The University of Nottingham announced three days ago that it’s saying adiós amigos to languages, according to this BBC article. This is nothing new, Cardiff University also tried to pull similar moves last year.
Thankfully, Cardiff University backtracked. The Save Modern Languages at Cardiff University initiative highlights the severity of such a decision for the UK and in this particular case – Welsh young people’s access to modern foreign languages.
There is still hope – since 2015, the Welsh government invested over £7 million in support for modern languages in Wales through its Global Futures programme (2015-2026), making it a key priority.
It is hard to put into words as a multilingual person how priceless the ability to speak another language is. It is so valuable, and a monolingual person will never be able to appreciate this unless they open their minds to it. It seems that the fewer multilingual students the UK churns out, the harder it’s going to be to convince young people that languages are worth it.
Thinking specifically about women, languages are truly empowering for their senses-of-self and career growth. Such a valuable tool can place us miles ahead of other job candidates, especially when it comes to breaking the glass ceiling. Language learning should merge into the self-growth space on social media because it brings so many professional, personal, and psychological benefits. This includes confidence, independence, open-ness, and cognitive empowerment (with proven statistics demonstrating how languages enhance memory, adaptability, and focus). Women need to get on this language learning trend.
No one should go through life without having any decent exposure to anything but English. Thinking as such is putting the UK in a precarious situation, given the nature of our globalised world. You can read more about the serious impact of this linguistic decline in this previous blog post.
It all starts with education. I’ve already talked about how the UK’s education system lets young people down with their modern language teaching. It’s robotic, not engaging, irrelevant, and does not match the science of language learning.
In this regard, My Tête-à-Tête is trying to change the language learning space one baby step at a time. With all the trends and next-best-habits circulating the self-growth corners of the internet, there is no reason why languages should be left behind. It really is time for an overhaul!
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