Introduction
In this blog, John Claughton, Co-founder of WoLLoW dives into why our current approach to primary languages often excludes EAL pupils—and how a radical rethink can turn multilingualism into an asset.
In this session, he explores how teaching about languages, rather than just one language, opens doors to culture, identity, and cognitive benefits. From Greek to Braille, from sign language to scripts, WoLLoW offers over a hundred free lessons that make language learning inclusive, exciting, and deeply connected to the world.”
The current state of language education
To quote Bruce Springsteen, languages are – and have been – travelling ‘over rocky ground’. Even in the depths of the summer holidays, HEPI has produced a research paper which talks of the ‘catastrophic decline in languages’. Professor Charles Forsdick sings a similar lament. The number of A level candidates has declined – again, some university language departments are under existential threat, and even The Times editorial (20th August) tells of the danger of a ‘Monoglot Britain’.
Where is the interest in multilingualism?
So, there is much talk of the GCSE syllabus, and tough marking at A level, and initiatives to grow German. And yet there is almost total silence about the single most significant truth about the state of languages in this country: that this country has never been so multilingual.
Of course, this is too often presented as a negative – pupils aren’t multilingual, just EAL, or speaking your own language means you don’t really ‘belong’ here. And, of course, the languages of our community are not the European languages which have been studied since Henry VIII was a boy. Even so, it’s hard to imagine that young people who know Urdu or Arabic or Chinese or Farsi do not carry with them something that has, and will have, value in their future lives, as individuals, as members of a family or a community, as an ‘economic agent.’
The lack of interest in our pupils’ multilingualism is most evident, and perhaps most damaging, in primary schools. On the one hand, French and Spanish are the Big Beasts of primary languages, taught not because they are the most useful or most relevant to the pupils but because they are the only languages the teachers themselves know, even if not very well. And these lessons are, in themselves, likely to be exclusive of EAL pupils. On the other hand, pupils are given little or no chance to talk about or in their own languages, even though all the evidence suggests that multilingualism is an asset in terms of neurology and exam outcomes.
Rethinking languages in school
It doesn’t have to be that way. It is possible to construct a primary languages curriculum which teaches not a language but about languages, how they work, why they are similar to and different from each, how they are written down, how they relate to all other subjects, why they matter in the history of migration and empire, in culture and identity – even what fun it can be to break the codes and see the patterns.
That is what WoLLoW does. It’s a wondrous palindromic acronym, aka World of Languages and Languages of the World, which provides over a hundred complete, free lessons from Greek to braille, from sign language to different scripts. In so doing, it achieves so many things that we might consider to be important in the education of our younger pupils:
- The lessons are inclusive, not exclusive, and in a lesson about languages the EAL pupils will often get their moment.
- The lessons are exploratory, dialogic and inclusive: the pupils have the chance to think, to come up with ideas, to tell what they know; indeed, to tell what their teacher doesn’t know. Oracy is one of today’s big issues and these are oral lessons.
- The lessons encourage pupils to learn about themselves and each other, so that there is a greater sense of personal identity and mutual understanding – and that’s important these days.
- The lessons show the relevance of languages, whether taught in school or spoken at home, and are a preparation for studying a language, any language, in the years ahead.
- The lessons contribute to pupils’ literacy, helping them, for example, to understand grammar and the oddity of English spelling – why don’t we spell ‘physics’ with an ‘f’ and an ‘i’? – and how to decipher complex words.
- The lessons encourage connections between schools and families: lots of schools say that WoLLoW is the one subject the boys and girls talk about at home.
- On the overwhelming evidence of the teachers who have taught WoLLoW, the lessons are fun for the teachers as well as the pupils.
What does it look like?
So, here’s the simplest of examples. We can start by asking why the days of the week are called what they are called in English – and not even that is obvious or easy. And then we can take a trip and see what they are in French and Spanish, and ask why they are so similar, or in German, and ask why it is different from French, but more like English. And even now we can talk about gods of various kinds and planets. However, this is only a start. There will be lots of pupils who will know, or who can find out, the days of the week in their own languages and why they are as they are. Fairly soon you can fill the board with these, or even the classroom walls.
Challenges
Of course, primary school teachers may say that the rubric of the National Curriculum does not allow such common sense. The Law says that it has to be ‘proficiency in one language’. However, that doesn’t mean that schools cannot use WoLLoW alongside existing provision and some schools have convinced Ofsted that it’s the right thing for their pupils. And, perhaps most significantly, there is change in the air, as the Curriculum and Assessment Review comes to its climax. The final report highlighted that “The Review’s Call for Evidence received many responses focusing on the challenges with Languages at primary”. A recent response to the review by ALL, the University Council for Languages, and The Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies proposed the following:
‘Meaningful progress in one language at KS2, complemented by the development of language awareness [..] and intercultural knowledge, is essential for creating a languages pipeline across formal education and expanding language GCSE uptake.’
‘Meaningful progress’ is not the same thing as ‘’Proficiency in one language’, and ‘the development of language awareness and intercultural knowledge’ is precisely what WoLLoW already provides for hundreds of schools.
Find out more on the WoLLoW website: https://theworldoflanguages.co.uk/wollow-lessons/
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