Chalk Talk: Meet the most multi-lingual student in the country
Richard Garner
Richard Garner has been Education Editor of The Independent for 12 years and writing about the subject for 34 years. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a disc jockey in London pubs and clubs and for a hospital radio station. His main hobbies are cricket (watching these days) and theatre. On his days off, he is most likelt to be found at Lord’s or the King’s Head Theatre Club.
Thursday 08 March 2012
Related articles
Hats off to Alex Rawlings, who has just been voted Britain's most multi-lingual student of the year. At a time when the UK is widely criticised abroad as the language "dunce" of Europe because of the plummeting numbers that take languages at GCSE, Alex has won the award for speaking 11 languages fluently.
Alex, who was brought up in London and went to Latymer School – one of the country's leading fee-paying schools – reckons he had a head-start. "My mother is half Greek and she spoke to me in Greek and a little bit in French when I was young," he says. "My dad had a job in Japan at a university for four years and we went out to visit him."
He was one of almost 50 students to enter the competition, run by publishers Collins and Livemocha. Half spoke at least four languages.
Alex, 20, concedes that early exposure to a multi-lingual experience aided him – and is not something every young student can enjoy. He is currently studying German and Russian at Oxford University.
He believes opportunities to use his languages skills are likely to be greater in Russia than in the UK. "There are opportunities for people who speak fluent English and Russian in Russia," he says. "It's a bit of a depressing picture over here." The sad thing is he is probably quite right – despite all the noises coming from employers about our lack of language skills, the truth is, as some academics have observed, they do not promote the acquisition of language skills nearly enough. Which is why the UK could be losing the services of talented linguists like Alex.
For the record, the 11 languages he speaks fluently are English, Greek, German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Afrikaans, French, Hebrew, Catalan and Italian. He took A-levels in German, Spanish and Ancient Greek – and also studied French and Latin at GCSE level.
-
'Jail reckless bankers': Report urges the Government to introduce new criminal offence for reckless management
-
Feat of engineering: Incredible photographs show construction beneath New York's Second Avenue
-
Brazil kicks off: World Cup excess draws hundreds of thousands to street protests
-
World news in pictures
-
Google challenges US surveillance gagging order
- 1 Diary of Second World War German teenager reveals young lives untroubled by Nazi Holocaust in wartime Berlin
- 2 'Jail reckless bankers': Report urges the Government to introduce new criminal offence for reckless management
- 3 Breaking the Silence: In the reality of occupation, there are no Palestinian civilians – only potential terrorists
- 4 Uri Geller psychic spy? The spoon-bender's secret life as a Mossad and CIA agent revealed
- 5 Vice pulls 'breathtakingly tasteless' fashion shoot glorifying the suicides of famous female authors from Sylvia Plath to Virginia Woolf
Get your summer started with British Military Fitness
BMF is the UK’s biggest and best loved outdoor fitness classes
How will you make today delicious?
Tell us how you plan to make today delicious and you could win a £50 M&S gift card.
Learn a new language
Add another string to your bow with Rosetta Stone, whether it's Spanish, Italian or Mandarin...
Making reading fun for kids
Nook is donating eReaders to volunteers at high-need schools and participating in exclusive events throughout the campaign.
Introducing the 'Get Reading' campaign
Get the latest on The Evening Standard's campaign to get London's children reading.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
iJobs Education
Telesales Executive
£16000 - £23000 per annum + OTE £23k - £45k: Connex Education: Connex Educatio...
Recruitment Consultant - Education
£19000 - £24000 per annum + OTE £30k+: Connex Education: Connex Education are ...
Temporary Recruitment Resourcer
£8 per hour: Connex Education: Connex Education are looking to hire a Temporar...
Trainee Recruitment Consultant
£16000 - £23000 per annum + OTE - £23k - £45k: Connex Education: Connex Educat...
Day In a Page
First night: The Cripple of Inishmaan
Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention
Female aristocrats battle to inherit the title







Comments