The article supplies an overview of UK modern languages education at school and university level. It attends particularly to trends over recent years, with regard both to numbers and to social elitism, and reflects on perceptions of language learning in the wider culture and the importance of gaining wider recognition of the value of languages education.
Cilt (2011) Language Trends 2010 . CILT, the National Centre for Languages, London. Available at http://www.cilt.org.uk/home/research_and_statistics/language_trends_surveys/secondary/2010.aspx.
2.
Coleman, J.A. ( 2009) ‘Why the British do not learn languages: myths and motivation in the United Kingdom’, Language Learning Journal37(1): 111-27.
3.
Ensslin, A. and Johnson, S. ( 2006) ‘Language in the news: Investigating representations of ‘‘Englishness’’ using WordSmith Tools’, Corpora1(20): 153-85.
4.
Gieve, S. and Norton, J. ( 2007) ‘Dealing with linguistic difference in encounters with others on British television’, in Johnson, S. and Ensslin, A. (eds) Language and the Media. pp. 188-210, London: Continuum.
