Trends in European language education

Learning French in the UK setting

“…On the one hand, there has been an enormous expansion with increasing worldwide investment and inclusion in formal education at all levels; on the other hand the dominance of English in globalisation processes has led to an overwhelming focus on English in school and higher education curricula (and its rapidly growing use as medium of instruction) (Erling & Seargeant, 2013;Galloway, Kriukow, & Numajiri, 2017;Wächter & Maiworm, 2014). The more detailed policy picture is complex, with major polities acting top-down to support some forms of linguistic diversity, for example through the pro-multilingualism policies of the European Union, or the promotion of Mandarin through the international network of Confucius Institutes (Williams, Strubell, & Williams, 2013;Zhao & Huang, 2010). However, the widespread bottom-up societal pressure for English remains very clear.…”

“…Hagger-Vaughan (2016) reports on an opinion survey among contemporary head teachers, who express continuing perceptions of FLs as a difficult subject (in terms of achievement of examination grades), and one which non-academic students find unmotivating; they also report difficulties in staffing FLs satisfactorily. These key school leaders can be seen as responding to local market conditions in a bottomup way (Williams, Strubell & Williams, 2013). However, early opt-outs from languages are clearly contributing to the marginalisation of language study among less advantaged social groups (Sutton Trust, 2015).…”

“…It is clear that top-down government strategies and directed resources can be helpful in supporting diversity and intensity of language provision (see Williams et al, 2013, for a Europe-wide survey on this). However, compulsion does not by itself solve underlying issues relating to FL motivation.…”

Teaching and learning English in a multicultural classroom: strategies and opportunities

“…A case in point is Cyprus where “despite the significant presence of English in the weekly schedule of public education, an overwhelming majority of Greek Cypriot school children also take private classes in English” (Hadjioannou et al , 2011, p. 511). Williams et al (2013) indicate that in nearly all EU countries, English is taught at primary level and this will eventually mean that an even higher percentage of EU citizens will be able to communicate by means of the global language. There already exist signs of: […] the emergence of English as the key lingua franca across the EU.…”

“…There already exist signs of: […] the emergence of English as the key lingua franca across the EU. Already we are beginning to witness the influence of English in terms of how it segments labour markets so that only those with English language qualifications have access to the lucrative international labour market and the knowledge economy while those without such qualifications are restricted to the domestic labour market (Williams et al , 2013, p. 33).…”