Comment Articles

Schools out for ever...

Tony Westbrook AnchorDesk

Published: 17 Mar 2000 13:16 GMT

All we can say for sure is that no-one appears to have a clue what's going to happen. Take a look at the yo-yoing stock markets to see what I mean. Last week old industries were going down the pan. This week tech stocks are heading in the same direction. Just let me off the fairground ride, its making me sick!

Fed up with Mammon's indecision, I was attracted to a piece in the Times Education Supplement this week that addresses another issue that the Internet is bringing to a different group: our educators. The piece was one that described some of the translation sites that now exist on the Internet. These allow you plug in text in one language and get an instant translation back in the language of your choice. I'm sure you have seen the kind of thing I mean.

And the argument was an interesting one. With the advent of services like this, is the whole discipline of language teaching and learning in jeopardy? If the purpose of learning a language is to communicate effectively, won't new tools to do this make the original motivation harder? It's a bit like the old (and valid) argument that English speakers are less motivated to learn foreign languages because everyone is learning English anyway.

I think its true that the Internet threatens both traditional teaching methods and content. But it is an issue certainly not confined to languages or indeed the Internet. When musical notation was first invented in mediaeval Italy, we saw the start of a process which destroyed the passed-on tradition of musical learning, but created instead a whole new tradition of composed music. When books started being printed, this may have spoilt the verbal tradition of story telling, but it allowed education and knowledge to be recorded, assimilated and built upon at a speed previously impossible. This process is the way we have build on previous understanding.

Maybe language is different because it is a social skill. Loose the ability to chat and talk in a foreign language and you've lost that essential social advantage. But surely all the previous examples suggest that what will happen will not be as clear cut as this. Maybe we will see less formal written language, but won't it be replaced by more verbal and communication work? Maybe the new online tools will be embraced to show students how to translate documents, invoices and letters quickly and effectively, allowing them to concentrate more on the social elements of language which really count.

So should language teachers be looking for a new career? Read on the find out...