Following a successful policy workshop in December 2017, bringing together policymakers and academics, Wendy Ayres-Bennett, PI of MEITS, and Janice Carruthers, AHRC Leadership Fellow in Modern Languages, have published a new Policy Briefing on Community Languages and Social Cohesion. This suggests that effective policy support for community languages could involve:

• Incentivisation for mainstream schools to offer space to supplementary schools, either free of charge or at non-commercial rates.
• Incentivisation for mainstream schools to embed activities that value Community Languages (e.g. workshops for parents, celebrations of linguistic diversity).
• Incentivisation for mainstream schools to recognise and reward language skills obtained outside the school system and to facilitate entry for public examinations such as GCSE.
• Incentivisation for teachers in the maintained sector to partner with those in supplementary schools and those providing ESOL to share best practice and have joint CPD opportunities.
• Full and sustainable accreditation for lesser-taught languages at UCAS level.
• A change in the census questions on language so that accurate data about Community Languages can be captured to help with policy-making.

To read the Briefing, please click here