Languages in the primary school

[Kerry Dixon]

I am having doubts about the government's plans to introduce languages into the primary school and wondered what colleagues thought. Not about the issue - I'm sure most people would agree that in an ideal world we should all grow up speaking more then one language... I mean in terms of the way the government plans to introduce the language - to me it appears it's all talk and no money to back it up. Perhaps UK colleagues have some thoughts to offer - or maybe our colleagues from elsewhere could give us some details of

Will the languages be taught by trained language specialists or will we spend the first year of secondary language teaching undoing mistakes ingrained by well-meaning but unqualified general primary teachers? Will schools be given the time and opportunity to come up with schemes of work that will allow for continuity, even when students feed from several primary schools (we have 13 feeder primaries). Will we all have to revert to teaching French as a first foreign lanaguage because primary schools all offer French? (We currently start half of the cohort with French and half with German - changing would involve massive implications for staffing).

Any thoughts?