Nursery World - Learning & Development: Foreign Languages

With foreign language learning being introduced in primary schools
for Key Stage 2, practitioners have an opportunity to help children
prepare. Opal Dunn considers the best approach.

In this new academic year Key Stage 2, Year 3 children will begin to learn a foreign language at school. The choice of which of the major world languages to introduce has already been made by individual primary schools.

This means that UK-educated young children will grow up, like more than half the world's children of the same age, knowing that they are expected to and can successfully pick up and use another world language.

The curriculum change provides all state-educated seven-year-olds with opportunities to re-use their personal language learning skills to pick up a foreign language. It is a major investment in children's future as many employers - unlike those in the time of the children's monolingual grandparents - will expect them to have some knowledge of a foreign language and cultures.

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