Sir, - In your report on the Eurobarometer (The Irish Times, February 20th), the negative attitude of 40 per cent of Irish people to language-learning in general denotes an alarming insularity that should hardly be the hallmark of a people who, from the earliest times, have travelled to Europe and beyond, enriching and being enriched by other cultures.
But we must also question the continuing predominance of French as the language spoken by those who do speak a foreign language - 25 per cent, as opposed to eight per cent speaking German and three per cent Spanish, even though the last is the third most widely-spoken world language after English and Chinese. This situation derives from the traditionally dominant position of French in our education system. It now behoves us to try to achieve a greater diversity in the languages studied at second level. The Department of Education and Science has acknowledged the problem in establishing the Post-primary Languages Initiative, which is giving additional supports to schools wishing to offer (or strengthen the position of) the three target languages of the initial phase - Spanish, Italian and Japanese.
However enthusiastic may be the response of schools to such an initiative, the real work has to be done among students and their parents. In this European Year of Languages, let us engage in serious debate on the importance of giving our young people access to a broader range of languages through the school curriculum. We can proclaim our efforts successful when we can say, with Anthony de Mello: "Nothing has changed but our attitude. So everything has changed." - Yours, etc.,
Bridin Gilroy Coordinator, Post-primary Languages Initiative, Marino Institute of Education, Dublin 9.