I'm a Modern Languages teacher who changed to Primary after 14 years of Secondary teaching. Read about my creative ideas for language teaching, suitable for more than just primary.
11.1.11. Baroness Coussins Day. The day of "Realising the Strategic Importance of Languages", the event organised by Links into Languages NE for language teachers and their senior leadership teams.
Interestingly, the verb "realise" has two meanings - "to grasp or understand clearly" and "to make real; give reality to". All MFL teachers can do the first one and would like to do the second one. Members of SLT may not know the first one, and until they can do the first one the second one is unlikely to happen.
The event started with keynote addresses from Baroness Jean Coussins and Richard Hardie, Chair of UBS Limited, giving us plenty of information to help us to grasp and understand clearly the current languages landscape in this country. Here are some soundbites:
Baroness Coussins
Baroness Coussins is a cross-bench Peer. She said that cross-bench Peers are "troublemakers about the causes that we really care about", and hers is of course languages. This endeared her to the MFL Twitterati straightaway, as we consider ourselves to be troublemakers too, if troublemakers think outside the box, question the status quo and work to effect change.
"The prevelance of English should not be overestimated".
We live in a country of "complacent monoglot Brits".
Over a third of UK businesses need language skills. They mostly need French and German, but more Mandarin and Spanish is required now.
Language learning "opens doors to understanding peoples' cultures".
Meetings in Brussels are being cancelled on a daily basis because of a lack of English-native-speaker interpreters.
"The timing is right for a national languages recovery programme", especially with the Curriculum Review imminent.
At the moment we have "curriculum by league table".
We need to aim for language learning to be the cultural norm like it is in Belgium or the Netherlands.
"I do believe very strongly that it should be compulsory for every child to study a language until the age of 16." (Though not necessarily studying for a GCSE).
This is Baroness Coussins's wishlist for languages:
Make sure that school policy includes something prominent about preparing children to be global citizens.
Introduce a compulsion in KS4, whether they study GCSE or not.
Make a qualification in a language necessary for access to the 6th form.
Make a qualification in a language necessary for University entrance.
Make sure that timetabling doesn't make the study of two languages impossible.
Give parents information about languages and their usefulness.
Promote exchanges and visits to the target language countries.
Foster links with universities and other institutions in the community, including businesses.
Investigate and try CLIL.
"If you really want to get under the skin of another culture, you need language skills and not just a louder voice."
Richard Hardie
Richard Hardie's company, UBS Limited, is particularly keen to hear from graduates with language skills; that's to say with strong oral and written skills in another language AND English. Their client base is increasingly globalised and multicultural.
Language skills "build trust and deepen relationships with clients"
The "English" spoken in some countries is not always intelligible to an English person!
Languages "prove you've done something difficult".
Denying students the opportunity to learn another language is denying them access to many avenues of employment in this country and overseas.
UBS Limited estimate that by 2030 the main business languages will be English, Spanish and Mandarin.
After the keynote addresses we moved into our groups, where delegates worked through a series of activities to explore feelings about languages at the moment and what can be done to resolve the situation. With Chris Harte's guidance we had put together a plan structured by DeBono's Thinking Hats. Some White Hat facts were already in delegates' packs, so when they entered the room we moved straight to the Red, emotion, hat. Delegates were asked to plot on a feel-o-meter their feelings about the state of languages at the moment. This is the feel-o-meter from my group, and as you can see, feelings were quite mixed.
Then, using yellow post-its for the Yellow positive hat, and pink Post-its for the Black negative hat, individuals wrote down positives and negatives of the current languages landscape. Then they discussed their Post-its with the rest of the their table, to see if there were any common themes. The discussions arising from this were very interesting, particularly as we had representatives from primary, middle and secondary schools, and we could have spent much more time on them. The one overwhelming point to have come from my group was how crucial headteacher support is to this. If successful language learning is not in the headteacher's vision for the school, it will never be completely successful. The Green opportunities hat was next. Delegates noted down lots of ideas for things that they could do in their school to raise the profile of languages, improve the teaching and learning, and ultimately make them more successful. They then ordered these ideas in a diamond ranking, putting those with the highest impact at the top. We also discussed which were the quickest wins. Finally, individual school groups worked on an action plan, for the Blue planning hat, which would be the beginning of a much longer process and dialogue between the MFL departments and teachers and their SLTs.
The final part of the event was questions to the panel. On the panel were Bernadette Holmes, President Incumbent of ALL, Michael Wardle, a local languages star who is currently DH at a school in Durham, Elizabeth Andersen, Head of the School of Modern Languages at Newcastle University, Richard Hardie and Baroness Coussins. Here are some closing soundbites:
Target language use: "Taking independent control of the language system to make meaning" Bernadette Holmes
"Be courageous. Languages matter. Your voice matters." Bernadette Holmes
I hope that in all the schools represented today the dialogue which was started is only the beginning of a longer and fulfilling process of realising the strategic importance of languages.
You'll have read in my Christmas Eve post that a couple of months ago I wrote to my MP, Michael Gove and Nick Gibb about the position of MFL in the Key Stage 2 curriculum, as sending to the DfE my comments on November's White Paper.
Yesterday evening I received a response from "a member of the Secretary of State’s correspondence team". It doesn't, unfortunately, tell us anything that we didn't already know. I also know, from reading the Primary Languages Linguanet forum, that I'm not the only person to have received this stock response.
Here is the response:
Thank you for your email and e-card of 6 December to the Secretary of State, regarding the importance of language teaching in primary schools. As a member of the Secretary of State’s correspondence team I have been asked to reply, and I apologise for the delay in doing so.
The Coalition Government is fully committed to the teaching of languages in schools, not only for its social and economic benefits, but also because learning a language helps pupils to understand the different cultures of people around the world.
We know that primary school teachers and others have worked very hard over the last few years to stimulate an early interest in language learning, and a recent NfER study showed that 92 per cent of primary schools are now teaching foreign languages within class time at Key Stage 2. The Government believes that learning a language at primary school can inspire children with a love of languages that will stay with them throughout their secondary education and beyond. Given the importance of language learning, and the benefits of an early start, Ministers expect that the majority of primary schools that are already teaching languages will continue to do so.
On 7 June 2010, the Minister of State for Schools announced that we would be carrying out a review of the National Curriculum to return it to its original purpose - a core national entitlement organised around subject disciplines. The review will consider the place of languages within the National Curriculum in both primary and secondary schools, and will ensure that our core curriculum can compare with those of the highest performing countries around the world. In designing the new curriculum, we plan to consult a wide range of academics, teachers and others with an interest in what is taught in schools. More details about how to contribute to the review will be announced shortly via our website at http://www.education.gov.uk/, and I hope that you will feel able to respond. Yours sincerely, Kate Jarrett Correspondence Team www.education.gov.uk
Next Tuesday, 11th January, sees the visit to the north east by Baroness Jean Coussins for "Realising the Strategic Importance of Languages". It's a Big Deal for us, and a lot of planning has gone into the event, under the expert leadership of Links NE Manager Ruth O'Rourke. My job, as part of the preparation, was to put together a list of 20 facts about the current state of languages in this country. Well, I found a few more than 20. I thought they would be useful for other people, especially come Options time, so here they are. If you can't be at the event itself, don't forget to watch the live streaming and follow the chat on Twitter by following the hashtag #linksne.
SCHOOLS
The number of people studying languages beyond the age of 14 has plummeted by almost 50 per cent in the last seven years to just 206,087.
Only 9,246 teenagers took a GCSE in Latin last year – and some 70 per cent of entries were from private schools.
And the proportion studying a modern language overall has fallen from 79% in 2000 to just 44% in 2009 - and when you take out the independent sector that 44% falls to 39%.
The previous government made foreign languages an optional subject, and less than 30% of schools in the state sector now have languages as a compulsory subject to the age of 16. Many schools struggle to get even a dozen pupils through to GCSE, German has been phased out in many schools, and it is not unusual for schools to offer only one foreign language, usually French.
4.22 Alongside the number of students who secure five good GCSEs including English and mathematics, the performance tables will record the number who secure the combination of GCSEs which make up the English Baccalaureate. Those schools which succeed in giving their pupils a properly rounded academic education will be more easily identified. This will provide a powerful incentive for schools to drive the take-up of individual science subjects, humanities such as history and, especially, foreign languages.
4.23 The proportion of young people studying a modern language at GCSE has fallen from 79 per cent in 2000 to just 44 per cent in 2008 and 200958. The introduction of the English Baccalaureate will encourage many more schools to focus more strongly on ensuring every student has the chance to pursue foreign language learning to the age of 16.
The bleak picture was compounded by the publication last month of an OECD survey that showed that secondary school pupils in the UK spend less time studying languages than their counterparts anywhere else in the developed world. Only 7 per cent of the lesson time of 12 to 14 year-olds is allocated to languages, which is half the amount that they spend on sciences. This puts England joint bottom of a table of 39 countries, alongside Ireland and Estonia and behind Indonesia and Mexico.
The decline in GCSE entries from 2004 has been severe. The vast majority of state schools neither insist on a language post-14 nor even set a benchmark for take-up, as they are meant to do. As a result, languages have become one of the main causes of what the coalition Government have called the "vast gulf" between state and independent schools, with pupil take-up at key stage 4 being only 41 per cent from comprehensives, compared to 81 per cent from independent schools and 91 per cent across all selective schools.
Also, and worryingly, it would seem that a class divide is opening up; the National Centre for Languages' CILT Language Trends figures for 2009 note that last year 41 per cent of comprehensive school pupils at Key Stage 4 were entered for a modern language, compared with 91 per cent of selective school pupils and 81 per cent of independent school pupils.
In England, the only time anyone is obliged to learn a language is in the first three years of secondary school. But a recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that we don't spend much time doing it even then. In percentage terms, England came bottom, along with Ireland, with languages taking up around 7.25 per cent of compulsory curriculum time for 12- to 14-year-olds.
The average across the 15 EU countries that gave figures was 14 per cent. By comparison, key stage 3 pupils here spend about three times as much time learning about technology, which includes ICT, than the EU average. In addition, it has recently emerged that since plans to make foreign language teaching at primary school compulsory were shelved, provision at this level is already falling off a cliff.
EUROPE
NATIONS SHALL SPEAK
Compulsory time 12- to 14-year-olds spend on languages in EU countries each year (by curriculum percentage and hours)
I am deeply concerned that fewer and fewer students are studying languages, it not only breeds insularity, it means an integral part of the brain’s learning capacity rusts unused.
Gove said the narrowing of the range of exams being taken was "depriving young people of the things they should get from education, which is a rounded sense of how to understand this world in all its complexity and richness.
"If you don't understand science and you don't understand other cultures, you are deliberately cutting yourself off from the best that is going on in our world." Gove said he was "very attracted" by the baccalaureate systems operated by many European and Asian countries that deliver a broader educational curriculum than in England.
They become non-compulsory at GCSE in 2004, and the number of children taking a language GCSE dropped from 78% in 2001 to 44% in 2009. Last year, just 26% took French and 11% took German – the numbers for both have halved since 2001 – while 8% took Spanish and 4% another language. The GCSE results published this week showed the numbers studying French down a further 5.9% and German down 4.5%, with French dropping out of the top 10 GCSEs for the first time.
In this year's A-level results, Spanish was up 4%, but the numbers taking French and German were down 3.8% and 3.4%, while other languages decreased an alarming 7.1% year on year. In 1996 18% of A-Levels were in languages, while now the figure is about 10%.
Making languages optional at 14 has had several consequences, each as predictable as it is regrettable. The first was to signal that an acquaintance with even one foreign language was a luxury rather than a necessity. The second was to reinforce the impression that languages were difficult, and so to be avoided, by pupils and schools concerned about scores and league tables. And the third was to encourage schools to scale down language teaching and divert resources elsewhere.
According to the Annual Language Trends Survey for 2009, just 41 per cent of comprehensive school pupils took a modern language at GCSE. It is selective and private schools that are keeping languages alive. At A-level, the 7.7 per cent of children in private schools are now so over-represented, that only 11 of 31 Cambridge colleges have a majority of language students from state schools.
The rot started long before a foreign language ceased to be compulsory at GCSE in 2004 - and has spread. Like fish stocks, levels are now so low that Mike Kelly, Professor of French at Southampton University and Director of the UK Support Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Study, says: “If the clock is ticking, we are getting close to midnight. We had hoped that the decline in modern languages had bottomed out, but it’s not getting better.
“Free choice has meant that languages are often set against subjects like art or drama, and are pushed further down the list of preferences. Languages are a long term business: you don’t get quick rewards. It takes three or four years to get to a decent level, whereas in other subjects you can have fun without long-term preparation.”
For the first time ever, French has slipped out of the top 10 of the most popular subjects at GCSE – the most obvious sign of the seemingly inexorable slide in languages take-up in schools, which employers say will damage British students on the international jobs market.
Fewer than one in four youngsters (22.7 per cent) now sits French, with the numbers falling from 341,604 students in 2002 to 177,618. This year alone, there was a further 5.9 per cent fall. German has slumped from 130,976 to 70,619.
Last night, exam board leaders called for a summit with ministers to try to stem the decline. The figures, released as part of this year's GCSE results, led to Andrew Hall, the chief executive of the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, to claim that yesterday was "a rather sad day for languages".
The minister confirmed that tuition fees would replace government teaching grants for humanities and arts subjects, but he said that it was "very possible" that languages could be earmarked as strategically important and benefit from extra money.
Interview with David Willetts, The Guardian, 9th December 2010
6.2 Public investment will be targeted on the teaching of priority subjects. The current system incorporates a hidden blanket subsidy to institutions. The subsidy is delivered through a block grant that does not vary significantly from year to year. Institutions do not compete for this funding – they get it automatically. Our proposals will shift the balance towards a more dynamic system of funding, with students having more choice about where they study and directing a greater share of the resources for teaching through the Student Finance Plan. There is nevertheless a strong case for additional and targeted investment by the public in certain courses. These may be courses that deliver significant social returns such as to provide skills and knowledge currently in shortage or predicted to be in the future. Students may not choose these courses because the private returns are not as high as other courses, the costs are higher and there are cheaper courses on offer, or simply because these courses are perceived as more difficult. Typically the courses that may fall into this category are courses in science and technology subjects, clinical medicine, nursing and other healthcare degrees, as well as strategically important language courses.
Lord Browne Securing a sustainable future for higher education An independent review of Higher Education funding & student finance. 12 October 2010
CAREERS
If you have language skills you really can have a successful career in many different fields. A language can add 10 – 15% to your salary and really make you stand out from the competition.
But market forces clearly back teaching German. Worldwide, up to 120 million people speak it and Germany is our second largest trading partner. The CBI says employers seek German and other languages when hiring staff but that, increasingly, British applicants are losing out to candidates from elsewhere.
The ability to function in a new linguistic cultural environment is a skill highly prized by international employers, many of whom will not consider graduates without experience of living and working outside their native land
The growing need for people with language skills is attributable to a number of fairly recent developments, all of which have implications: changes in technology; changes in Europe; increasing internationalisation; advances in transport systems
King, A., Thomas, G. (1999) The Guide to Languages and Careers (London: CILT)
Cultural awareness is a highly important career asset. To work successfully abroad, you need to have an appreciation of ideas, traditions, customs and lifestyles which are often very different from your own
King, A., Thomas, G. (1999) The Guide to Languages and Careers (London: CILT)
Graduates in modern languages are sought after by employers not merely for their linguistic skills, but for the intellectual training which their course has provided. Linguists are trained to think structurally, they write essays which give them good practice in thinking clearly and in presenting focused arguments. Many language courses involve working cooperatively in groups and making formal presentations to an audience.. just the sort of teamwork and presentational skills which employers tell us they are looking for
King, A., Thomas, G. (1999) The Guide to Languages and Careers (London: CILT)
Language learning can enable students to communicate, share experiences and values and set in motion a whole series of both inductive and deductive processes that students need in both academic lives and future professional ones
DiNapoli, R. (2000) 'Reflection and professionalisation in language teaching: the case of 'Polylang' at the University of Westminster' in King, A. (ed) Languages and the Transfer of Skills (London: CILT), pp. 45-51
Effective use of technology needs linguistic skills - The next generation will need high levels of proficiency both as communicators and in the associated technologies. While computer-aided translation systems will speed up the process of working between languages, it is people with high levels of literacy and the experience of learning and using languages who are most likely to be able to exploit new technologies to the full
The Nuffield Languages Inquiry (2000) Languages: the next generation (London: The Nuffield Foundation)
Britons who speak a foreign language are richer, happier and are regarded as sexier than those who can speak only English
languages are empowering, provide a passport to a more varied and adventurous life, open up a wider pool of friends and sexual partners, and slow down the ageing process. While the skills they promote tend to be personally enriching, many are also sought by employers and so enhance job prospects. Who could ask for anything more?
German was the most popular language required for jobs in September 2010, highlighting the war for talent when it comes to German speakers. That’s according to specialist language job board multilingualvacancies.com.
Statistics of jobs posted on the site show that with 460 roles, German is by far the most sought after language, with the next most popular one being French, required for 332 jobs. Other Western European languages were also in demand, with Dutch the third most requested language, followed by Spanish and Italian which both featured 132 times on job adverts in September. The Scandinavian languages were next on the list and there was also a niche demand for the languages of Japan and China.
"There's no doubt that languages on a CV immediately make potential employees stand out, and, with the degree of globalisation we are experiencing, I think it's safe to say that multilingual graduates will be snapped up like they're going out of fashion."
72% of UK international trade is with non-English speaking countries – but it is estimated that only one in ten British workers can speak a foreign language.
Confederation of British Industry (CBI)
As the European Commission website states: “Each year, thousands of European companies lose business and miss out on contracts as a result of their lack of language skills and intercultural competence. The challenge for internationally active firms is to integrate different organisational cultures and communicate efficiently in order to maximise performance – languages mean business!”
Research shows that Welsh firms could increase sales by 44.5% if they recruited more staff with languages skills.
The calls follow a Welsh Assembly Government action plan to boost modern foreign languages learning. The average take-up of languages at GCSE level has dropped to 27% in Wales, yet businesses in a wide range of industries need candidates with practical language skills.
Newport University deputy vice-chancellor Professor Stephen Hagen, a professor in multi-lingual business communications, has led studies showing that small to medium- sized businesses in Wales could increase export sales by 44.5% if they had stronger language skills.
Employers are increasingly looking for Mandarin and Cantonese
Among employers looking for employees with particular language skills now or expecting to do so in the next three years, French still has the edge as the most commonly mentioned language (49%). But almost equally in demand are staff who speak Mandarin or Cantonese to cope with the rapid rise of Chinese economic activity and trade. Spanish is sought after by a third (32%) of employers looking to develop trade links not just with Spain but importantly the emerging markets of South America. A significant number of employers (19%) are looking for staff with Arabic skills for doing business with one of the most energy- rich regions of the world.
English alone will not sustain word-class excellence - operating successfully in a highly competitive world economy and maintaining world-class standards involve more than muddling through in the short term and include as a minimum the acquisition of the range of skills which our competitors offer. Given that so many people all over the world now speak, or are learning English, knowledge of English no longer confers an automatic advantage on the British workforce
The Nuffield Languages Inquiry (2000) Languages: the next generation (London: The Nuffield Foundation)
Across Europe, language skills are still very much in demand and a recent survey commissioned by the European Commission identified a clear link between languages and export success. While English is a key language to gaining access to export markets, the survey results suggested that the picture was far more complex than the much quoted view that English is the world language. Russian is extensively used in Eastern Europe as a lingua franca (along with German and Polish); French is used to trade in parts of Africa, and Spanish is used similarly in Latin America. It is therefore becoming increasingly apparent that candidates with one or more foreign language skills are at an advantage in the workplace and that in future, those who are not multilingual may struggle at the top of the employment market. In fact a recent poll of 500 companies, conducted for CILT, the National Centre for Languages, revealed that one in four employers felt that the ability to speak a second language would give a candidate the edge when applying for a job.
European Hiring Trends – Autumn/Winter 2010 Euro London Appointments
we are also finding that the Euro/Sterling exchange rate is no longer attracting foreign nationals to seek employment in the UK.
European Hiring Trends – Autumn/Winter 2010 Euro London Appointments
"Anyone who can clinch a deal in Argentina because of a grasp of Spanish, give directions to an Italian family visiting a tourist information office in the Lake District or work with a Chinese sporting delegation in London for the Olympics, will be of immense value to business and Britain.
"We must change our cultural attitude: we are an island race but must embrace the world and speak its languages if we want to be in the pole position for business.
Sir Digby Jones, CBI chief
The language of business
Language skills are increasingly important in a globalised economy. Linguistic proficiency helps firms to consolidate their relationships with existing overseas trading partners and develop contacts in new markets. Most employers (65%) are looking for conversational ability – rather than fluency – to help break the ice with customers or suppliers. Businesses looking for language skills are still seeking traditional European languages such as French (49%), but employers are also increasingly looking further afield with increased demand for Mandarin/Cantonese (44%).
The combination of an increasingly global economy and heightened cultural sensitivities means new demands on many people at work. The education system has a major part to play in preparing young people for work, and teaching foreign languages can help. But over two thirds of employers (71%) are not satisfied with the foreign language skills of young people and over half (55%) perceive shortfalls in their international cultural awareness.
• While only a small proportion of firms (4%) are certain they have lost business as a result of inadequate language skills, the true figure could be much higher as 17% of respondents said they did not know
• Most employers (65%) are looking for conversational ability – rather than fluency – to help break the ice with customers or suppliers and as part of wider cultural understanding
• Those able to communicate in Mandarin/Cantonese are now as much in demand as those with skills in the traditional major European languages of French and German.
In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, UK firms need staff who can communicate in foreign languages. English has become the international language of business – in itself a real benefit for the UK – but there are enormous advantages for British businesses if some employees have the language skills to communicate with suppliers, customers and officials in their own tongue. With many businesses developing links in China, India, Russia, Brazil and other emerging economies, they recognise the value of employees who understand the culture and can operate effectively in the different business environments of these countries – and an understanding of the language is often a crucial first step. Assessing the scale of business problems caused by the linguistic shortfalls in their workforces is a difficult exercise, but at least 4% of firms know they have missed out on opportunities as a consequence of inadequate language skills. A further 17% don’t know whether they have lost business or not, so the scale of problem may well be considerable.
Companies particularly value an employee’s ability to communicate conversationally with potential business partners, customers or clients in their own language (Exhibit 55): this can help break the ice, deepen cultural understanding, and open access to new markets. Two thirds of respondents (65%) say that when recruiting for foreign language skills, they normally require quire a conversational level of skills rather than full fluency.
At the heart of this must unashamedly be the argument that intercultural competence is not only one of the essential skills for modern life and work, but is in itself exciting, pleasurable and rewarding.
Much is rightly made today of the importance of helping all of our young people to become global citizens, by which we mean that they will learn to think in new, critical and creative ways; that they will be committed to ethical and socially responsible behaviour; that they will be ready to embrace professional mobility; that they will assume leadership roles, sometimes very locally within the family or a group of friends and sometimes nationally or even internationally; that they will embrace entrepreneurship and embrace and develop their own ability to innovate; and, crucially, that they will be not only sensitive to cultural difference, but also able to appreciate and mobilise its value in intellectual and social contexts.
This is a new form of citizenship that has no global governing body, but whose importance is recognised by many national and regional governments. Global citizenship is marked by a sense of responsibility, both individual and collective, and by a commitment to living in and with difference, in all of its complexity, ambiguity and challenge. This is the fundamental reason why we should encourage as many people as possible, both young and old, to learn a language, since this involves encounters and learning about a different culture as well as a different linguistic system, and thereby enables an understanding of just how much sameness and difference are bound up together and define each other. Without some knowledge of another language, we remain locked into a single system.
To learn another language is, quite simply and profoundly, one of the best ways of learning to recognise the world and to see how others and otherness inhabit it. It is an education in difference as a pathway to understanding how to contribute to integration and fellowship (or global citizenship).
Second, there are strong cultural arguments for learning a foreign language. Education is not just about picking up skills and knowledge that will be useful in the job market, though all too often it is presented that way nowadays. For in addition to such immediately practical matters, it is surely also about understanding our place in the world - geographically, historically, politically, culturally and so on; and about understanding how our world works - hence science, engineering, etc. Foreign languages fit into this broader picture of education because they provide access to the culture and history of other countries, through learning to read their literature, their newspapers, or whatever.
Third, I think there are also huge intellectual arguments for learning foreign languages, which I would sum up briefly as follows: (a) it's hard to get far with a foreign language without learning a good deal of grammar, and that can have enormously beneficial effects on the learner's ability to think and write in English; (b) a little like mathematics, foreign language learning necessarily involves discipline, logic and accuracy - you have to get things right, and can't get away with waffle and general chat as is apparently possible in some other subjects. So as mental training, learning a foreign language is an excellent vehicle. And (c) because learning a foreign language is perceived in the UK to be 'difficult', successfully doing so and achieving a good level has to have beneficial effects on the learner's self confidence, something that is invaluable when doing almost anything else in life that is difficult and demanding.
Canadian scientists have found astonishing evidence that the lifelong use of two languages can help delay the onset of dementia symptoms by four years compared to people who are monolingual.
