Foreign language teaching at KS2 in the new national curriculum

It’s never too early to teach languages! Children under the age of 8 are pretty much language learning machines.
Whether there are enough teachers with language skills is debatable – I suppose that’s a different question about how realistic Michael Gove is in his policies. However, eventually we will need more language teachers, simply because Britain’s economy needs foreign language speakers.
In general I’m feeling pretty positive about this reform – probably one of the only things Michael Gove does that I will like. There is one issue I have with it though – I’m a fan of the fact that Gove is restricting which languages primary schools will be able to teach (see first link below). It’s just the choice of languages which I struggle to understand. French, German, Mandarin, Latin, Spanish – they’re all fine. But Italian and Ancient Greek? I would be ok with those two if Arabic was up there (see second link about most economically useful languages for Britain).
This reform seems to be more about ideology than about improving Britain’s future standing in the global economy – sure, not every National Curriculum reform should be solely about improving Britain’s economy, but right now that seems to be the aim of most of the other countries which are reforming their education systems. They’re worried about their children lacking skills when they leave school, jobs could go to other countries where employees have better skills, etc, etc. Michael Gove, on the other hand, seems to be solely focussed on ideology, and that’s the issue I have with this policy. Italian is basically a useful language if you want to go on holiday to Italy, or do a degree in History of Art, but Arabic is so much more important for the UK’s economy! I just don’t get it!
So, to summarise, I like the idea behind the reform, but not the idea behind the idea behind the reform.

https://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/ks2_choice_of_languages_consultation_report_final_published%20(2).pdf
http://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/britishcouncil.uk2/files/languages-for-the-future-report.pdf

It’s never too early to teach languages! Children under the age of 8 are pretty much language learning machines.
Whether there are enough teachers with language skills is debatable – I suppose that’s a different question about how realistic Michael Gove is in his policies. However, eventually we will need more language teachers, simply because Britain’s economy needs foreign language speakers.
In general I’m feeling pretty positive about this reform – probably one of the only things Michael Gove does that I will like. There is one issue I have with it though – I’m a fan of the fact that Gove is restricting which languages primary schools will be able to teach (see first link below). It’s just the choice of languages which I struggle to understand. French, German, Mandarin, Latin, Spanish – they’re all fine. But Italian and Ancient Greek? I would be ok with those two if Arabic was up there (see second link about most economically useful languages for Britain).
This reform seems to be more about ideology than about improving Britain’s future standing in the global economy – sure, not every National Curriculum reform should be solely about improving Britain’s economy, but right now that seems to be the aim of most of the other countries which are reforming their education systems. They’re worried about their children lacking skills when they leave school, jobs could go to other countries where employees have better skills, etc, etc. Michael Gove, on the other hand, seems to be solely focussed on ideology, and that’s the issue I have with this policy. Italian is basically a useful language if you want to go on holiday to Italy, or do a degree in History of Art, but Arabic is so much more important for the UK’s economy! I just don’t get it!
So, to summarise, I like the idea behind the reform, but not the idea behind the idea behind the reform.

https://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/ks2_choice_of_languages_consultation_report_final_published%20(2).pdf
http://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/britishcouncil.uk2/files/languages-for-the-future-report.pdf

What confuses me is why you think it is OK to introduce Latin at that age but not Ancient Greek. :l

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It’s never too early to teach languages! Children under the age of 8 are pretty much language learning machines.
Whether there are enough teachers with language skills is debatable – I suppose that’s a different question about how realistic Michael Gove is in his policies. However, eventually we will need more language teachers, simply because Britain’s economy needs foreign language speakers.
In general I’m feeling pretty positive about this reform – probably one of the only things Michael Gove does that I will like. There is one issue I have with it though – I’m a fan of the fact that Gove is restricting which languages primary schools will be able to teach (see first link below). It’s just the choice of languages which I struggle to understand. French, German, Mandarin, Latin, Spanish – they’re all fine. But Italian and Ancient Greek? I would be ok with those two if Arabic was up there (see second link about most economically useful languages for Britain).
This reform seems to be more about ideology than about improving Britain’s future standing in the global economy – sure, not every National Curriculum reform should be solely about improving Britain’s economy, but right now that seems to be the aim of most of the other countries which are reforming their education systems. They’re worried about their children lacking skills when they leave school, jobs could go to other countries where employees have better skills, etc, etc. Michael Gove, on the other hand, seems to be solely focussed on ideology, and that’s the issue I have with this policy. Italian is basically a useful language if you want to go on holiday to Italy, or do a degree in History of Art, but Arabic is so much more important for the UK’s economy! I just don’t get it!
So, to summarise, I like the idea behind the reform, but not the idea behind the idea behind the reform.

https://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/ks2_choice_of_languages_consultation_report_final_published%20(2).pdf
http://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/britishcouncil.uk2/files/languages-for-the-future-report.pdf

I think language teaching at KS2 is a good idea, IF
1) enough lessons are provided (at least 4 x 30' per week , spread out over different days)
2) there are competent teachers (this could be achieved by sharing specialist (maybe even native) language teachers between different primary schools - a primary school teacher with a GCSE in French will not cut it)
3) there is adequate progression, i.e. at KS3 pupils should not have to start from scratch again just because other children in their secondary school classes did not learn the same foreign language at KS2, or not as well.

PS. I do not think children learn faster than teenagers or adults. Given equal exposure times of instruction and immersion, the only thing children will be better at in the long term is pronunciation. However, I think primary school children have more time and are more motivated than secondary school children, and that is something that could be exploited.

As for which language to teach: I've long thought one could very easily circumvent problems 2) and 3) above if one were to teach a local community language. So Urdu, Polish or Arabic, Cantonese, French, Spanish, Greek - whatever makes sense given the local community. This has the added benefit that children can also use the language straightaway, every day, which is one of the most important factors determining how well children will learn a language, and how well their motivation will hold up.

Do you currently teach? If so it would be really cool if you could fill out my survey so I could include all this in my results (I'm assuming you haven't yet, but if you have, sorry!)

I actually disagree that 4x30min lessons are needed per week. That's an extraordinary amount of lessons, even for a national curriculum subject. As it happens, the research is showing that most schools spend about ~45mins a week on a language. Considering how packed the curriculum is, I think that's fair enough. Think about other curriculum subjects like geography, history... they're usually done for an hour each week. I think that would be a good goal for languages.

Just my 2p haha. I agree with most of the other things you said, except maybe language specialists... from what I've seen, it's often too expensive to hire someone else to teach a class one subject, and the kids prefer their own teacher.