On UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day 2024, which celebrates learners’ universal right to study their heritage languages, Professor Li Wei, Chair in Applied Linguistics and Director and Dean of IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, writes:
“Language learning, especially when accompanied by learning about related cultures, brings many benefits to the individual and society, from greater intercultural understanding locally and on the world stage, to cognitive, educational and economic returns. The UK is fortunate to host a rich diversity of languages in addition to English, which are spoken by one in five school pupils. The UK nations bring their own linguistic diversity. There are strong social justice as well as economic arguments for championing, supporting, recognising and celebrating that facility with language. In particular, for these language learners, the benefits accrue to their sense of identity, confidence and self-efficacy.
Last year, IOE launched the National Consortium for Languages Education (NCLE), funded by the UK government Department for Education, to support excellence in language education in schools across England and improve the learning opportunities and outcomes for all pupils. This includes a specific strand on ‘home, heritage and community languages’ (HHCLs), focused on improving pupils’ access to learning and qualification in these languages, working with complementary community language schools as well as building awareness, visibility and capacity within the schools system. We are also proud to host the Mandarin Excellence Programme, which similarly supports learning and qualification in a language beyond those that are most established within our schools, in MEP’s case building the teaching workforce from scratch.
England is, then, making important steps forward in recognising a breadth of language learning. Improved support for complementary schools’ important contribution to this effort, especially for HHCLs, as well as greater flexibility in examination, to facilitate ‘examination when ready’, would be beneficial additions."
