Nicola MCLELLAND - The relationship between institutions, advocacy, research, policymaking, and language learning in the UK since 1945

This paper will explore the relationship of advocacy, policy-making and practice to the practice of language teaching and learning in the UK since 1945, in particular regarding how languages are taught, who gets to learn which languages, to what level, and from what age. Key developments such as the establishment in the 1960s of the Centre for Information on Language Teaching and the Committee on Research and Development in Modern Languages will be covered, as well as the role of other advocacy bodies and institutions such as the British Academy and the Association for Language Learning. Theemergence of differences in policy among the devolved nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) will be analysed, also in comparison with EU policies. The impact on language learning of policies that are not strictly to do with language will also be highlighted, from comprehensivization of secondary schools in the 1960s, to the introduction of the English baccalaureate in the 2010s. Other case studies will include the changing fortunes of Spanish as a subject, and the introduction of languages in in Englishprimary schools from 2014.

Nicola McLelland is Professor of German and History of Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. Her two most recent books are German Through English Eyes. The history of teaching and learning German in England, 1500-2000 (Harrassowitz, 2015, open access) and Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages. A history of language education, assessment and policy in Britain (Routledge, 2017). She was co-editor, with Richard Smith, of a History of Language Learning and Teaching in 3 vols. (published in 2018 with Legenda, reprinted in paperwork in 2020), and of two special issues on the history of language education in Europe, both fully open access, Building the History of Language Learning and Teaching (Language & History 57.1, 2014) and Histories of language learning and teaching in Europe (The Language Learning Journal 46.1, 2018).