“We should not be in the business of
making children forget what they know”. (Lo Bianco)
More and more children are entering primary school
with varying degrees of proficiency in another language and
sometimes two. 14.3% of all primary school children have a
first language known to or believed to be a language other than
English (DCSF, 2008). Already many schools are including
these languages in some form in their delivery of the language
entitlement.
Of the major reviews of the primary
curriculum, all make reference to the important position of
community languages and encourage schools and local authorities to
consider the merits of a diversification of the range of languages
taught.
The CILT booklet Positively
plurilingual uses a range of research evidence to outline the
contribution of community languages and highlights how work in this
area has the potential to benefit society as a whole as well as
improving the life chances of individual children.
These web pages dedicated to community
languages at primary aim to give head teachers, local authority
advisers and classroom practitioners the information they need,
both in terms of opportunities and issues, to develop a rationale
and strategy for languages and international dimension teaching in
response to local circumstances.
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