In a previous post, I looked at how we appear to have a system designed to stop people learning languages in school. So we need to challenge the system. Here's the first challenge: Does the system exist simply to be a pipeline to produce language teachers to maintain the system? Do we have to base our decisions around the school curriculum and the languages curriculum so that 2 pupils per secondary school per year can end up doing French A Level, then a fraction of them can end up doing a French degree, and then a fraction of them can end up becoming teachers? Is this the raison d'etre for the system we have?
Let's ask the challenging questions... I warn you that the writing here is not well-formed answers. It is nibbling away at the presumptions we bring to language learning in our current broken system.
Do you really need a degree in philology to be a language teacher in English schools?
Quite clearly the answer is no. Primary teachers teach languages, sometimes without even a GCSE. And they make a good job of it. Alongside teaching English, maths, geography, history, music, science and a whole list of other subjects they don't have a degree in. At an appropriate level and ideally with resources and a well-planned curriculum.
Does this apply also to secondary school? Yes it does. The expansion of Spanish is seen as one of the success stories of the last 30 years. Done in the first instance by French teachers who learned enough Spanish to introduce it into the curriculum. Without a degree in Spanish themselves.
Who else? Well, teachers. I have worked with excellent teachers who didn't have a languages degree and either moved into language teaching to fill a gap or qualified as language teachers based on having another degree plus some knowledge of the language.
(We also need to ask the question of just how good the language level of some philology graduates might be. I used to interview and mark subject knowledge tests for a PGCE course. All of the applicants had a degree in languages. Not all of them made it onto the course. Language learning doesn't have to be through A Levels and degrees in literature, linguistics and essays.)
Native speakers. The All Party Parliamentary Group for Modern Languages recently discussed this as a solution to the "pipeline" issues. They pointed out the absurdities of paying bursaries for international trainees who were then unable to take up a post because of immigration hurdles. Although I see the government has now resolved this contradiction by ending the payment of bursaries to overseas trainees.
Who else could teach a language? Well, if we can do away with the ridiculous systemic barriers to language learning, then we could have a wide pool of applicants. Much wider than the tiny numbers who are ever going to study a philology degree. (Although of course, having more people continuing with languages would also mean a wider pool of potential candidates wanting to study philology.)
How would this look?
If it became the norm to study languages (by ending unfair grading at GCSE and offering mainstream language opportunities post-16) we would have a wide pool of people who will have studied a language or languages throughout their school life, going on to University where they could take a language course either as part of their degree or as a stand alone. They could study abroad for a year now we are returning to Erasmus. And then maybe work abroad before thinking of returning to England and becoming teachers.
Another thing. If languages are being taught by normal people, rather than a tiny elite who did A Level and a philology degree, would that have implications for the teaching and learning? Quite possibly. Seeing languages as something normal rather than vanishingly rarified is what we are aiming for.
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