ABSTRACT
Three fundamental functions of all national education systems, and of compulsory education in particular, are to create the human capital required in a country’s economy, to develop a sense of national identity, and to promote equality, or at least a sense of social inclusion. In various degrees and forms these have been educational aims since the foundation of national education systems in Western Europe and North America and were exported, together with the forms of schooling, to other parts of the world by the colonial powers in the 19th and 20th century. The learning of a foreign language was in the early stages of this development rather anomalous. It was not essential to the economy since it was, above all, colonial languages that were used in trade or supplemented by knowledge of other languages by a few intermediaries. It did not function in policies of equality or social inclusion but rather was antithetical to these since only an elite learnt foreign languages. And it was, if anything, a potential threat to national identity because it introduced learners to different beliefs and values. However, in practice the threat was minimized by teaching methods based on translation, which by definition involves seeing another language and the values and beliefs it embodies through the framework of one’s own language, and one’s own beliefs and values.
