Dave Thompson MSP

Dave Thompson, MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch has supported the Scottish Government’s plan for school children to pick up one or two languages in addition to their mother tongue and says that Gaelic Medium Education is one of the best ways for this to develop.

Yesterday, in a debate in the chamber of the Scottish Parliament, the Government outlined its plan to adopt the ‘1+2’ Barcelona model of language learning.  This is a European Union initiative for every person in the EU to speak two languages in addition to their mother tongue in order to build communities and enable effective trading. Mr Thompson agreed with the Scottish Government’s emphasis on multilingualism at an early age, but said that Gaelic Medium Education at Primary Level was an effective way for providing primary school children with the linguistic toolbox for picking up other languages.

Mr Thompson said: “Throughout the country, we have over 60 Gaelic Medium Education (GME) units for primary school aged children.  GME is very effective as every child is immersed in Gaelic from the age of five, or even three, is going to be bilingual when they are ten.  They can read, speak and write in a second language which may or me not be the language of the home.

“I’m not arguing that Gaelic is a substitute for global languages like French or Spanish, but it is an excellent way of giving our children the confidence and appreciation for speaking two or more languages.  Many will go on to pick up other languages far more easily than they ordinarily would.

“We are all agreed that multilingualism is important for Scottish business and culture.  But what we maybe don’t appreciate is that we already have an excellent system in place for language learning.  I believe we can transform language learning in Scotland by giving our children the desire and ability to pick up languages, and that is exactly what GME does already.”