Decision makers

Catherine Clément, Responsable du Département langues et mobilité au Centre international d’études pédagogiques (CIEP - France) exprime son point de vue sur le réseau REAL lors d'une interview.

British Education Secretary Michael Gove announced a pioneering new partnership with China to train 1000 more Mandarin teachers for secondary schools in England. According to the Department for Education, Mandarin is an increasingly popular subject choice for GCSE, but there are only around 100 qualified Mandarin teachers in England at the moment, and only 16 per cent of secondary schools offered Chinese language teaching in 2009.

Le Ministre de l’Éducation, Ángel Gabilondo, a présenté au Conseil des Ministres un rapport sur le Programme Intégral d’Apprentissage des Langues Étrangères, inscrit au Plan d’Action Immédiat 2010-2011, et qui bénéficie d’une aide de 120 millions d’euros pour cette année.

Language teachers associations are finding it harder to attract new members, especially younger teachers who often are reluctant to give up their free time to get involved in associations’ work. What’s more associations are increasingly finding that membership fees do not raise enough money to cover the activities they wish to organise. The major aim of the seminar ‘REALise your potential’ was to help address questions like this by bringing together heads of language teacher associations and other active members.