Languages for inclusion

As social inequalities continue to deepen, languages are emerging as a key element in inclusion and exclusion. Because languages are potent carriers of identity, the language choices that individuals make tend to express the way they see themselves. In the case of school students, choosing to learn a language often expresses confidence in their ability to take opportunities outside their own close circles. It expresses their potential to work and travel around the world and to interact with strangers. Conversely, a lack of confidence can inhibit students from learning a language that may seem difficult and certainly seems different.

Turning this argument around, it is also clear that when students do make progress in language learning, it gives then the kind of confidence that will help them to face the challenges and opportunities in the world. Since education has the task of building this confidence, there is a strong argument for giving all students the language advantage. Governments in the UK, and some teachers, have been reluctant to embrace the need to make languages compulsory for all students during a substantial part of their studies, though some progress has been made in primary language learning. Pressure still needs to be kept up to extend language learning through the teenage years, when confidence issues are a key to educational and social development.

Meantime, the efforts of teachers in school and university to motivate language learning need to be intensified. Encouragement will have to serve where compulsion is lacking. Fortunately there are many people working hard to provide this and LLAS will continue to work to promote language learning. Through the Routes into Languages programme, which we lead, nearly 80 universities across England Wales are collaborating with secondary schools to reach thousands of school students and encourage them to keep up their language studies. There are many examples of sustained interventions that have made a real difference in disadvantaged schools. Of course, this requires resources, but publicly funded support for our young people is a valuable investment that will enable them and the country to face the future with greater confidence.