Long
time ago there was a question: why should British people worry about learning
other languages if everyone else in the world places such an emphasis on the
importance of developing a perfect command of English?
Today
things have changed dramatically and the issue then becomes: why would an international
company hire a monolingual English speaker when it can hire a bilingual, trilingual
or multilingual one? The United Kingdom has been sitting on its linguistic
laurels for decades and now pays the price.
The
recent move towards the development of the so-called English Baccalaureate has
restored languages to their rightful place as one of the core subjects within
the academic curriculum, and thus as a good stepping stone towards university
admission. The downside is that languages have tended to retrench back into the
private sector of education, with the attendant risk of social stratification
between those people who have a command of languages and those who do not. It
is essential to ensure that languages have a place at the heart of the
curriculum for all our pupils, and that it is possible to continue to study them
(and their associated cultures) throughout the school years. In the UK there
are large numbers of different communities who speak a whole range of
languages.
Moreover
a British Academy report emphasizes on the need for languages in UK diplomacy and security as strategic
importance as a nation. Yet they have no developed system for accrediting this
knowledge.
In
short, there are many challenges that face British people in the domain of
languages. UK urgently needs to find ways to meet them to keep up in the global
race for excellence.
Thanks to Professor Nigel
Vincent
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