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Across the world, the importance of foreign language learning (FLL) at school tends to be taken for granted. Or at least it is when the language being learned is English, given its in access to higher education and employment. Countries where the majority population already speaks English lack that kind of instrumental rationale, however, explaining in part why countries such as the and see low and declining numbers of young people engaging in FLL. The same is true for the UK, where across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, FLL is optional after the age of 14 and show low rates of continuation after that age. While these issues are common across the UK, in this blog post we focus primarily on England, where a has just taken place.

Mixed messages

As FLL researchers and educators, we would argue that the lower instrumental value of FLL in England is only one reason for its low uptake. The mixed messages surrounding FLL are also problematic. On the one hand, low uptake ‘damages Britain’s reputation’, according to a former schools minister for England (Gibb, 2025). On the other hand, show that FLL is not considered important enough to have more than approximately 2 per cent of the available curriculum devoted to it in either primary or secondary school, compared to the average of 10 per cent.

Mixed messages also underpin what current England curriculum documents say about the ‘purpose’ of language learning. The statement positions FLL as a ‘liberation from insularity’, an ‘opening to other cultures’, the path to ‘new ways of thinking’, words that are echoed in the . Strikingly, however, none of these attributes or dispositions are explicitly listed as outcomes for teaching or assessment in either document. Instead, linguistic proficiency alone is prioritised.

These mixed messages may then create confusion for learners about why they are studying languages at school. We know from a 2016 study of 233 young learners of French in nine English schools that children are motivated by the prospect of communicating meaningfully in the language and by learning about its culture (Graham et al., 2016). The study, like Courtney (2017), also showed that learners leave primary school with relatively high levels of FLL motivation which declines during the first year of secondary school. That decline stems at least in part from the reduced opportunities they felt secondary school lessons offered for either communication or culture. A study funded to inform a GCSE pedagogy and assessment review found that 614 teachers from 473 schools in England also believe that should be at the heart of what is taught and assessed. It is vital, therefore, to reduce the gap between what is prioritised in curricular and examination frameworks, what learners want to learn, and what teachers want to teach.

‘It is vital to reduce the gap between what is prioritised in curricular and examination frameworks, what learners want to learn, and what teachers want to teach.’

Towards greater coherence and clarity

Happily, the 2025 highlights the importance of equipping learners in England with the skills to meet ‘global challenges, both social and environmental’, which we interpret as including . These encompass, among others, open-mindedness (creativity, tolerance and curiosity) and collaboration, covering empathy and trust. These are all attributes that FLL can develop.

Simply stating the development of these attributes as aims within the languages curriculum is not enough. The curriculum and GCSE examinations also need to find a way to make them important outcomes of learning, alongside linguistic progress. Perhaps most importantly, teachers need support in developing pedagogical approaches that allow them to foster both the linguistic and non-linguistic. Researchers at the Universities of Southampton and Reading, collaborating with teachers from 11 primary schools across England and Scotland, have shown how that joint focus is possible. Their project, funded as part of UKRI’s , demonstrated that digital stories improved not only French and Spanish learners’ vocabulary knowledge and reading skills but also their creativity. Activities that encouraged creative and empathetic responses to the situations depicted in the stories were a crucial part of those outcomes.

What next?

Moving forward, central issues for FLL are how we position its purpose and how much time and commitment we provide for it. In turn these would lead us to reconsider how we teach it, and to invest, through high-quality teacher development initiatives, in the kinds of pedagogical innovations that are already showing success for developing both linguistic knowledge and broader attributes. The impact of such provision would also be an important focus for future research.

In December 2025, the project won ½¿É«µ¼º½â€™s Public Engagement and Impact award. Further details of what was achieved will feature in a future edition of Research Intelligence.

References

Courtney, L. (2017). Transition in modern foreign languages: A longitudinal study of motivation for language learning and second language proficiency. Oxford Review of Education, 43(4), 462–481.

Graham, S., Courtney, L., Tonkyn, A, & Marinis, T. (2016). Motivational trajectories for early language learning across the primary–secondary school transition. British Educational Research Journal, 42, 682–702.

Gibb, N. (2025, August 20). Failure to study languages ‘damages Britain’s reputation’.ÌýThe Times.Ìý