WRITTEN STATEMENT
BY
THE WELSH GOVERNMENT
TITLE
Global Futures – a plan to improve and promote MFL in
Wales
DATE
01 June 2015
BY
Huw Lewis AM, Minister for Education and Skills
I wanted to take this opportunity to update members of the Assembly on the work we
have been doing over recent months to begin to re-model our approach to Modern
Foreign Language (MFL) learning and delivery in our schools.
The new global economy holds out many exciting opportunities for Wales and the
work we are doing to raise standards in our schools, colleges and universities is
designed firmly with those opportunities in mind. We want Wales, its economy and its
labour force to have the skills and competences to thrive in the 21st Century. This
requires us to be bold and innovative in our approach and the recent Donaldson
review highlights the scale of our ambition.
The study of Modern Foreign Languages occupy an important place in education. Not
only is the joy of learning a language good in itself, linguistic skills are rapidly
becoming one of the most important tools a young person can acquire to compete for
jobs in the new global economy. They are also important to Welsh businesses too, as
increasing amounts of our trade and commerce is done with new partners overseas.
Therefore, it is important to ensure that more and more of our young people benefit
from the development of their linguistic skills and from learning about cultures from
different countries, both of which are gained through studying a Modern Foreign
Language.
Whilst the performance of those who study a language is strong both at GCSE and ALevel, we need to get more of our young people actively choosing to study a Modern
Foreign Language as part of their education at school. Alongside other countries
across the UK, the numbers of young people taking up a Modern Foreign Language
course has been declining recently. The perception of language learning; the
increased competition for subject time and the dominant position of English as the
language of global business have all contributed to the decline in take up. This is not a
distinctly Welsh problem.
Whilst I would like to put on record my thanks to CILT Cymru for their support in
promoting MFL subjects over recent years, it has increasingly been my view that we
cannot carry on with business as usual and need a new approach to Modern Foreign
Language learning in Wales. It is now time to think anew with a fresh approach to the
Welsh Government’s promotion of MFL subjects in Wales and I am pleased to
announce today the first steps in that new plan to support and promote the teaching of
Modern Foreign Language subjects in our schools.
From the end of this academic year I will be replacing CILT Cymru with the Improving
and Promoting Modern Foreign Languages Plan, which will come into effect from
September 2015. The Plan will see a new approach to MFL in schools with a
secondary school in each consortium becoming a Modern Foreign Language Centre
of Excellence, tasked with working in partnership with other secondary schools and
primary schools in their region.
I intend to link this closely to the work I have begun in implementing the 'New Deal' for
the professional education workforce in Wales with Continuing Professional
Development activities being provided to each MFL Centre of Excellence through a
new partnership with existing European language institutes and our universities to
support practitioners and improve teaching.
Schools within each MFL Centre of Excellence will benefit from school to school
based support which I want to provide a sustainable and self improving model of
working for the future. The Plan also includes the establishment of a mentoring
programme targeted at Key Stage 3 pupils that will raise the profile of MFL subjects
and ensure learners are aware of the benefits of MFL study, both in terms of
accessing higher education and in securing employment.
I intend these measures to be the start of a new approach to Modern Foreign
Language learning that will improve the learner experience of MFL subjects in our
schools, knowing that this is one of the most prominent reasons putting off young
people from studying a Modern Foreign Language.
I am investing £480k in 2015/16 to support the Improving and Promoting Modern
Foreign Languages Plan. In addition to this, regional education consortia have been
asked to submit proposals to Welsh Government on how they can work in new and
creative partnerships to take this agenda forward.
I am pleased to announce that the Plan will be overseen by a Modern Foreign
Language steering group made up of experts from schools, universities, Estyn,
language institutes (Alliance Francaise, Institute Francais, Goethe Institut, Confucius
Institute and the education departments of the Spanish Embassy and the office of the
Italian Consulate General in London) and education consortia and will be Chaired by
Mr Glynn Downs, Bishop of Llandaff Church in Wales High School. The group will
oversee the implementation of the plan, including agreeing the strategy for promoting
MFL subjects and the work of the Centres of Excellence. The first meeting of the MFL
steering group will take place on 4 June 2015.
In particular, I will be asking the steering group to examine and report back to me on
how we can incentivise undergraduates and postgraduates to work with our new
Centres of Excellence as well as how we can engage partners such as the BBC and
the Open University in usefully harnessing new digital technologies to improve
language learning for both pupils and teachers.
Finally, it is with great pleasure that I can inform you that Wales will host for the first
time a head teacher conference on the need for German in schools and the 12th
German Teacher Award Ceremony 2015. The event is jointly organised by the
Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Goethe Institut London, the Welsh
Government and the British Council.
There are no easy answers to the challenge we face of increasing the numbers of
young people studying a Modern Foreign Language. At a time of stretched resources,
it will mean us forming new and innovative partnerships with the organisations already
working in Wales who have the skills, experience and know how in language learning.
As a bilingual country we already have a great deal of knowledge in our primary and
secondary schools sector and in our university language departments about how best
to learn and teach a new language. Within our system we now need to put this
knowledge to a better, more joined up use to ensure that we deliver the increase in
confident linguists our economy and society would all greatly benefit from.