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Languages are more useful than science

There was a time when Latin ruled the roost in the school curriculum. Maths was always up there too, then science came along. In recent times STEM subjects have been carrying the highest prestige, partly because there is a shortage of mathematicians, scientists and engineers, partly because they are hard subjects and partly because, well, they just are - it's a fashion.

I used to tell my classes that for most of them it was far more likely that would use their French sometimes in the future than they would use their maths (anything, that is, beyond basic arithmetic, fractions, percentages and graphs), science, history or geogrpahy. So I was glad to read that Gary Lineker (never had a yellow card) himself is saying the very same thing. This is what he said to the TES:

 “Personally, I look at what we have to study at school and some subjects like science might help at some point in your life for a percentage of people, but the learning of languages, for me, will always be helpful for the vast majority at some stage in their life.”

He added:
 
“There is no question in my mind when you speak someone else’s language, certainly in their country, they’re normally pretty appreciative of the fact. That’s my personal experience. Plus, it gives you a lot of self esteem if you can converse with people abroad, which is an important thing and perhaps shows where chemistry and physics may not help the majority of people but learning a language will.”

Well said Gary and it's a line teachers should easily be able to sell to most of their classes.


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