The Daily Mail item which stated that adults only tend to recall some seven words of an entire foreign language studied in school is of little surprise to me.When I took 'O' levels in French and Spanish back in 1968, I estimate that I had needed a vocabulary of some 2,000 words. 'A' levels in 1970 required about 8,000 in each to achieve university standard grades - before we even consider grammar.
When I trained to teach languages in 1974/5 I was horrified to find that 'memory was being abolished' as it was 'not a particularly important part of education'.
Well, I finished teaching languages this year and what a long and miserable struggle it has been. Had I not gone part time in 1990, I feel that I could not have survived.
If children are not required to use their memory to a significant degree across the curriculum, it is to be expected that languages, which must have a large body of active rather than passive knowledge, will be regarded as a particularly difficult option by most pupils.
I have taught other subjects to examination level and they are utter simplicity by comparison.
What the experimenters with education have done to damage children in the last forty + years fills me with absolute horror.
LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=472704&in_page_id=1770
