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1 October 2011
Last updated at 03:35 ET
Every child aged five or over should learn a foreign language, Education Secretary Michael Gove has said.
He told the Guardian that almost every other advanced country teaches a foreign language from that age, and the UK should set itself the same target.
Mr Gove criticised Britain's "perverse pride" in not doing so, and vowed to "pull every lever" to change that.
He said one of the problems was that children were not in school long enough in the day and during the year.
Mr Gove pointed out that some schools in deprived areas were already teaching five year olds Spanish - and that should be possible to replicate nationwide.
'Cultural outlook' "If we pull all the levers, change teacher training... get schools that have language potential to take over under-performing schools, and we move the curriculum review in the right direction, then we can move towards the goal," he said.
"The number of pupils sitting a language GCSE plummeted from 444,700 in the summer of 1998 to 273,000 in 2010.
"Learning a foreign language, and the culture that goes with it, is one of the most useful things we can do to broaden the empathy and imaginative sympathy and cultural outlook of children."
He said learning languages improved people's brain power.
"Just as some people have taken a perverse pride in not understanding mathematics, so we have taken a perverse pride in the fact that we do not speak foreign languages, and we just need to speak louder in English," he said.
"It is literally the case that learning languages makes you smarter. The neural networks in the brain strengthen as a result of language learning."
The interview came on the eve of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, which Mr Gove is due to address on Tuesday.
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He told the Guardian that almost every other advanced country teaches a foreign language from that age, and the UK should set itself the same target.
Mr Gove criticised Britain's "perverse pride" in not doing so, and vowed to "pull every lever" to change that.
He said one of the problems was that children were not in school long enough in the day and during the year.
Mr Gove pointed out that some schools in deprived areas were already teaching five year olds Spanish - and that should be possible to replicate nationwide.
'Cultural outlook' "If we pull all the levers, change teacher training... get schools that have language potential to take over under-performing schools, and we move the curriculum review in the right direction, then we can move towards the goal," he said.
"The number of pupils sitting a language GCSE plummeted from 444,700 in the summer of 1998 to 273,000 in 2010.
"Learning a foreign language, and the culture that goes with it, is one of the most useful things we can do to broaden the empathy and imaginative sympathy and cultural outlook of children."
He said learning languages improved people's brain power.
"Just as some people have taken a perverse pride in not understanding mathematics, so we have taken a perverse pride in the fact that we do not speak foreign languages, and we just need to speak louder in English," he said.
"It is literally the case that learning languages makes you smarter. The neural networks in the brain strengthen as a result of language learning."
The interview came on the eve of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, which Mr Gove is due to address on Tuesday.
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