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Speaking other languages opened a large swathe of the world for me
I don't usually read the Telegraph, but this made me think of your comment. So many things in this story are very sad. (I don't know anything about secondary schools etc though so I don't know how or whether it all fits together. )
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2019/05/05/children-find-foreign-languages-stressful-signed-gp-headteachers/
hoefla-
I don't usually read the Telegraph, but this made me think of your comment. So many things in this story are very sad. (I don't know anything about secondary schools etc though so I don't know how or whether it all fits together. )
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2019/05/05/children-find-foreign-languages-stressful-signed-gp-headteachers/Thanks, always sad to hear about how things are. I expect that as usual the nonsensical British exam system will be to blame. Tests are always stressful for children, but making so much riding on just one exam at the end of a term/whatever period that is usually too long must prolong this.
As it happens, for foreign languages exams are probably an even worse assessment method than in subjects like mathematics. Language teaching needs to be conversational, first and foremost, with a component of writing (e.g. essays), and that must also be reflected in the assessment method. Continuous assessment in small increments that can provide constant and steady feedback is extremely important.
I have no doubt that in many cases it'll be the parents making the decision that learning the language is 'stressful' for their child because of the likely impact on grades, but children are often caught between the two kinds of pressure from the school and from the parents.
Anyway, it's a bad state of affairs and if I were to instigate any kind of education reform it would be to get rid of exams in their current form.
Oliver Schick
So much deep-seated ignorance ... the figures in the article linked to below are only the reported incidents. I'm sure there were many more that went unreported. Given that London's a huge place, these are, of course, not that many incidents, but it never ceases to be depressing that people are 'racists' ('race' as they construe it being a phantom concept, as there's only one human race).
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/brexit-tensions-partly-to-blame-charity-claims-as-racist-offences-double-on-tfl-rail-network-in-a4131256.html
What I always find very sad is the lack of language knowledge and -teaching in the UK.
Speaking other languages opened a large swathe of the world for me, and linguistic diversity is one of my greatest delights, so I find this particularly sad. Lots of linguistically-talented people in the UK are denied the fulfilment of their potential through this lack of teaching.