No longer if Languages, but which Languages

An article in today’s Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/the-top-9-languages-for-the-highest-paid-jobs-in-britain-a7329201.html) looks at which languages are likely to secure you a job or command a decent salary in London if you have it as a second language – a pretty useful skill in London where 22% of Londoners speak a major language other than English. It makes interesting reading, not just because non EU languages Mandarin, Russian, Japanese and Arabic all make the top nine but because sitting at the top of the list is German – the speaking of which will not only get you the highest paid job on average but also means you speak the language that is highest in demand across job postings. This matters, because German has been in freefall as a language taught and studied in schools over the last decade, often at the expense of Spanish. Spanish is there, but sits in 5th position behind Dutch, French and Arabic as well as German. Deciding which languages to offer in a school is a fraught business but I have long been worried that the domination of French – a language that is more challenging than most as a starter – is more a result of history and staff supply than strategy. Its appearance at number 3 is reassuring in that sense, and a reminder that the recent vogue for Spanish may be more helpful for the gap year plans than a career in London. But what of Arabic at second place? Surely the most obvious missing language in most schools and unlikely to suffer as other languages might in a post-Brexit London. Having lived and worked in Athens and Prague the question of which language to study troubles me less than it did – I could hardly have expected to be taught Modern Greek or Czech at school but the fact I had studied German, French and Latin helped me start to grapple with those languages when I lived there. But that same experience in Prague has convinced me that the decline of German in schools should be a worry for us all. At Ryde in the last three years we have gone against the trend with language learning – a school that did French and some Spanish three years ago now has over 100 pupils studying German, 180 do Spanish and over 50 Mandarin, alongside French and Latin. This week we have been celebrating the European week of Languages, cakes have been baked and eaten, flags flown, new languages learnt and a flashdance Macarena is planned for this afternoon. Languages matter, and perhaps Deutsch ueber alles.