UK: Academy concern over decline in language study

[Harold Schiffman]

Academy concern over decline in language study

Anthea Lipsett
Wednesday November 21, 2007
EducationGuardian.co.uk

The British Academy wants to lend its weight to the ongoing fight to
save languages in schools and universities in the UK. Fewer people are
studying modern foreign languages since the government made them
non-compulsory at GCSE level in 2004. The academy is the latest body
to be concerned over the growing apartheid in language study, where
the bulk of teaching is in specialist and independent schools and
state school pupils miss out. On Friday, it held a seminar to seek the
views of 30 academics on what it could do to help tackle the issue.
"The crying need for a joined up policy on languages has simply not
been met," explained the academy's assistant secretary (policy),
Vivienne Hurley.

It is considering reviewing all the research on languages for a report
- Language matters - later next year. Prof Martin Swales, who chaired
the brainstorming session, told EducationGuardian.co.uk the aim is to
target government. The academy may also push for universities "to be
more ambitious for students" and include languages in their entry
requirements. University College London has already committed to
requiring all students by 2012 to have at least one language GCSE to
be admitted to degree courses. This is a model the academy thinks
other universities should emulate, providing the policy does not clash
with widening access requirements.

The academy fears that British research is becoming more insular
because PhD students do not have language skills or the time to
acquire them. Researchers are forced to stick to topics where the
research material is in English.

"Insularity is getting more and more profound because researchers
can't read any other language. We hope to be in touch with other
academies [whose research is] also diminished by this," said Swales.

"It's impoverishment of the university system as a whole, not just in
languages, and we hope to look abroad and see what the situation is
there and what they can tell us."

Prof Pam Moores, chairman of the University Council of Modern
Languages, who attended the meeting, said: "The BA has a broader
reputation and does not represent vested interests. It is not arguing
from such a narrow base and can draw on wider expertise.

"If a broad spectrum of academics is arguing on behalf of something
and researching the area, that will carry more weight and it could
inform a blueprint for languages."

Government departments inevitably focus on changing things at school
level, but no one speaks for higher education, she said.

"Truly rigorous assessment informed by people across humanities, with
input from social scientists, education experts and policy advisers
could produce interesting work. I don't know who else could lead on
that."

The work, championed by academy president Baroness O'Neill, will feed
into an all-party group on languages that Baroness Coussins is hoping
to establish in the Lords before the end of the year.

"Any constructive and well founded authoritative look at the issue
would help and the BA is certainly the most eminent and in a position
to do that," she
said.http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2214243,00.html

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