It was with interest that I read the article in The Scotsman about foreign language teaching in Scottish schools. Throughout the country, Mandarin is becoming more popular than traditionally taught German. Some schools and even school districts will not be offering German lessons at all.     This is said to be in response to the growth in political and, more importantly, economic strength of China. The setting up of Confucius Classrooms has boosted interest, as has the feeling that children will need to speak the official Chinese language to get ahead in business life when they are older. I have misgivings about this. When I was in school, we were…