The trouble with languages is that too many Brits seem to think English will do. Since the referendum on EU membership, there have even been media reports of school students sighing with relief that they don’t need to bother with their French lessons any more because they won’t need it in future. What a contradictory world these young people live in: on the one hand retreating into a post-Brexit ‘little island’ mindset, and on the other, being in instant contact every second of the day via their smart digital devices with anyone and everyone in the world.
Someone needs to tell them that there are more blogs in Japanese than English; that Arabic is the fastest-growing language across all social media platforms; that the proportion of web content in English is diminishing, while the share of Mandarin is rapidly expanding; that French and German top the list of UK employers’ language skill-set wish list; and that only 6% of the world’s population are native English speakers , with 75% speaking no English at all.
There is no doubt that speaking English is vital for success in the twenty-first century, whether in business , diplomacy , cultural understanding or research . But speaking only English is a huge disadvantage. This doesn’t just apply to an internationally mobile elite: a survey in 2011 showed that in the UK, 27% of clerical and admin vacancies went unfilled because of a lack of language skills (UK Commission for Employment and Skills’ (UKCES) Employer Skills Survey 2011. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukces-employer-skills-survey-2011). Post-Brexit, the UK needs to up its game in language skills more than ever, if we are to fulfil the government’s ambition of becoming a leader in global free trade and a key player on the international stage.
Politically, though, the trouble with languages is that they belong everywhere a bit, but nowhere holistically or strategically. The Department for Education deals with schools, Further Education and Higher Education; the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) handles diplomacy and our role in international institutions such as the United Nations; the Treasury is concerned with export growth; the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health supply public service interpreters; and the Ministry of Defence teaches the armed forces the languages they’ll need to be effective on the ground when deployed. The list goes on: the Home Office, and the Departments for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, International Trade , International Development and others all have a key interest in languages, whether they realise it or not—and that’s before we even get to the new Department for Exiting the European Union. What we see is an approach to language skills and needs that is piecemeal, short-term and self-defeating. Taking what appears to be the easy way out by employing native speakers or turning to instant online translation services simply masks the problem, possibly compounds it, but certainly doesn’t solve it.
Brexit presents a new opportunity to get languages right in the UK. By doing so, the Brexit process itself will be easier and post-Brexit Britain will be more successful. If the government can grasp the significance of the language issues highlighted in this book, the UK could take some vital steps towards setting itself up for a confident long-term future well beyond Brexit as a diplomatic and commercial player in the world, and especially in the interests of the future life chances and employability of the next generation. There are four essential language-specific objectives for the government to take on board as part of our Brexit negotiations. These were published in October 2016 by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages. They are introduced below and will be discussed in more detail in later chapters.
First, the government should guarantee the residency status of non-UK EU nationals already living in the UK and agree favourable terms for the future recruitment of EU citizens who are needed in jobs for which British nationals can’t compete because they don’t have the language skills. The second part of this objective should in theory be needed only for the medium term until we have achieved other goals to improve our own supply pipeline of language skills through longer-term educational measures (see below).
In answer to parliamentary questions asked in November 2016, the government said that it did want to protect the status of EU nationals already living and working in the UK, but only if British citizens’ rights in other EU member states were protected in return.1 As far as future migration arrangements were concerned, the government’s only answer was that ‘various options’ were being considered.
This is a good example of how language-related issues are all interconnected and why the government must take a holistic and strategic approach, rather than deal with Brexit department by department. The reason residency status and the future access to employment of EU nationals is so important for languages is that without these people, the teaching of modern foreign languages (MFL) in our schools will collapse. An estimated 35% of MFL teachers and 85% of modern language assistants in our schools are non-UK EU nationals. The UK does not currently produce anything like enough modern language graduates to fill the teacher shortage already predicted, never mind if we make it hard for EU nationals to stay or be recruited. So the Home Office needs to be talking to the Department for Education about this aspect of Brexit.
The interconnectedness goes beyond education. Around one-third of the public service interpreters working in our courts , police stations and the NHS are also non-UK EU nationals. Without them, large numbers of people would have justice or healthcare delayed or denied in what is already a stretched system. So the Home Office also needs to be talking to the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health.
The second language-specific objective for the Brexit negotiators should be to ensure that the UK retains access to and participation in the EU’s Erasmus+ programme, which funds study and work experience abroad. In principle, this one should be a no-brainer. There is precedent for non-EU participation, as both Norway and Switzerland are in Erasmus+. It is also clearly an issue of self-interest. We know that employers favour graduates (in all subjects, not just linguists) who have spent a year abroad and acquired language and intercultural skills . A 2014 study showed that Erasmus+ students had an unemployment rate 23% lower than that of non-mobile students . Without Erasmus+, UK graduates would therefore be disadvantaged in a global labour market. Erasmus+ also plays a crucial role in the supply chain of language recruits to teaching and research in schools and universities . If the government stands any chance of achieving its English Baccalaureate (EBacc) target of 90% of school leavers achieving A–C grade in a modern foreign language by 2020, then we need as many MFL teachers coming through the system as possible.
The viability of modern language degrees at UK universities is already very fragile: over 50 universities have scrapped some or all of their modern language degree courses since 2000, because of a sustained drop in applications. Prospective students , even if they have done one or more languages at A level, don’t necessarily relish the increased debt they will accumulate if they undertake a four-year course. Before the referendum, there were already concerns that the present funding arrangements, which limit the cost to students of their Erasmus+ year abroad to 15% of the usual tuition fee, could come to an end. Now, the prospect of the UK coming out of Erasmus+ is already having an impact on undergraduate recruitment. Anecdotal evidence is emerging of university departments having to work hard to convince the worried parents of prospective students that the year abroad will still be an affordable proposition by the time students matriculating in 2017 reach their third year. The year abroad is the jewel in the crown of a good modern languages degree and the government should do all it can to help students and universities continue to fund it and preserve it as an essential part of the value and quality of the course.
The third objective is very specific. The government should give a firm commitment to legislate to replicate the rights enshrined in the 2010 European Directive on the Right to Interpretation and Translation in Criminal Proceedings. Natural justice and the human rights of defendants and witnesses will suffer if good-quality interpreting services are not guaranteed as of right. The UK’s record of compliance with this Directive is not flawless, so it would be risky to leave the provision of court and police interpreters to the policy of individual courts and constabularies, rather than at least having common standards and objectives as set out in legislation, especially regarding the need for quality.
The final language-specific objective is the most challenging, complex and long-term. It is the need for a comprehensive strategic plan, consisting of specific actions to ensure that the UK produces sufficient linguists to meet its future requirements post-Brexit as a leader in global free trade and on the in...