Reports on language education

The following collection lists some reports and other material relevant to language education in the UK (and therefore to CLiE). It covers English as well as foreign languages.

2022

2022.3: Report on a major Nuffield-funded research project on the effects of applying Englicious to the taching of writing in Key Stage 1.
- Also available on the Nuffield website
- Commentaries in the TES, a TES podcast, The Conversation, the Evening Standard, The Economist, ‘Grammarianism‘ (blog by Bas Aarts)
2022.1: Government response to the consultation on the Foreign Languages GCSE exam
- Further comments from other bodies

2021

- 2021.11: Second edition of a 2017 report by the Education Endowment Fund on improving literacy at KS2; it emphasises the need for explicit teaching of both vocabulary and morphology (producing ‘morphological awareness’).
- 2021.11: A debate in the House of Lords on teacher recruitment and training in which Baroness Coussins raised questions about the supply of new MFL teachers.
- 2021.10: Multilingual young people’s reading in 2021 (by Anne Teravainen-Goff, Christina Clark and Sabine Little (University of Sheffield))
- 2021.7: House of Lords Report on MFL
- 2021. GCSE English Language: Time for Change (from Teaching English volume 27, published by NATE)

2021.3: For consultation: Revised Subject Content specification for MFL at GCSE
- CLiE’s response
- A collection of background information and other responses
2021.2: The Importance of Languages in Global Context: An International Call to Action (by the British Academy, American Academy of Arts, Sciences, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Australian Academy of the Humanities and The Royal Society of Canada)

2020

2020.12: Report by the Institute of Physics recommending a national system for subject-specific CPD for teachers.
2020.12: Report signed by the British Academy and national academies from the USA, Canada and Australia on the lack of foreign-language skills in anglophone countries.
2020.9: Report published by the Institute of Welsh Affairs on a worrying drop in the number of trainee teachers in Wales who can teach in Welsh.
2020.9: Report by the Migration Advisory Committee recommending that teachers of foreign languages should be added to the shortage occupation list.
2020.8: Comment on 2020 A-level results by the British Academy, highlighting the continuing fall in languages, and especially a 40% drop in ‘other languages’ (mostly community languages).
2020.7: Towards a National Languages Strategy: Education and skills (British Academy)
2020.5: The Nuffield Foundation reports the success of its Nuffield Early Language Interention (NELI), corroborated by EEF.
2020: Teacher labour market. Annual report 2020 (NFER)
2020.1: Language teaching in schools (England) (House of Commons Library)
2020.1: Boys studying modern foreign languages at GCSE in schools in England (Part 1. Schools that are beating the odds, by Bobbie Mills, Education Policy Institute; Part 2. What makes an odds-beating school? by Teresa Tinsley, Alcantara Communications)
2020.1: A Languages Crisis?A report (written by Megan Bowler, an undergraduate) published by the Higher Education Policy Institute.
- A lovely blog about the language crisis by John Claughton
- A reply blog by Megan Bowler advocating linguistics both at school and in HE.

2019

2019.11: House of Commons briefing paper on teacher recruitment and retention. (Deficit in MFL, surplus in English)
2019.11: The ECML (European Centre for Modern Languages) project on Developing language awareness in subject classes.
- A paper supporting this project.
- An annex with good practice.
2019.10: Education Endowment Fund: Integrating English.
- The project found that a teaching programme called “Language in Learning Across the Curriculum (LiLAC)” had no effect on EAL learners’ writing.
2019.8: Telegraph: Re top grades at A-level, Foreign Languages score very high but English Language scores very low.
- Contrast 2018: Inter-subject comparability …
2019.7: Education Endowment Fund: Improving literacy in secondary schools.
- The report recommends the explicit teaching of the special language of each subject – see our resources on subject language.
2019.5: The British Academy: Cognitive Benefits of Language Learning: Broadening our Perspectives, by Professor Bencie Woll FBA and Professor Li Wei
2019.2: The British Academy, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society: Languages in the UK: a call for action.
2019: RIPL White Paper. Primary Languages Policy in England – The Way Forward (By Bernardette Holmes and Florence Myles; including a one-page summary)

2018

2017

2017. 9: The Royal Society and the Education Endowment Fund: Review of SES and Science Learning in Formal Educational Settings. (concludes that the main causal link between social class and attainment in science is via literacy)

2016

2016: PIRLS (Progress in Internatiomal Reading Literacy Study) Improved results in reading tests for Y5 pupils in England compared with other countries.
2016.12: Teaching Schools Council: Modern Languages Pedagogy (the Bauckham report).
2016: OECD: Building skills for all: a review of England. Policy insights from the survey of adult skills.
- England has more school-leavers without functional literacy than any other country in the study, and is the only country where school-leavers are no better than their grandparents.

2014

2014: The Welsh language in education in the UK (2nd Edition)
2014: The British Academy: Born Global: Implications for Higher Education by Bernardette Holmes

2013

2013: Teachers’ Standards. Guidance for school leaders, school staff and governing bodies (July 2011, introduction updated June 2013)
2013: The British Academy: Languages: The state of the nation.
2013: The British Academy and Cumberland Lodge: Multilingual Britain.
2013: Myhill, Debra, Susan Jones, Helen Lines & Annabel Watson. 2012. Re-Thinking Grammar: the Impact of Embedded Grammar Teaching on Students’ Writing and Students’ Metalinguistic Understanding. Research Papers in Education 27. 139–166.
- 2014:Torgerson, David, Carole Torgerson, Natasha Mitchell, Hannah Buckley, Hannah Ainsworth, Clare Heaps & Laura Jefferson. 2014. Grammar for Writing. Evaluation Report and Executive Summary. Education Endowment Fund.
- 2019: Tracey, Louise, Jan Boehnke, Louise Elliott, Kate Thorley, Sarah Ellison & Claudine Bowyer-Crane. 2019. Grammar for Writing. Evaluation report and executive summary. London: Education Endowment Foundation.

2012

2012: Lessons from abroad: International review of primary languages
2012: Moving English forward: action to raise standards in English (OFSTED report)

2011

2011: Report of the Inquiry into Overcoming the Barriers to Literacy. (All-party Parliamentary Group for Education)

2010

2010: The training of teachers. (House of Commons select committee report; #27: PGCE applicants with 2.1 or first-class degree in FL (43%) versus English (73%).

Before 2010

2009: The Rose review of primary education
2009: Review of modern foreign languages provision in higher education in England (the Worton report).
2007: The Languages Review (the Dearing report), by Ron Dearing and Lid King
2006: Research Review in Modern Languages, by Mike Kelly
2005: AHRC Report on the ring-fenced doctoral awards. [6 ring-fenced PhD awards for research on the linguistics of major European languages couldn’t be awarded for lack of applicants]
2005: The National Languages Strategy in Higher Education, by Hillary Footitt
2005: The KS2 Framework for Languages
2004: Writing Improvement Matrix (Key Stage 3 National Strategy)
2002: DfES: Languages for all: languages for life
2002: Grammar for Writing: Supporting pupils learning EAL (Key Stage 3 National Strategy)
2001: Year 7 Sentence level Bank (Key Stage 3 National Strategy)
1999: Improving literacy and numeracy. A fresh start (The Moser Report)
1997: The implementation of the National Literacy Strategy.
1994: Evaluation of the Implementation of English in the National Curriculum at Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 (1991-1993) (The Warwick Evaluation)
1994: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into English. Balancing literature, language and media in the National Curriculum.
1990: A Survey of Language Awareness and Foreign Language Taster Courses. A Report by HM Inspectorate
1989: English for ages 5 to 16 (the Cox Report)
1988: Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Teaching of English Language (the Kingman Report)
1987: Modern foreign languages to 16
1984: English from 5 to 16. (HMI revised report; first draft 1982)
1977: Modern Languages in Comprehensive Schools
1975: A Language for Life (the Bullock report on the teaching of English).
1921: The Teaching of English in England (The Newbolt Report)
1918: Report of the committee appointed by the Prime Minister to enquire into the position of modern languages in the educational system of Great Britain (The Leathes Report).

For a longer historical timescale, there’s a massive, and possibly complete, historical collection of documents including reports on education.

Comments are closed.