Ofsted marked yesterday’s International Mother Language Day with the release of a new report, Every Language Matters, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of initial teacher training in languages other than French, German, Irish, Spanish and Welsh.
The education watchdog said that languages such as Arabic, Bengali and Mandarin should be given higher status in England’s schools […]

An influential group of experts is putting pressure on the Scottish Government to take urgent action to make Scotland more multilingual, the Herald reports.
Figures show that the number of school pupils taking modern language Highers has slumped by nearly 60% since the 1970s. The group has highlighted an ‘apartheid’ in foreign language study in Scottish […]

‘There are lots of good reasons to learn a language,’ says Rebecca McQuillan in the Herald. ‘For instance, I’ve taken up French again because I want to be able to speak intelligently to my niece, who lives in France. My heart sinks at the thought of future conversations where I rely on desperate phrases such […]

An article in last week’s Education Guardian highlighted a critical shortage of interpreters with English as a native language and a lack of skilled young linguists coming through to fill this role. The Guardian revealed that the average age of interpreters at international organisations such as the United Nations and the European Union is now […]

The British are notoriously bad at learning foreign tongues. But with Franglais, the late Miles Kington showed anyone could get by on holiday with just a petit peu of effort, says the BBC.
If there is one foreign language that English speakers always seem to crack, it’s Franglais.
Its rules are simple. Insert as many French words […]

The Times reports that the Polish government wants Britain to make Polish a standard choice for British children studying a foreign language because so many are now living in the UK.
Krzysztof Stanowski, Poland’s deputy minister of education, said that Polish language teaching had ‘about the same status as Swahili’ even though there were now some […]

Languages Work - a motivational talk for students making subject choices in S2 and S4
Why languages are important in your students’ future
Tim Steward of Languages Network Scotland has offered to visit your school to give a 45-minute talk to students in S2 and S4 on why languages are important in their future careers. In careers […]

The Education Guardian reports that the government’s schools inspector has urged the Department for Children, Schools and Families to put more money into training primary school language teachers. The Ofsted report on the quality of initial teacher training (ITT) comes ahead of the introduction of language teaching for all primary pupils next year.
Read the full […]

Language Festivals was a two-year Lingua 1 project that was designed to raise interest in the learning of foreign languages by members of the general public. The project was a direct result of a Contact Seminar hosted by the British Council in London in June 2004. The project was funded from October 2005 until September […]

The Scottish Government has announced that a study of current Scots language provision is to be undertaken to see how the profile and use of the language may be increased.
Minister for Culture Linda Fabiani said, ‘Scots is part of our identity and our heritage as a nation. We must encourage confidence in the use of […]