UK - England

Key Findings overall

England’s lack of ‘national capability’ in languages has been a matter of considerable debate in recent years and in particular since the Nuffield Languages Inquiry of 2000. At policy level and in public discourse, languages are described as important, but in practice and provision there have been many fault lines. This is undoubtedly a reflection of the growing importance of English as a lingua franca and a continuing perception that ‘English is enough’, and that other languages are ‘important but not essential’¹. Despite this there has been significant progress and innovation in introducing the early learning of other languages, in supporting community languages and in promoting of language competence to young people. Partly as a result of this, languages remain on the political agenda – the case is not closed.

¹ King et al Languages in Europe, Towards 2020 - Analysis and Proposals from the LETPP Consultation and review. London 2011

Promising initiatives and pilots

England has been particularly active in bringing forward evidence to demonstrate the need for languages and in developing coherent rationales for language learning.

The National Languages Strategy (2002-2011) was responsible for a number of key initiatives, especially the creation of a framework for language learning 7-11 (The Key Stage 2 framework for Languages) and a new assessment framework (The Languages Ladder/Asset languages) based on the CEFR. It also supported links between mainstream and complementary schools such as the Our Languages initiative. 

Routes into Languages, managed by the University of Southampton has targeted secondary school students with messages about the importance of language learning through direct engagement with universities and student ambassadors. It has brought universities into contact with schools and developed some highly successful models of collaboration. 

The 2011 report Labour Market Intelligence on Languages and Intercultural Skills in Higher Education (CILT) demonstrated the need for a wide range of languages across both public and private sectors in combination with different workplace skills. 

In 2011 a new campaign was launched to support language learning - Speak to the Future. This has built a broad coalition of support around five key issues to promote the importance of language skills and bring about changes in policy and attitudes.