A ground-breaking policy workshop aiming to break the 鈥渧icious circle of monolingualism鈥� in the UK was held at 澳门六合彩开奖记录 University, featuring representatives of government, education and key organisations including the British Academy and the British Council.
A National Languages Policy workshop was held at Murray Edwards College in 澳门六合彩开奖记录 this week, supported by the 澳门六合彩开奖记录 in partnership with Speak to the Future and UCML. The aim of the event was to map where the responsibility for language policy sits within UK government and to promote joined-up thinking and greater dialogue between policymakers, academic researchers, and practitioners.
The workshop, convened by Professor Wendy Ayres-Bennett of 澳门六合彩开奖记录 University鈥檚 Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, and chaired by Baroness Coussins, Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages and President of Speak to the Future, brought together representatives from different Whitehall departments ranging from the Ministry of Defence to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills as well as from听 the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to examine the current situation in the UK regarding languages, and discuss plans for the future.
In her introduction Baroness Coussins called for a 鈥淣ational Languages Recovery Programme鈥� to embed language skills in UK education, and ensure that Britain is able to compete on the global stage.
Selected talks from the day have been made available to listen to online via .听
The numbers of students taking a language at A level are down 28% since 1996 and over 40 UK universities have closed their language departments since 2000. Susannah Poulton of the Department of UK Trade and Investment estimated, based on research carried out by Cardiff University, that up to 拢48 billion is lost by the UK every year in missed contracts due to a lack of foreign language skills, in what has been described as the "vicious circle of monolingualism".
However, as Professor Ayres-Bennett pointed out, 鈥淒espite the reduction in the number of those becoming multilingual through formal education, multilingualism is very strongly present in UK schools. Department for Education statistics show that nearly one in five primary school pupils have a first language other than English. The range of languages spoken by these 鈥渉eritage鈥� and minority language speakers is much broader than those traditionally taught, and could represent a significant skill-set for the UK鈥�.
Presenters at the workshop focused not only on the educational and economic advantages of being multilingual, but also its benefits for international diplomacy and collaboration, and, especially in a military context, conflict resolution and peace-building.
Professor Ayres-Bennett said:
鈥淚 hope that this workshop, and others like it in future, will lead to greater collaboration between university researchers and language policy professionals across the UK. We want to establish new channels of communication through which policy-makers can tap into evidence-based research to develop new approaches to language teaching and a coherent strategy for promoting languages nationally鈥�.
滨尘补驳别:听听on Flickr (CC 2.0)
