Foreign Language should not be mandatory in schools- E.G. Maduro
The schools selected to pilot the Mandarin programme are: Ebenezer Thomas Primary, Alexandrina Maduro Primary, Bregado Flax Educational Centre- Primary Division, Enid Scatliffe Pre-Primary, Joyce Samuel Primary, and Enis Adams Primary.
French will be introduced at the high school level and, according to the Minister, the ultimate goal is to make at least one foreign language a compulsory core subject, and a stipulation for meeting secondary school graduation requirements in the next five years.
“The first term of the new academic year 2017, we will be piloting two foreign languages – Mandarin at the early childhood level in Kindergarten to Grade 2, and French at the secondary level in Grades 7 to 9… We cannot delay the inevitable,” Hon Walwyn had said in the House of Assembly on June 13, 2017.
“Considering the resourcefulness to being bi-lingual or multi-lingual in our current economy, it is prudent to start preparing our students for these imminent job offerings, by providing them with opportunities to choose which foreign language or languages they want to pursue, beginning at the start of their school journey. The ultimate goal in this process is to make at least one foreign language a compulsory core subject, and a stipulation for meeting secondary school graduation requirements in the next five years,” added the education minister.
Foreign Language should not be mandatory- E.G. Maduro
In a recent interview with our newsroom, retired civil servant and talk show host Mr Edmund G. Maduro stated that he is in total agreement with French being taught in high schools but it should not be compulsory.
“I’m not against French language being taught in the schools but it should not be mandatory. If the students decide to choose it, then that’s fine,” said Mr Maduro.
He continued, “However, if you go and you make it mandatory, you are going to put too much pressure on the students and they won’t have enough time to attend to what they really want to be and what they really like,” the talk show host explained.
Mr Maduro commented that he is not familiar with the Mandarin language but he is willing to learn more about the language.
“As a matter of fact, I think after English, it should be Spanish. The four most popular languages in the world today are: English, Spanish, French and German. Also, they are the most technical languages in this world that we live in today,” stated Mr. Maduro.
Mandarin is a group of related varieties of Chinese spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. It is by far the largest of the seven or ten Chinese dialect groups.
Critics of the announced programme by Hon Walwyn have expressed concern that many students continue to perform poorly in the core subject of English and that should have been the immediate concern for the Minister for Education.
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30 Responses to “Foreign Language should not be mandatory in schools- E.G. Maduro”
This person is trying to move too fast. What help will Mandarin be to these islands? Is he trying to be a Donald Trump?He seems to want his name stamped on everything in education in these islands. What is happening here is leaving a mess for others to clean up.. Is he trying to destroy what he met? How is it he thinks students are being better qualified? I am still to hear him encourage reading which is the base for learning.
If, in this instance, the word 'popular' denotes 'of the people', then in terms of sheer numbers globally, Mandarin is the number one most widely spoken language, followed by Spanish and with English in third place. Unsurprisingly, this is all based on population figures; even in the Caribbean the MAJORITY language spoken is SPANISH, with English-speakers greatly outnumbered by these because of the sheer size of the majority-Spanish-speaking countries compared to the size of the English-speaking ones.
It may boost our egos to consider that 'our' language is the dominant one. Indeed, there is a demand throughout the world for English as a SECOND language. But that in no way changes the facts and figures, especially outside of our region. Most importantly, it does not help us to compete to remain cosy and comfortable in our English-speaking bubble in a very globalised world.
It would benefit us greatly in this territory to STOP looking at the world as only what exists in the Caribbean and the American sphere and start truly looking at the globe AS A WHOLE if we really want to engage and become a serious contender on the world stage. Language acquisition will certainly help us there, as will a willingness to actually engage with other cultures and learn from them as well as teach them what our beautiful Virgin Islands are really about.
We need to decide once and for all whether we are educating our territory's children to be fishes capable of swimming in the open sea, or whether we are content with letting them 'feel' like big fishes in a small and rapidly shrinking pond.
BVI mentality! BVI people should be top with respect to International Business operations locally but everything should be done on a local basis. WTF is wrong with these *&%$&?
Why they imposed this , right after ...... daughter graduated. Hmm