Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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Deputy McConalogue spoke about the modern language initiative. I agree with him that it was a retrograde step to discontinue it in December 2011. I can only speak from my own experience as a student of modern languages and other members may have differing opinions as teachers.

I do not believe we do enough at primary level to prepare students to study modern languages. For instance, I studied French in secondary school. The way it was taught and the way I learned it was to achieve a grade in my leaving certificate, not to obtain a language skill which I would use beyond post-primary education. We need to move away from this unhelpful approach. As the delegation pointed out, there is a significant level of language provision at second level but less than a third opt to pursue it in higher education. Maybe this is because the way it is being taught and learned in schools. I did enough in post-primary education to obtain an A in French. Six months after that I probably could not even have a conversation in French. We need to examine the approach to teaching languages and we may get greater results in people obtaining languages.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, is examining an integrated language curriculum for primary schools. Will the Department give us more details on this and explain how it will help develop language skills?