According to a report by The National Foundation for Educational Research, almost a fifth of primary schools in England could miss a government target to offer language teaching by next year. There is a target for language lessons to be available for seven to 11 year olds by 2010 - with languages set to become […]

According to the BBC, more and more state school children in the UK are being taught in Welsh, Gaelic or Irish. The number of Northern Ireland children learning Irish grew from just 484 in 1992 to 3285 in 2008. In Wales, 20% of schoolchildren are now being taught entirely in Welsh - up from 16% […]

According to the annual census of secondary schools, compiled by the Centre for Information on Languages Teaching, Spanish has replaced German as the second most popular language learnt in schools. The number of state schools in the UK offering Mandarin as an option has more than trebled in the past two years from one in […]

Well according to a new book by sociologist, Malcolm Gladwell, yes it does. According to him, the best way to achieve international stardom is to spend 10,000 hours honing your skills. The greatest athletes, entrepreneurs, musicians and scientists emerge only after spending at least three hours a day for a decade mastering their chosen field. […]

In the UK the number of students opting to study modern languages at GCSE continues to slide - with French being the biggest loser. I have to say that if language learning is still as dire as it was when I was at school, then I'm not surprised.