MEITS Blog

When we think about language policies we tend to think big. We might think of national mandates which determine the official language(s) of a country, or policies for education which specify the medium of instruction in state schools. While such policies will undoubtedly influence our experience of living, working or studying in a particular country, the language practices that each individual chooses to follow (or perhaps more controversially, chooses to impose on others) reflect much deeper ideologies. Recently I have come across several examples that have made me reflect on these ‘everyday language policies’ and particularly on what they might represent. Here are a few examples…

On 17^th January 2020 the House of Commons published a briefing paper on language teaching in schools in England. It highlights results from a European Commission survey which reported that only 32% of 16-30 year olds in the UK felt confident reading and writing in two or more languages. To put this in (a rather dismal) perspective, the average across all EU member states is 80%.

A few days ago, I was asked whether I thought language learning would become redundant in the foreseeable future because of the development of machine learning and translation technology. Or as some of my, shall we say, slightly less enthusiastic former students might have put it: “But what’s the point in learning languages when we can just use Google translate?”

Conversations which have made me reflect on the position of ‘language’ more generally within the curriculum and the respective priorities and responsibilities of English and MFL teachers in schools. These two subject areas are often based in separate departments in schools, yet given that both have a shared focus on developing important language skills, surely we are missing opportunities to establish more links between the two.

A few months ago I was in the park with a friend and her seven-year-old son. As he was playing he started talking to two other young boys, one of whom was Asian. After a while he came back over to us, and his mum asked who his new friends were. He excitedly replied: “They're called Tom and Kevin and they go to my school, but Kevin is from China, I didn't even know I could speak Chinese!”