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Chapter 5. Conclusions: realising potential
This report began by recognising that Scotland has a long history of multilingualism and that the range of languages in use and the number of plurilingual inhabitants seem to be growing rapidly. In a world where global connections are increasingly important for trade, international relations, cultural exchange, social inclusion and democratic participation, these languages represent a valuable resource, but there is a need to invest in provision which will enable the plurilingual population to benefit fully from their skills, on their own behalf and on behalf of their communities and wider Scottish society.
The survey found that provision to enable children of school age to study their community languages varied considerably: from very extensive, well-developed and successful provision for Gaelic, to no provision at all for the vast majority of languages in use in Scotland currently. Complementary provision, organised principally by language communities for their own children, suffers in many cases from very limited funding, a lack of appropriate resources and unmet professional development needs on the part of staff. We have to conclude that, with a few important exceptions, Scotland is not currently well-placed to capitalise on its linguistic resources.
How could this situation be changed? In the consultation phase, community languages experts were asked to think about ways of improving existing provision, by creating a vision of a future in which community languages were valued and their learning effectively supported. They were then asked to say how this vision might be achieved. This chapter presents the main points to emerge from these discussions.
5.1 Visions of the future
Inclusive terminology
In the future, unhelpful distinctions between 'modern', 'foreign', 'lesser-used' languages, 'languages other than English' etc. will have disappeared, and all languages will be valued for the unique contribution each can make.
Nurturing plurilingualism
Plurilingualism will be widely recognised, by students, parents, schools, communities, employers and wider Scottish society as a cultural, intellectual and career advantage. Parents will be keen for their children to develop competence in other languages as well as English, whether they come from a monolingual or plurilingual background. Schools will offer a wide range of options to support children's developing plurilingualism, including a range of immersion and CLIL programmes, more traditional language classes and provision to support the learning of languages for specific (e.g. cultural or vocational) purposes. It will also be recognised that all school staff contribute to the development of pupils' communication skills and benefit in the teaching of their own subjects from skills which pupils have developed in other subject areas. Head teachers and senior managers will have a well-developed strategy to support language learning across the curriculum.
The role of ICT
ICT will have a key role to play both in supporting the learning of languages in addition to English and in enabling plurilingual children to draw on the full range of their languages skills for the purposes of gathering and disseminating information, in connection with their school work, their lives outside school, their career goals, their self-expression and their pursuit of leisure interests. Children who may be linguistically isolated in geographical terms will be able to make contact with virtual communities who share their language and thus have enhanced opportunities to communicate and develop their linguistic skills. Distance learning will enable small numbers of learners in any one geographical location to make links and develop their language skills together. Schools will be able to draw on the combined linguistic skills of their pupil population to draw attention to their work in many different languages and thus expand the range of potential audiences.
Effective assessment and progression planning
Teachers will be aware that children can have reached very different levels of competence within and across the languages they know. The importance of early and accurate assessment of these competences, combined with planning to ensure appropriate progression routes for children with different needs and aspirations will be recognised. Tools such as the European Language Portfolio or the Asset Languages Assessment Scheme are likely to have an important role to play.
Enhanced professional development for community languages teachers
Community languages teachers will be recognised as having valuable insights to contribute to the development of children's language skills, and mechanisms whereby their knowledge and skills can be acknowledged and developed will have been devised. These will include recognition of overseas qualifications, opportunities to gain Scottish teacher education qualifications and professional development opportunities which both exploit synergies with other areas of languages education (English as a subject, English as an additional language, modern languages) but also recognise the distinctive context in which community language teachers work.
Supporting and valuing the contribution of complementary schools
Although community language learning will have become a more central feature of mainstream school provision, complementary schools will continue to have a crucial role to play in reflecting and responding directly to the needs and aspirations of language communities. Partnerships with mainstream schools and support from local authorities will enable complementary providers to develop effective provision, ensure that complementary teachers have opportunities for professional development and that students' language skills are formally recognised.
Diverse employment opportunities
Employers in a variety of fields will recognise the value of plurilingualism and will actively recruit employees who can contribute to the multilingual profile of their organisation, whether the goal is international trade, cultural exchange, providing services to local multilingual communities or social inclusion. Careers advisers will reflect the demand for language skills by actively encouraging students to develop their language skills and gain qualifications.
Public perspectives
Plurilingualism and multilingualism will be seen as assets for the individual and society and will be promoted as part of Scotland's contemporary identity, whether in the terms of a 'Smart Successful Scotland', 'Creating our future … minding our past', 'One Country Many Cultures' or other campaigns to shape Scotland's future in different contexts. We can expect to see more visual and aural evidence of Scotland's languages in the public domain, growing interest in the culture and heritage of Scotland's linguistic communities, greater flexibility in meeting the communication needs of those who cannot (yet) communicate in English, and enhanced awareness of the complex links between Scotland and the rest of the world and the role which languages play in maintaining these.
5.2 Achieving these goals
Awareness raising
There is a need for awareness raising campaigns at all levels - in communities, in schools, in local authorities, in the media, among policy-makers and politicians, among employers - of the benefits of multilingualism for Scotland. Events or initiatives with a high public profile - such as the 2012 Olympics - offer valuable opportunities which organisations such as the UK Centres for Information on Language Teaching and Research should exploit.
Improving mainstream provision
Those concerned to promote community language learning in schools should be pro-active in identifying initiatives which could showcase their value. The inclusion of community languages from the outset in the Asset Languages Assessment Scheme offers a model for other initiatives aimed at mainstreaming community languages. CLIL projects or other cross-curricular initiatives which make use of some of the most widely used community languages (e.g. Urdu, Turkish, Chinese, Arabic) need to be developed, both as a way of raising awareness of the potential of other languages in this context and in helping to develop relevant resources and teaching approaches. Initiatives to develop the use of educational technologies should be targeted so that a languages education element is included at the planning stage or else comprehensively incorporated.
Where schools have already developed constructive approaches to mainstreaming community languages, the production and dissemination of successful case studies would be of value to others. Example of how schools have used the European Language Portfolio or the Asset Languages Assessment Scheme would be particularly useful.
Developing partnerships
A wide range of organisations need to consider how best to develop partnerships which will improve provision for community language learners. At local level, these include partnerships among mainstream schools and colleges and between mainstream schools and complementary providers, with the support of local authorities. At national level, bodies such as the Scottish Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research (Scottish CILT), the Scottish Association of Language Teachers ( SALT), the Scottish Association of Teachers of English as an Additional Language ( SATEAL) and community language organisations such as the UK Federation for Chinese Schools, where these exist, need to collaborate, and to engage other, generic educational organisations such as Learning and Teaching Scotland, the Scottish Qualifications Authority and the General Teaching Council.
Provision post-16
A strategic approach to provision for community language learning post-16 is urgently needed. There are no Scottish qualifications for community languages apart from Gaelic and Standard Grade Urdu, and this lack of opportunities for formal recognition of learners' achievements limits curriculum offers both in the upper secondary school and in further education. For those students who achieve A/S and A-level passes in their community languages there appear to be very few opportunities to take their studies further. The only Scottish universities to offer non-European languages are Edinburgh (Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Chinese and Japanese) and Heriot-Watt (Arabic). There are no opportunities at all to study languages of the Indian subcontinent, such as Urdu, Punjabi or Bengali, among the most widely spoken and studied community languages in Scotland. In particular, there is a need for courses which would enable students to combine community languages with vocationally oriented degrees (e.g. law, accountancy, business studies, management, etc.), so that the economic benefits of Scotland's multilingualism can be realised.
Choices and the changing context
The context for community language learning and use will always be dynamic, reflecting shifts in the Scottish population, the rise and fall of economies and their associated languages around the world, the impact of developing communication technologies and other factors which cannot currently be anticipated. Providers of languages education need to be aware of these developments, willing to listen and respond to learners' own needs and interests and to link these to the wider context, and to operate systems which are flexible enough to change when needed. Much of the current provision for language learning at levels of the education system remains rooted in the worldview of the 1960s and this needs to change. A Curriculum for Excellence has the potential to do this for schools, but other drivers need to be identified for other sectors. A key shift is to move from an elitist, academic model of language learning to one which recognises the relevance of language learning to people in all walks of life and ensures that valid and engaging choices are available to all.
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