At the British Academy last week we released a report called Languages: State of the Nation. It analyses the worrying state of the current demand and supply of language skills in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and is the latest in a series of reports and position papers we have dedicated in recent years to the declining status of languages in our schools and universities. The aim of all our work is to drive home the message that languages are vital for the health and wellbeing of the education and research base, for UK business competitiveness and political standing, and for individuals and society at large.
The report draws on new data from a survey of UK employers and Labour Market Intelligence and demonstrates how we are suffering from a growing deficit in foreign language skills just at a time when the global demand for language skills is expanding. Worse still, in the words of the report, we are trapped in a “vicious circle of monolingualism”. Employers respond to the weak supply of these skills in one of two ways. The first is to realign their market, choosing to deal only with those who speak English, and therefore remove language requirements from their job adverts. Alternatively, if they are really pushed, they train existing staff with language skills or hire native speakers. Either way there are no market incentives for learners and little pressure on government to prioritise these skills. More.
See: The Guardian
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United Kingdom
Local time: 22:36
Hebrew to English
"39% of the UK adult population claim to be able to speak at least
one language, besides their mother tongue, well enough to have a
conversation."
I disagree with this:
"Brits generally have positive attitudes towards foreign
language learning" (pg. 21)
Who is more likely to study languages? Posh kids, and mostly girls.
No surprise there.
Key priorities for action.
Now the problem with this bit ... See more
"39% of the UK adult population claim to be able to speak at least
one language, besides their mother tongue, well enough to have a
conversation."
I disagree with this:
"Brits generally have positive attitudes towards foreign
language learning" (pg. 21)
Who is more likely to study languages? Posh kids, and mostly girls.
No surprise there.
Key priorities for action.
Now the problem with this bit is that each stage involves the Government, who are not inclined to do anything. Not with the Govemeister running the show anyway.
I gave up reading around page 80, it was making me reach for the Prozac... ▲ Collapse
China
Local time: 06:36
Chinese to English
Learning languages is hard. If it wasn't, our profession would barely exist. Given that it's hard, people need an incentive to learn, and what incentive is there for Brits? We have by far the richest culture at our fingertips in our own language. The world's scitech is done in English. Customers are used to speaking English.
What do these researchers think? That if Brits learned a bit more Spanish, w... See more
Learning languages is hard. If it wasn't, our profession would barely exist. Given that it's hard, people need an incentive to learn, and what incentive is there for Brits? We have by far the richest culture at our fingertips in our own language. The world's scitech is done in English. Customers are used to speaking English.
What do these researchers think? That if Brits learned a bit more Spanish, we'd suddenly become an exporting powerhouse, and everyone would scramble to employ all those bright young things with GCSE German? This is fantasy-land stuff. All the more so because it's based on a complete failure to grasp the level of foreign language learning in other countries. So are Poles really the amazing polyglots that these reports would have you think? No, they just learn English to work. Do the Swiss have some amazing language teaching secret that they keep in the vaults with their Nazi gold? No, they just failed to develop a language of their own, had to borrow everyone else's, and ended up multilingual.
There is no fabulous land of wonderful language learning out there. And there is bugger all reason for a bloke from Rotherham to learn a foreign language, unless he likes it. Those of us who do love languages may think its a shame, but our resources would be better spent evangelising and persuading people that languages are good than hoping that a change in government policy will be able to alter the realities of the world. ▲ Collapse
France
Local time: 23:36
French to English
I have been hired in several different jobs in the course of my career, working only in France, and each time I have been hired (and even interviewed come to think of it) it has been at least in part due to my being a native speaker of English.
If I were to return to live in the UK it would be impossible to find a job that hinged on the fact that I spoke near-native French, the idea is simply not worth exploring!
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:36
Hebrew to English
Interestingly....
There was a show on the other night "The Fried Chicken Shop". In an early segment of it, a young Muslim girl started talking in a derogatory way in her own language (probably Urdu)... See more
Interestingly....
There was a show on the other night "The Fried Chicken Shop". In an early segment of it, a young Muslim girl started talking in a derogatory way in her own language (probably Urdu) about a customer who she was serving - right in front of him...the subsequent Twitter comments were quite revealing, showing a nation deeply insecure in its monolingualism, yet too ignorant and/or prideful to do anything about it.
These are some of the less offensive ones, it was sad how many times the phrase talk in foreign (or similar) was used.
Clearly, a big benefit of languages (being able to understand if someone is saying something bad about you), is lost on these people.
[Edited at 2013-02-21 13:10 GMT] ▲ Collapse
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:36
English
+ ...
There's something really satisfying about the look on their faces when you start speaking to them in the language they've just been using and they realise that you've understood every word.
As for the attitude to other l... See more
There's something really satisfying about the look on their faces when you start speaking to them in the language they've just been using and they realise that you've understood every word.
As for the attitude to other languages in the UK, from personal experience, it ranges from apathy to hostility in most cases. Yes, you do get the occasional enthusiast, but they're pretty rare. I've got friends who have been going to the same resort in Spain at least twice a year for 15 years and the only word they've picked up in that time is "hola"!
The claim that 39% of adults can converse in a language other than their mother tongue strikes me as being a little on the high side for the UK population as a whole. Where did their sample come from? Yes, there are areas where that is true - at home, about 70% of people speak at least one other language besides English fluently - but I doubt if that's the case in, say, rural Lancashire or East Anglia for example. ▲ Collapse
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