Paul Glynn | Senior Staff Writer
Travelling abroad is a formative experience in so many ways. It opens your eyes to new cultures, rhythms of life, and the sounds of a new language. Confronting the latter can be incredibly daunting, especially for English speakers who are so used to hearing their language as the default on the world stage, but the rewards for doing so are bountiful. In many travel guidebooks, you will read that an attempt by you, a presumed English-speaker, to make small, even tiny conversation in another language will see you bring smiles to the faces of locals, and a warm welcome to the place you’re visiting. Why, though, does a visitor from France or Italy or Turkey fail to warrant the same reaction in ourselves when they speak to us in our native English?
Ireland – as with many other English-speaking countries – seems to rest on its laurels in terms of language usage, relying on English’s status as the de facto language of international exchange.
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Perhaps it’s the surprise factor, a sense of novelty in hearing a native English-speaker speak in a language they don’t necessarily have to, thanks to the language’s hegemony in culture and business. This realisation opens up questions about our habits of language learning that don’t look so optimistic. Ireland – as with many other English-speaking countries – seems to rest on its laurels in terms of language usage, relying on English’s status as the de facto language of international exchange. In an age where new economic – and linguistic – powers are making an even greater impact on the international community, this habit is truly regrettable.
A lot of parents in countries where English isn’t the native language will use a kids English app to make sure their children are able to speak English as it provides them with an economic advantage over those who can’t speak the most common language used in the world. Of course, this means our reliance on other people’s English skills has contributed a devastating blow to our own foreign language capabilities. A report by Eurostat commissioned by the European Union in 2013 showed that Ireland underperformed greatly in foreign language learning relative to our EU neighbours. Although the study of one foreign language is usually incorporated into second-level study, it’s almost unheard of in our primary schools. According to the same Eurostat study, only 7 per cent of ten year olds in Ireland actively learn a foreign language, compared to an EU-wide average of 70 per cent. These paltry figures don’t speak highly of the potential for our kids to grow up in a more linguistically diverse and capable environment. The discontinuation of the Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative in 2012 is all the more disheartening in this context.
Things seem to pick up in secondary school, however, with 73 per cent of students taking up the study of a foreign language. Yet here as well there seems to be a lack of ability to drum up enthusiasm in students. For most of us, French was our only taste of interacting on a ground-level with a foreign society, with German and Spanish making minimal inroads. Although having French as a second language certainly contributes to one’s skill set, we need to acknowledge that the world’s linguistic makeup is becoming more and more diverse. Ethnologue, a language statistical database, estimates that there are approximately 7,106 languages spoken in the world, and that the world’s new “great languages” are found in rapidly growing economies such as China, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
Although having French as a second language certainly contributes to one’s skill set, we need to acknowledge that the world’s linguistic makeup is becoming more and more diverse.
As time goes by and languages evolve, we seem to be stuck in a circle of tradition that seems hard to break, one in which French dominates. Over 13,000 students sat higher level Leaving Cert French in 2012, compared to 4,368 in German and 2,530 in Spanish at the same level. According to Ethnologue, French and even German don’t even crack the top ten languages spoken worldwide. Although the proximity of France and Germany to Ireland gives knowledge of their respective languages some logistical sense, again by sticking to the tradition of studying these languages we limit our scope greatly. Why limit ourselves to pockets of north-western Europe and a meagre handful of other countries around the world, when we could have access to the vast expanse of Spanish-speaking Latin America, or have the potential to engage with over one billion Chinese speakers? Groups such as the Post-Primary Languages Initiative have noticed this, and have worked with schools to introduce a curriculum in Japanese and Russian, both of which are now optional Leaving Cert examination subjects, and short courses in Chinese and Polish are possibly on the cards too for the future due to future changes in the Junior Cert.
Still, for many of us, speaking a foreign language seems like a lost pipe dream. When I tell people about my experiences studying through French as an exchange student in Paris, many of them, particularly those of older generations, regret not having a foreign language pinned down. Having said that, it’s never too late to start learning a foreign language. With companies like the UK Language Project, learning a language is made easy for whatever purpose it may be for. With plenty of qualified private tutors, learning a language doesn’t have to be a far off dream anymore, but you must show dedication. The sad truth is that Ireland does not properly prepare us for coming face to face with globalisation the way many other countries do, and it reinforces a system where the feeling that we “don’t need” to learn other languages prevails. There’s probably no use in trying to quell the power of English as an international communicative tool. However, our willingness to engage with foreign communities on a language basis is a gesture of respect and genuineness, and strengthening our commitment to better foreign language teaching will have immensely positive results for our country’s foreign relations, and for Irish people who are waiting to discover the world around them on a deeper level
