curriculum highlights Government\u2019s short sighted approach to learning a second language Sinn F\u00e9in Education Spokesperson Se\u00e1n Crowe has said that the decision to make learning a foreign language compulsory from the age of seven in England\u2019s primary schools highlights why the Modern Language in Primary Schools Initiative should never have been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}