"Everyone spends at least 11 years at school. That's a long time. So surely it's not unreasonable to expect young people emerging from the system to be ready to make a positive contribution to the working world? I'm not talking about examination results. They are just one indicator of someone's capacity to be a great employee, or even an employer. I'm talking about the skills that actually matter in the workplace. Shouldn't pupils in our schools be given the chance to develop skills in communicating with confidence, solving problems, working in teams, being polite, using technology and organising themselves. And once they have developed the skills fully shouldn't some recognition be available? Employers certainly think so. And so do I." says Phil Crompton, Executive Head of the Trent Academies group.
Last year, The Economist reported that a bilingual Arizona reporter faced a backlash, with viewers complaining that her pronunciation of Spanish names was “overly Spanish.”
The pressure to suppress fluency in a second language has been great in the modern United States, particularly among conservatives in the political sphere. John McWhorter, a Columbia University professor, has pointed out that in early U.S. history, presidents were expected to have mastered French, but more recently bilingualism has been seen as a liability in U.S. politics. McWhorter says the reasons for this disdain have varied depending on which language is in question.
In a separate study, a team of researchers, led by Dr Peter Dodds from the University of Vermont, built a database of billions of individual words from 10 of the most popular languages using online sources.
What’s the #1 mistake that Spanish learners make? Learning only from textbooks. Even if textbooks are certainly the most helpful tool for learning, they lack the ability of communicating the nuances of the Spanish language and culture.
After all, slang, dialects, emotion and humor – that’s where the real “soul” of Spanish resides. One great way to cross that bridge from your very own sofa is to watch some movies.
