Oliver Prior society 2015After dinner talk

Language Centre

Jocelyn Wyburd, Director of the Language Centre, University of CambridgeChair: University Council of Modern Languages (UCML)Chair: National Advisory Board, Routes into Languages

Preamble

• It is said one shouldn’t talk politics and religion at dinner

• But this is an election year

• We are a group of language professionals

• How can we not address the politics of languages in 2015 Britain

Context for schools: Political footballing by the Secretaries of State for Education

• “Syllabi/exams not fit for purpose” – said as your pupils sat their GCSEs 2 years ago

• Recently announced: you have to teach “character”, “grit”, “resilience” – well if your pupils go on to become teachers they will certainly need grit and resilience!

• Constantly changing performance criteria (EBacc, Progress 8) and Tories have pledged future enforcement of Ebacc via Ofsted

• Primary languages introduced (after 4 year delay in policy of previous government) without CPD or support for progression to secondary

• National curriculum changes – but simultaneously there is a push → more and more Academies/Free schools who don’t have to teach it!

Political footballing in Higher Education

• Student fees – (probably responsible for the demise of the Lib Dems)

• Driving a consumerist, market-driven approach to supply and demand of university programmes

• International students included in immigration figures and recruitment negatively affected by constant changes to visa application systems

• Current controversy over whether universities should control/ban controversial speakers on campuses in order to prevent radicalisation

• What consequences for freedom of academic debate and the right to hear uncomfortable views but to be able to argue with them?

Political footballing around languages

• Optionality at Key Stage 4 from 2004 resulting in league table performance trumping sound educational principles by many heads when deciding who will/won’t continue with languages

• Result: haemorrhage (Dearing Report, 2007)

• 2002 decision on ‘flexible curriculum’ had been made in order to combat truancy (admitted by Estelle Morris in 2009) – no evidence that truancy figures improved as a result:

• "it certainly was never intended that all and sundry would drop studying languages“ (Estelle Morris)

• Creeping elitism – language learning take-up in state vs independent schools; decline in HE languages greatest in ‘post 92’ universities

•

As an aside re languages in HE ….

• Due to declining applications, numbers of UK universities offering single or joint honours degrees in French, German, Spanish and Italian, since 1998: • All: -34%; German: -49%; pre ‘92 HE: -16%; post ’92 HE: -44%

• However, numbers of students taking language courses alongside degrees in other subjects (IWLPs)*, growing each year, (particularly in German), outnumbering those taking degrees in languages• Not a replacement for the language degree – level of competence; depth of

cultural knowledge, supply chain for specialist professions…. • Putting sticking plaster on failure of the education system? Students bemoan

bad advice about continuing with languages at school • Students (of all subjects) competing with multilingual ‘global graduates’ from

other countries in the global economy• Plus academic barriers (e.g. for postgraduate studies in a number of

disciplines, where essential to be able to read sources in the original, or needed for fieldwork/archival research/conferences etc)

* http://www.ucml.ac.uk/news/253

RIP the National Languages Strategy (2002-2011) and accompanying ‘Languages Tzar’ in the DfE

• 'In the knowledge society of the 21st century, language competence and intercultural understanding are not optional extras, they are an essential part of being a citizen'.

• But it had no teeth because the NC status and pressure from league tables trumped it;

• It was owned by the DfE - Education policy only – unknown and unreferenced in other ministries/spheres of national life

• DfE removed support from NLS 2011 – funding devolved to schools away from nationally coordinated activity – hence demise of CiLT, Comenius networks, Links into Languages, coordinated support from Local Authority language advisers

But Michael Gove – our knight in shining armour (?)

• Introduced the EBacc: language GCSE reinstated to list of core academic subjects.

• Though undermined by subsequent U-Turns (proposal for English Bacc certificates went, replaced by GCSE reform)

• But: GCSE reform welcomed if can replaced mindless memorisation with better language syllabi; and A level reform through ALCAB (Russell Group universities) welcomed as putting culturally interesting content at the heart of the syllabus

• But: what impact is likely to happen in relation to ‘elitism’ in language education? Not known yet.

Gove and the Blob

• Self-confessedly motivated by a desire to defeat the Blob

• The Blob: in a 1958 scifi film, an amoeba destroying world fand ought by Steve McQueen

• The Blob for Michael Gove: Educationalists, University Faculties/Schools of Education – all apparently responsible for undermining education standards

• GCSE and A level reform and School Direct to replace University-based PGCE courses are all part of the Gove weaponry against the Blob

Impact of political footballing

• Successive secretaries of State for Education:

• fighting truancy

• fighting the Blob

• using crude league table performance measures to try to drive standards

• failing to implement the (former) National Languages Strategy

All such political activities have serious, though perhaps unintended consequences for the status of languages

But should languages just be the political football of Education Secretaries?

Other Government departments need to be involved in asserting national language policy

• Foreign and Commonwealth Office: For reasons of diplomacy, soft power, international relations: • see recent coverage of lack of Russian skills in the FCO at a time of tension with

Russia over Ukraine

• Ministry of Defence: Military deployment, issues of security & counter-terrorism: • MoD has recently announced language learning will be compulsory for all

members of the forces and will restrict officer recruitment to those with minimum GCSE in a language

• Business Innovation and Skills: So many regular reports of the damage to the UK economy of a lack of language skills (ref Foreman-Peck: £48bn per year) because of the impact on British trade and exports.• BIS is silent; CBI does not make a noise – just recruits highly qualified graduates

with language and international experience from other countries; British Chambers of Commerce would like compulsory language teaching throughout an individual’s education (i.e. to age 19)

Other Government Departments contd.

• NHS: what language and intercultural skills are needed to work in an increasingly multinational organisation, treating increasingly multilingual/multicultural patients? And what about the health benefits of multilingualism, e.g. impact on development of Alzheimer’s? Surely a benefit to the health system?

• Home Office: We live in an increasingly multicultural society: what role do languages play in achieving greater social cohesion, or is the only language policy needed one of ensuring everyone speaks English? English instead of or as well as other languages?

• Is there a human rights dimension to the rights of individuals to their own languages / the languages of their parents / grandparents?

We need a national policy which transcends education policy

Attitudes towards the speakers of other languages in the UK

A mental illness?

• Immigrants should speak English in their own homes to help prevent 'schizophrenic' rifts between generations of their families

• learning English 'enables parents to converse with their children in English, as well as in their historic mother tongue, at home. It helps overcome the schizophrenia which bedevils generational relationships,‘

(David Blunkett, 2002)

Attitudes to speakers of other languages contd.

A source of discomfort and destruction of community:

• "Whether it is the impact on local schools and hospitals, whether it is the fact in many parts of England you don't hear English spoken any more. This is not the kind of community we want to leave to our children and grandchildren.“

• Asked why he minded people speaking in foreign languages, he replied: "I don't understand them … I don't feel very comfortable in that situation and I don't think the majority of British people do.“

Nigel Farage (2014)

Historical perspective from the USA

• We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birth-place or origin. [so far so good!]

• But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. . .

• We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.

Theodore Roosevelt (1919)

USA more recently

• (Mexican Americans) are less interested in linguistic and cultural assimilation and they are encouraged in this lack of interest by activists who foment identity politics.

• “If the second generation does not reject Spanish out of hand, the third generation is also likely to be bilingual [clearly a bad thing!!] and the maintenance of fluency in both languages is likely to become institutionalized in the Mexican-American community”….

• “There is no Americano dream. There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican-Americans will share in that dream and in that society only if they dream in English”.

Samuel Huntington (2002)

(author of Clash of Civilizations,

influential in US political thinking

after the end of the Cold War)

Which neatly leads into….

• A possibly apocryphal, but nevertheless great ‘quote’, supposedly from a Texas state legislator when asked for an opinion about requiring schools to teach Spanish:

• If English was good enough for Jesus Christ it’s good enough for Texans!

Language and identity politics

Blunkett, Farage, Roosevelt and Huntington raise complex questions about identity and language rights in relation to immigration – a major political football in the run-up to the election….

• It is worth conceptualising current patterns of immigration more in terms of migration/mobility – i.e. superdiversity

• Formerly: one-way street: assimiliation / integration; host country language (English) dominant; home language low status, suppressed, ‘suspicious’.

• Now: more temporary migration, returning to countries of origin or moving from one country to another – is assimilation / integration the right goal? Surely ‘home’ languages need to be maintained, and others learnt alongside?

UK in tune with US as exemplified previously ref Roosevelt & Huntington

• Previous political agenda was the one-way street of ‘becoming British’, leaving behind previous identity:

‘A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It's an interesting test. Are you still

harking back to where you came from or where you are?’

Normal Tebbit (1990)

• Politics of a multi-cultural / multi-lingual society: are these ‘negative’ terms, to be combatted?

• In favour of a politics of assimilation into a mono-culture? Which is then by definition monolingual?

Language and identity politics contd.

• Even in previous ‘mode’: legislation on racial/ethnic discrimination and on rights to religious practice implemented, but no policies on language rights

• Only language policies: relating to English as an Additional Language (e.g. support for pupils in schools):

• deficit model (lack of English)

• no accompanying policy initiatives to recognise or harness the linguistic assets of an increasingly diverse society

• Superdiversity – changes the ballpark (or should)

Different statuses for different languages

• Bilingualism seems to be considered an asset if it is learned rather than acquired (i.e. natively), and/or if it involves a language of (relative) prestige.

• Conversely, bilingualism is perceived as a deficit if acquired in an immigrant/minority home, if it is a non-standard language, if it has limited or no ‘market’ value, if it will interfere with the learning of the majority language and by those who believe that it will lead to semi-lingualism.

Multilingual Britain ReportCumberland Lodge/British Academy (2013

Language status and social divisiveness

• High status languages:

• more likely to be studied by those of higher socio-economic backgrounds? (independent/state; higher achieving schools….)

• Low status languages:

• more likely to be spoken by those of lower socio-economic backgrounds? E.g. economic migrants; refugees…

• Often ‘given up’ or ‘not admitted to’ by young people as a result of not being valued by society as a whole

• But some of these change status as the balance of economic and political power globally shifts

Linguistic human rights

• UNESCO Mother Language Day: celebrated annually 21st Feb; since 2000. Marks anniversary: in Dhaka in what was then E Pakistan, which became Bagladesh after the bloody Pakistan war, in 1952, students were shot when protesting their right to speak their own language: Bangla (Bengali)

• Should we in the UK enshrine language rights more formally? Or is UKIP dominating political discourse making this a no-go area?

• Shouldn’t we as a language community be calling for language rights? And the right to accreditation of language skills?

• Market forces have already resulted in the closure of the Asset Languages suite of qualifications; now we hear that most A levels and some GCSEs in smaller languages will no longer be offered beyond 2017*

• Should we not be lobbying not just the exam boards (who may have good financial reasons for discontinuation) but MPs, election candidates and Ministers about the principles and rights to accreditation of language skills?

* http://www.speaktothefuture.org/withdrawal-of-gcse-and-a-level-exams-in-small-entry-languages

Time to call for a national language policy

• The EU has the policy that all citizens should have functional skills in Mother Tongue + 2 languages – to which, as members (at least for now!) we are signatories

• driven by the imperatives of economy, mobility, social cohesion, global citizenship: NOT JUST EDUCATION POLICY

• England: Vacuum

• Scotland: 1 + 2 education policy (aligned to the EU), where English can be L1/L2 and Gaelic is included as L2)

• Wales: bilingual English/Welsh policies – but none involving other languages or language rights

The politics of responsibility

• Who is responsible for enshrining language rights - the rights to speak, learn develop and accredit languages related to individuals’ identities?

• Who is responsible for ensuring that all individuals have the opportunity to learn languages, that our schools and universities have the expertise to teach and assess them, that our employers and businesses can harness the language and intercultural skills that they need?

• Government?

• Communities?

• Market forces?

• Market forces – supply declining as demand declines - have resulted in massive closures of language departments across all sectors and employers recruiting from abroad

• This is too important a set of issues to leave to market forces alone

Finally, we can’t ignore the politics of the English language

• The problem of ELF: English lingua franca / ELM: English Lingua Mundi / Globish (Global English)

• Using ELF as an excuse not to learn other languages: outdated (colonialist), arrogant, patronising and ignorant

• Some of the worst speakers are English MT monoglots who don’t realise that ELF (as spoken by a German to a Japanese for example) is a different language!

• In global society, impediment of “can’t speak English” now replaced with impediment of “only speak English”

How others see the Brits

• “Un homme qui parle trois langues est trilingue. Un homme qui parle deux langues est bilingue. Un homme qui ne parle qu'une langue est anglais”

Claude Gagnière (French writer/wordsmith)

• In multilingual, multicultural Britain this is less true than ever before, but unless we celebrate that, rather than disparaging it (ref Farage), we will perpetuate this clichéd view of the UK.

Lobbying for languages, language policy and language rights

The past the present and the future walked into a bar….

… It was tense. [groan!]

• Now is the time to make a noise:

• MPs: www.theyworkforyou.com

• #languagepolicyUK

• www.ucml.ac.uk

• www.speaktothefuture.org/

jmw234@cam.ac.ukwww.langcen.cam.ac.uk

www.ucml.ac.ukwww.routesintolanguages.ac.uk

Thank you for listening