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.

2021

• 2021.3: For consultation: Revised Subject Content specification for MFL at GCSE
  • Helpful background on the aims of the revision.
  • More background from the Association for Language Learning (ALL)
  • For comparison, the existing specifications (since 2016)
  • Some comparative tables highlighting the changes.
  • A blog by Esmeralda Salgado listing strengths and weaknesses of the proposal.
  • A similar blog by Steve Smith.
  • A survey of the attitudes of 614 MFL teachers in secondary schools in England.
• 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

• 2018: Inter-subject comparability in A level sciences and modern foreign languages. Examining the claim that these subjects are more severely graded than other A levels

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.