Fighting Monolingualism

This article in the Guardian reports that the British Academy is calling for students to speak a second language as a requirement for university entry. The article points out an important idea - if we don't have language-proficient students coming out of university (and that's awfully late for them to start learning a language), then we won't have elementary and secondary teachers to teach languages. And then the problem continues.

Lord Dearing (I guess that means he's in the house of Lords... not too clear/interested about British political organization) is working on a report about languages. You can read a copy of the report... or at least the preliminary findings.

I always question what policy makers mean by "speak a second language." Everyone can agree on the general idea of speaking second languages, but the devil always lies in the details. What level? Level 2? Level 5? Does "speak" include both written and oral/aural (speaking/listening) components? Who does the testing? What about heritage speakers of language who may have lower levels of literacy but are fluent speakers? Which curriculum should be used to help students reach the desired level of fluency? And what's that desired level of fluency again?

I'm also reminded of what people generally tell me when it comes up that I was a French teacher. "Oh, I took French in high school," they say. "Can't speak a word of it now." People don't generally tell you that they took math in high school and now can't add. What's amazing is that they're often proud of their second language illiteracy.