Innovation in Language Learning

There is deep, long-term and growing concern in the United Kingdom about the teaching of languages and the decline in the take-up of languages, all the way from the education system. At the same time, however, the school population, which is increasingly diverse through migration, has never known so many languages. It is obvious that pupils’ first experience will have an impact on their attitude to languages, but that first experience, starting at the age of seven, is deeply flawed in two ways. The first is that the teaching of languages varies enormously in language chosen, in quality of teaching, in time allocated, so that, in almost all cases, pupils start their language study all over again at the age of eleven. The second is that the teaching of languages gives little or no regard to the rich pre-existing knowledge of so many of the pupils: it is as if the pupils’ home language didn’t exist or matter. ‘WoLLoW’, ‘World of Languages and Languages of the World’, provides an entirely different approach for pupils as they start to learn languages. It encourages pupils and teachers on a journey of shared exploration, to understand how languages work, where they come from and how they are related, to see the importance of languages in all other academic subjects, and in the wider world of empire and migration. This approach not only engenders a curiosity and dialectic but, above all, it allows pupils to share their own languages and histories.  Thereby, it is hoped languages lie ahead.

Keywords: primary languages, multilingualism, teaching.