Speaking in tongues

Prime Minister John Key wants more students to learn Mandarin. Photo / Dean Purcell

Foreign language courses in primary schools are "a waste of time", according to a leading academic.

Rod Ellis, a professor in the Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics at the University of Auckland, says offering languages provides a good balance in high school curricula, but believes the case for starting foreign languages at an early age is weak.

Prime Minister John Key wants more students to learn Mandarin, and the Education Ministry gave schools for Year 7-10 students (intermediate and the first two years of high school) three years to prepare a second language option by this year. The Ministry says it has no plans to make learning international languages compulsory.

However, Dr Ellis says: "The studies that have been done have shown no advantage in starting the teaching of foreign languages early.

"In New Zealand, the majority of foreign language courses at primary school level are the 'taster' variety and, frankly, these are a waste of time, especially as they are often taught by teachers with no training or expertise in teaching a language.

"It would be much better to put resources into making a good job of teaching languages at secondary school."

Dr Ellis would like to see second-language learning compulsory in high schools.

"'Learning Languages' is one of the designated curriculum areas in the new curriculum but it is the only one that is not mandatory. All students at secondary school should take at least one foreign language for the length of their secondary school education."

Last year more than 94,000 primary and high school students were enrolled in a second-language class, the Ministry reports. French is most popular with just over 27,000 students. Japanese has around 17,000. Spanish is third, then German, Samoan and Chinese.

Last year Chinese overtook Latin for the first time.

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