Community language teaching in the UK: ten years on

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of developments over the last ten years in the teaching of the languages spoken within the various ethnic minority communities in the UK. It considers the ways in which arguments in favour of bilingualism have been articulated with increas ing clarity during this period. It then focuses on the three sectors that deliver community language teaching: the voluntary sector, which continues to play the most important role; mainstream education, which has been responsible for many important, initiatives in the last decade, now under threat from recent educational reforms; and adult education, where the teaching of Kwéyòl may well serve as a model for community language teaching in the future.