Thoughts on teaching Language in schools

Added by ebany_d

Peter talk about his experiences learning languages in schools as well as his own independent interests in learning languages as an adult.
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Kelvingrove Chats

interview

Languages, language learning, Refugee Week

Language in schools, teaching languages, russian, latin, refugee week, Kelvingrove Museum, kelvingrove museum, Kelvingrove, Refugee Week, Charlemagne,

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Language

English, Scottish

Writing System

Roman alphabet

ED: Can you introduce yourself?
PB: This is Peter speaking. My view on languages is that currently we don't give enough importance to learning languages of other countries. Whereas other countries almost always teach their pupils one other language, which is quite often English. Most often English. Also we have given up teaching basic Latin in our secondary schools. I must be one of the last pupils in Scotland to have got that at secondary level up to third year. Then it was abandoned and not proceeded with. Although it's a dead language, Latin is the basis, grammatically and vocabulary as well, of most of the European languages. So I feel that's a worth-while thing and I wish I'd continued with it. I have interest in other languages of the world, and unfortunately didn't stay long enough in school to follow that. I'm now trying to catch up. I feel it's a good thing to do, learn other people's languages. By doing that you learn their customs as well to a point. I think a famous ruler in early France said that to have another language is to have another soul. That was Charlemagne in Early Medieval times. But I'll leave it at that and thank you for listening.

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Peter B

13/01/1949

Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire

English, Scottish · German · Russian · Latin