It may be her last term charged with the responsibility of organizing the schools foreign languages exhibition, but according to Flavia Howard, she is pleased with what she has seen.{{more}}

Howard was speaking at the opening of the two-day exhibition held at the Girl Guides headquarters on October 31.

She told SEARCHLIGHT that since the introduction of the event in 2007, she has seen an improvement and an increased enthusiasm among the students.

“Each school tries to outdo the other,” she explained.

This year’s activity was held under the theme “Diversity and Heritage of Foreign Languages Teaching and Learning in St Vincent and the Grenadines” and showcased some of the talent from a wide cross section of schools throughout the country.

This itself fulfils one of the exhibition’s mandates, Howard explained.

She said that one of the functions of the activity was to showcase the benefits of teaching and learning a foreign language in St Vincent and the Grenadines and to illustrate the creativity among the students and teachers.

“It also tries to serve as a way to motivate students to want to learn a foreign language,” Howard said.

“Some students say that it is boring, that the grammar is too hard,” she continued.

However, the experienced foreign language teacher said that she has now seen some students who grasp the concept of a foreign language easily.

The exhibition is just one of many activities put on by the curriculum unit – others include essay writing, poster and reading loud competitions.

But while there have been a few advances recorded, there have also been setbacks.

One such, according to Howard, was the shortage of foreign language teachers, particularly in the primary schools.

Howard said that activities such as the flexibition, while they contribute to getting other young people interested in learning a foreign language, not many of them go on to choose to become qualified teachers of foreign languages.

“We have a problem where students just out of school go to teach foreign languages, but then they go to study and end up in a different career,” Howard said. (DD)