Language skills lead to success

Europeans, Asians and Africans learn English as a way to guarantee a better salary and more opportunities.

Schoolchildren across the country are now encouraged to learn more than one language and it's compulsory to take at least one GCSE in a foreign language.

There are also language labs and clubs for younger children to enable better learning facilities.

While most of us in the office struggle with holiday French, German or Spanish (though some are more fluent) future generations are being instilled with a sense of language.

This works both ways.

Lecturers at Malvern Hills College have seen an influx of students willing to toil away learning English.

Currently they offer two different day courses, with a new evening course set to start in the New Year.

One of their success stories is Jara Hnathova, who is originally from a town in Slovakia.

This was the most frightening decision I have taken in my life so far, said Miss Hnathova, who has been working as an au pair in Malvern for a year.

After I finished high school I started working in a clothes factory in a town near to where I lived.

I had the early shift, from 5.30am, so I got up every morning at 4am to catch the bus.

I used to work five or six days a week for £40-£50 a month.

I stuck it for 14 months but then, just when I could take no more, my eye fell on an au-pair agency advert in my local paper.

They were looking for girls willing to work abroad.

Three months later Jara was on a coach to London.

It was a frightening decision and a terrifying arrival in a foreign capital city where everyone spoke a language I barely understood.

Another coach from Victoria Station brought Jara to Worcester in September last year.

Her host family, whom she had only seen in photos, met her and took her to Malvern.

They seemed interested and asked me loads of questions about the journey.

I didn't have enough English to answer them nor to tell them how I really felt.

However, in the car the little girl I was to look after gave me a hug and started chatting to me, I felt better, I knew I could do it.

Jara quickly enrolled on an English as a Foreign Language course at Malvern Hills College.

My English has improved so much since then.

I managed to pass some exams in June, now I'm going to take my First certificate and hopefully my Advanced one next June.

I need all these certificates because when I go back home, next year, I will be able to have a good job with real prospects, not in a factory.

If you speak good English you have a real chance for a better life in Slovakia. I know that English has changed my life.

Jara's decision to improve her life was certainly not easy. In Britain the opportunities for learning other languages are more widespread.

One school that has a special status as being exceptional for languages is Stourport-on-Severn Language School.

Pupils at the school can learn French, German, Italian, and Spanish at GCSE level, as well as Russian and Japanese in the sixth form. There have also been opportunities to learn Danish and Arabic.

When our sixth formers started learning the other languages they couldn't see the point, but now our Year 13s want to go and talk to the Year 12s to tell them how worthwhile it is, said headteacher Liz Quinn, who herself can speak French and German.

If students can get qualifications in more than one language then there are more opportunities.

We've had students go on work experience in France and Germany where they can use their language skills, and one sixth former wants to take a year out in Russia.

There are also sixth formers applying for dual honours degrees, such as German and Theatre Studies.

It's making them very marketable. We have one company whose employees come to the school to improve their French to help customer relations.

We're trying to break down the barriers that languages aren't important.

One thing is guaranteed about learning a foreign language, the opportunities are endless.

The Army Intelligence Corps, in particular, is known to target Worcester schools because of their language skills.

If you have language skills you can go on to become an interpreter in various countries, so the travel opportunities are good, said Sgt Andy Milton at the Army Careers Office in Worcester's Foregate Street.

It's very good for promotion too, the more qualifications you achieve the more job offers there are in the Army.

This year we've seen a three recruits from Worcester get taken on by the Intelligence Corps, one from the Stourport Language School.

So before anyone moans about having to learn French verbs, or struggles to have a conversation in German, just think that the future possibilities are endless if you possess language skills.

Right. O est mon phrase book?