40 (2011) • Heft 1 © 2011 Narr Francke Attempto Verlag R OSAMOND M ITCHELL * Still gardening in a gale: Policy, research and practice in foreign language education in England Abstract. This paper reviews the recent evolution of foreign language education policy and research in England. The first main section deals with the impact on foreign languages of the introduction of a National Curriculum in the 1990s. Initially this curriculum centralisation led to an increase in foreign language learning in secondary schools, but by the 2000s this was followed by a significant decline, counterbalanced to some extent by growth of languages in primary schools. It is argued that stress on achieving pre-determined learning outcomes and accountability of schools and teachers through examinations have stifled experimentation, and made it harder to devise a viable foreign language curriculum for an Anglophone environment. The second main section reviews selected research fields receiving attention in the English context: learner motivation, early language learning, and learning strategies. This research evidence converges to show that attention to classroom processes can promote more positive attitudes to language learning, even where broader contextual and societal support is weak. 1. Introduction Against a backdrop of the worldwide spread of English and its increasing adoption as international lingua franca (G RADDOL 2006) foreign language education in England has had to struggle against public indifference for much of the 20 th century and the picture remains similar in the 21 st (C OLEMAN / G ALACZI / A STRUC 2007). Structural and curriculum reform in English schools has been driven by other more pressing concerns, and policy for languages has been moulded by plans and structures created largely for other purposes (M ITCHELL 2010). Nonetheless, there is an active and committed community of foreign language education researchers and practitioners in England, who have worked perseveringly in challenging circumstances to provide a positive experience of language learning for young people in British schools and colleges. This paper reviews current policies and trends in foreign language education in England, paying particular attention to the position of German. A selective overview is provided of research on foreign language teaching and learning, and how far this research activity has influenced foreign language education policy and practice is assessed. * Address for correspondence: Professor Rosamond M ITCHELL , BA HDipEd MSc PhD, University of Southampton, Modern Languages, Faculty of Humanities, University of Southampton, S OUTHAMPTON SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom. E-Mail: R.F.Mitchell@soton.ac.uk Areas of research: Language education policy, language pedagogy, second language acquisition 50 Rosamond Mitchell 40 (2011) • Heft 1 (There is of course a very large and active community of applied linguistic researchers in UK universities, who deal with different aspects of the learning and teaching of English as a foreign language. This research is reviewed by others e.g. R IXON / S MITH (2009), and will not be considered further in this paper.) 2. Recent evolution of foreign language education policy 2.1 Languages and the shift to comprehensive education Before World War 2, England had a divided secondary school system, in which only the academic ‘grammar schools’ offered regular experience of language learning to their students (H AWKINS 1981). Following the comprehensivisation of much of the secondary school system in the 1960s and 1970s, and with the added stimulus of accession to the European Union in 1973, participation in foreign language learning increased (H AWKINS 1996b). Experiments were conducted with audiovisual and situational methodology and curricula, to accommodate the new public of language learners (P AGE 1996), and from the late 1960s, that is, in the run-up to EU accession, there was a short lived attempt to promote primary school French, using an audiovisual approach (B URSTALL 1974; H AWKINS 1996a). By 1984, just over half the 16 year old students in England and Wales were studying at least one foreign language (including 12 per cent who were studying German, either alone, or in combination with French). However, girls were much more likely to study a language than boys (60 per cent vs 43 per cent), and fewer than 30 per cent of ‘low attaining’ students were learning any foreign language (B ELL 2001). In 1986, a new unified national examination was introduced for students aged 16 in England, the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), with the first cohort taking this examination in 1988; in languages, this examination adopted a ‘4 skills’ model (listening, speaking, reading and writing), emphasizing everyday communication and situational content, in contrast to the previous ‘O Level’ examination which included tasks such as translation and dictation (G RENFELL 2007; W HITEHEAD 1996). However, languages initially remained an optional subject for the new GCSE. 2.2 Languages in a National Curriculum Dissatisfaction with the outcomes of the new comprehensive system meant that policy changed significantly for education in England and Wales in the 1990s, with the introduction of a statutory National Curriculum for primary and secondary schools. This prescribed a number of ‘core’ and ‘foundation’ subjects to be studied by all children from ages 5 to 16. Importantly for languages, the study of a ‘modern foreign language’ (MFL) was included as a foundation subject, though for ages 11-16 only. The first cohort experiencing this ‘languages for all’ requirement started secondary school in 1992. By 1997, 78 per cent of 16 year old students were studying at least one foreign lan- Still gardening in a gale: Policy, research and practice in foreign language education … 51 40 (2011) • Heft 1 guage, though not all of them were taking the GCSE examination. German was the second most popular language taught, with 23 per cent of students learning it (B ELL 2001). The first version of the National Curriculum for Modern Foreign Languages (D EPARTMENT OF E DUCATION AND S CIENCE / W ELSH O FFICE 1991) 1 adopted a set of ‘attainment targets’, again in terms of the 4 skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. As in all other subjects, each attainment target was divided into 10 ‘levels’ of attainment, defined by an expert group without any underpinning empirical research (M ITCHELL 2003). Defining so many levels was a particular challenge for languages, as they had to be achievable over 5 years of study (the learning outcomes of subjects such as English, which were taught to children aged 5-16, were also defined in terms of 10 levels, to be achieved over 12 years of study). The attainment definitions were accompanied by a ‘programme of study’ which described curriculum content and learning experiences in general terms, again on the basis of expert judgement rather than empirical research. The programme of study for languages included reference to the development of knowledge about language (i.e. explicit grammar study) and intercultural understanding, as well as promoting creative and meaning-oriented target language use. However, assessment was related to the narrow ‘four skills’ definitions of the attainment targets, and the level descriptors in speaking, writing etc were defined primarily in terms of accurate production (ibid.). Successive versions of the overall National Curriculum followed quite rapidly during the 1990s and 2000s. Soon the age range to be targeted was reduced to 5-14, and correspondingly the number of defined levels was reduced to 8. The GCSE remained the prime examination target for the 14-16 age group however, and secondary schools have been held publicly accountable for student success in this examination (D AUGHERTY 1995). Further significant policy developments took place in the 2000s. In the quest to raise standards, greater prescription of pedagogy was felt to be necessary. Initially, the National Literacy Strategy (introduced 1998: S TANNARD / H UXFORD 2007) and National Numeracy Strategy (1999) provided detailed guidance on the teaching of English and of Mathematics. These were followed in 2003 by the production of a ‘Framework’ for the teaching of foreign languages in Years 7-9, i.e. to students aged 11-14 (D EPARTMENT FOR E DUCATION AND S KILLS 2003). 2 This strategy document concep- 1 The government ministry for school level education in England has had several recent changes of name, including: Department for Education and Science, Department for Education and Skills, Department for Children Schools and Families, and most recently, Department for Education. Government reports and documents referred to in this paper are attributed to the ministry using whichever title prevailed at the time of publication. 2 As part of the National Curriculum reform in England and Wales, a new standard nomenclature was adopted for the 12 years of compulsory schooling. These ran from Year R (“Reception”, with 5 year old children) to Year 11 (with 16 year olds). The years were also grouped into a number of ‘key stages’, as follows: Key Stage 1: Year R to Year 2 inclusive; Key Stage 2: Year 3 to Year 6; Key Stage 3: Year 7 to Year 9; Key Stage 4: Years 10 and 11. The years of primary schooling thus comprise Key Stages 1 and 2, the years of lower secondary schooling comprise Key Stages 3 and 4. 52 Rosamond Mitchell 40 (2011) • Heft 1 tualised language attainment very differently from the ‘four skills’ model of GCSE and the National Curriculum. Instead (and in line with the National Literacy Strategy), the MFLs Framework prescribed a much more detailed series of short term objectives year by year, in the domains of: • Words • Sentences • Texts: reading and writing • Listening and speaking • Cultural knowledge and contact. The identification of ‘words’ and ‘sentences’ as separate strands was intended to reinstate grammar study as a central focus (G RENFELL 2007). The inclusion of ‘cultural knowledge’ promoted some study of the target culture, though it did not address cultural attitudes, empathy or intercultural awareness. The treatment of the four skills remained centred on accurate rather than creative usage however. Teachers’ generally favourable reception of the Framework is reported by E VANS / F ISHER (2009). M ITCHELL (2003, 2010) has noted how the discrete objectives of the Framework lend themselves well in the short term to the competency-based and outcomes-focussed thinking which currently drives school education generally in England, but has argued that in the longer term, the model is inimical to meaning-focussed language use and to the development of intrinsic motivation. In 2009, a second edition of the Key Stage 3 Framework was produced, which was much more compatible with the 2005 Framework for primary schools discussed below (D EPARTMENT FOR E DUCATION AND S KILLS 2005). However, the change of government in 2010 meant that this revised version is no longer being promoted. 2.3 Failure of ‘languages for all’ The introduction of this more form-focused Framework for the lower secondary school (age 11-14) was intended to underpin more creative development in later years. However, even as the new Framework was being introduced, a wider policy decision to ‘free up’ the curriculum from age 14, plus concerns about the poor motivation and achievement of lower attaining students in languages in particular, led to the decision to make languages optional for ages 15-16, from 2003 onwards (D EPARTMENT FOR E DUCATION AND S KILLS 2002). This decision brought about an unexpectedly rapid decline in language study in the 15-16 age group, reflected by large falls in GCSE entries. While in 2001 as we have seen, 78 per cent of the age cohort was entered for at least one GCSE language examination, only 50 per cent took any language GCSE in 2006, and 43 per cent in 2010 (CILT T HE N ATIONAL C ENTRE FOR L ANGUAGES 2011a). Table 1 ( page 53) shows the distribution of learners in England taking a range of languages, for the years 1994- 2010. The table shows that for the most popular languages, French and German, numbers of GCSE entries roughly halved between 2001 and 2010. The only partial Still gardening in a gale: Policy, research and practice in foreign language education … 53 40 (2011) • Heft 1 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 French 3E+05 3E+05 3E+05 3E+05 3E+05 3E+05 3E+05 3E+05 3E+05 3E+05 3E+05 2E+05 2E+05 2E+05 2E+05 2E+05 2E+05 German 1E+05 1E+05 1E+05 1E+05 1E+05 1E+05 1E+05 1E+05 1E+05 1E+05 1E+05 99200 84800 75800 71100 68300 65900 Spanish 28000 31314 33814 34454 38810 39523 42288 45629 48444 51299 53539 52200 52100 53800 57000 57300 58200 Other 14686 16258 17423 17791 18207 18779 19423 20317 20641 21508 21879 21400 21300 21700 22600 23500 25900 0 50000 100000 150000 200000 250000 300000 350000 exceptions to this overall picture of sharp decline are Spanish and ‘other’ languages (heritage languages of immigrant communities, plus some world languages). Schools have been encouraged to promote language learning among this age group but with little effect so far (D EARING / K ING 2006; F ILMER S ANKEY / M ARSHALL / S HARP 2010). Table 1: GCSE entries by language in England, 1994-2010 (CILT T HE N ATIONAL C ENTRE FOR L ANGUAGES 2011a) Related trends have been seen in languages in the sixth form sector (upper secondary school, for ages 16-18). The A Level examination is the lead academic qualification available for students at this level in England and Wales, and good achievement in this examination leads to university entry. Students preparing for A Level typically take 3-4 subjects only; there are no compulsory subjects. The total number of students taking A Level examinations in England has increased over the last 15 years, from 218,254 in 1996 to 270,132 in 2010 (an increase of 24 per cent). However, the number of entries for languages examinations has fallen over the same period, from 39,554 in 1996 to 29,855 in 2010 (a decrease of 25 per cent) (CILT T HE N ATIONAL C ENTRE FOR L ANGUAGES 2011b). Total numbers of entries over this period for the most popular languages are shown in Table 2 ( page 54). 54 Rosamond Mitchell 40 (2011) • Heft 1 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 French 22718 21364 19629 17774 15240 15393 13599 12904 12480 11963 12190 12152 12605 12231 12324 German 9306 8984 8903 8527 7581 7607 6367 6068 5643 5238 5534 5615 5560 5119 5055 Spanish 4095 4328 4499 4640 4516 4501 4430 4504 4650 4930 5202 5491 5728 6089 6564 Other 3435 3473 3457 3499 3660 3409 3860 3999 4279 4534 5084 5119 5530 6090 5912 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 Table 2: A Level Entries by Language (CILT T HE N ATIONAL C ENTRE FOR L ANGUAGES 2011b) Large falls can be seen in the 1990s, with a ‘bottoming out’ of numbers in the 2000s, though with Spanish pushing German into third place (with just over 5,000 entries per year), in the late 2000s. Moreover, there is a marked skew in the type of school which is maintaining languages at A Level, with 31 per cent of entries coming from private schools. 2.4 Promotion of languages in the primary school As noted earlier, around the time of the accession of the United Kingdom to the Common Market, there was a push to promote the learning of French in primary education (H AWKINS 1996a). However, this ‘pilot’ initiative encountered the usual ‘teething troubles’ of primary school innovation - such as problems with teacher supply, and lack of continuity during transition to secondary schools. A politically significant evaluation found little positive impact on subsequent attainment in French at secondary school level (B URSTALL 1974); the initiative lost impetus and was not supported as Still gardening in a gale: Policy, research and practice in foreign language education … 55 40 (2011) • Heft 1 mainstream policy. Some primary schools continued to teach languages however, and by the 1990s there was increasing interest among language educators and some parents in promoting languages once again. This was partly a reflection of the rapid development of primary English elsewhere (G RADDOL 2006), partly a response to the promotion of ‘languages for all’ within the National Curriculum, and partly a result of beliefs that an ‘early start’ might address some of the motivational problems being experienced with older beginners. A series of ‘Pathfinder’ projects were officially funded from 2003 in 19 different localities, to experiment with curriculum models and teaching methods for languages (H UNT / B ARNES / P OWELL / L INDSAY / M UIJS 2005; M UIJS et al. 2005; OFSTED 2005). These projects were followed by the publication of the Key Stage 2 Framework for Languages (D EPARTMENT FOR E DUCATION AND S KILLS 2005), which provided a curriculum model for languages in the upper primary school. Primary languages received added impetus from the reduction of compulsory language learning in the secondary school; as a kind of compensation, considerable resources were made available for staffing, for teacher development and for materials development. The Key Stage 2 Framework conceptualised the curriculum in terms of five domains: • Oracy • Literacy • Intercultural understanding • Knowledge about language • Language learning strategies. This very ambitious curriculum document thus set out to promote both the development of language proficiency, and also the language and cultural sensitisation advocated by H AWKINS (2005). Schools were expected to concentrate on teaching a single language (usually French, for pragmatic reasons of teacher supply), and to find 60 minutes per week for this throughout Key Stage 2. Regarding assessment, references to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR, C OUNCIL OF E UROPE 2001) are relatively rare in British curriculum documents, but the Department for Education and Skills expressed at least the aspiration in a 2002 strategy document that: Every child should have the opportunity throughout Key Stage 2 to study a foreign language and develop their interest in the culture of other nations. They should have access to high quality teaching and learning opportunities, making use of native speakers and e-learning. By age 11 they should have the opportunity to reach a recognised level of competence on the Common European Framework and for that achievement to be recognised through a national scheme (D EPARTMENT FOR E DUCATION AND S KILLS 2002: 15). Accordingly an assessment project was also funded titled Asset Languages, to develop a series of freestanding proficiency tests (in the four skills) in a variety of languages, in versions suitable for both primary aged children and older students (N. J ONES 2007). These tests were keyed to a local variant of the CEFR, the so-called ‘Languages Ladder’ (D EPARTMENT FOR C HILDREN S CHOOLS AND F AMILIES 2007). 56 Rosamond Mitchell 40 (2011) • Heft 1 In the Key Stage 2 Framework, the opportunity for children to learn a language was described as an ‘entitlement’, and primary schools were led to expect that by 2011, a foreign language would be a compulsory subject for 8-11 year old children within a new, generally revised primary school curriculum. By 2008, over 90 per cent were offering a language to at least some Key Stage 2 pupils, and just under 70 per cent were offering this to all the relevant age groups (W ADE / M ARSHALL 2009). (Of the schools surveyed by W ADE / M ARSHALL , 10 per cent were teaching German, while 90 per cent were teaching French and 25 per cent were teaching Spanish.) However, a change of government in 2010 means that the status of languages remains uncertain at the time of writing. 3. Some current trends in foreign language education research The research community concerned with foreign language education within the United Kingdom largely consists largely of teacher educators, plus a number of other applied linguists and second language acquisition researchers with interests in European and world languages. The Department of Education, under its various names, has sponsored several evaluation projects on foreign language education during the 2000s (e.g. C ABLE / D RISCOLL / M ITCHELL / S ING 2010; D RISCOLL / J ONES / M ACRORY 2004; E VANS / F ISHER 2009; M UIJS et al. 2005; W ADE / M ARSHALL 2009). Other research has been funded by government research councils, by individual universities, or conducted by students pursuing advanced research degrees. Following sub-sections will review selected themes in current foreign language education research, i.e.: student motivation; primary languages; language learning strategies. Space does not allow for detailed examination of other ‘active’ research domains, including: content and language integrated education - CLIL (C OYLE 2007); L2 literacy development (e.g. M ACARO / M UTTON 2009; W OORE 2009; W OORE 2010); classroom interaction and target language use (e.g. C RICHTON 2009); task based learning and out-of-classroom learning (L AVERY / W ARDLE 2007; P FEIFFER / P ICKERING 2008). 3.1 Student motivation British foreign language educators have been preoccupied with learner motivation for decades (S TABLES / W IKELEY 1999). It has been a matter of received wisdom for example that British young people are sceptical of the instrumental need to learn foreign languages; that they perceive the process of foreign language learning as boring and difficult; that motivation for language learning declines with age; and that boys have more negative attitudes towards languages than girls (review in C OLEMAN et al. 2007). Some recent research studies present a somewhat more nuanced picture. W ILLIAMS / B URDEN / L ANVERS (2002) surveyed 228 learners in Years 7 and 9 in three secondary schools in the southwest of England, following this up by interviews. Their question- Still gardening in a gale: Policy, research and practice in foreign language education … 57 40 (2011) • Heft 1 naire was designed to explore learners’ attitudes towards language learning, their perceptions of their own identity as learners and of agency in language learning, and their perceptions of the influence of teachers, parents, and their peer group. Overall they found generally positive attitudes towards language learning, though perceptions of need for language learning were relatively weak. The students saw their own investment of effort as important for success, though they were less likely to report the use of metacognitive strategies to plan and monitor their learning. They saw teachers as the most important contextual influence, though lessons were generally seen as unexciting. This study found relatively small differences between the motivation of girls and boys for language learning, and a consistent negative trend with age; the older age group was significantly more likely to question the need for languages and the competence of their teachers, and to report their own proficiency more negatively. W ILLIAMS / B URDEN / L ANVERS also found however that students’ general academic ability was strongly related to overall motivation (with high achieving students much more motivated than low achievers). Finally, the study also explored attitudes towards different languages (French and German), finding that boys in particular held significantly more positive views of German than of French, for sociocultural reasons (“French is the language of love and stuff ...”). These researchers highlight some implications for classroom practice, e.g. suggesting that teachers need to discuss the need for languages much more explicitly with their students, and that metacognitive strategies should be fostered. A much larger scale study of motivation in the lower secondary school was conducted in the mid 2000s by C OLEMAN et al. (2007). This study surveyed over 10,000 learners in Years 7, 8 and 9, again finding moderately positive attitudes prevailing towards languages, but the usual age and gender bias, in the results. The learners in the study came from three different types of lower secondary school - ‘ordinary’ schools, specialist language colleges (i.e. schools receiving extra resources to promote the teaching of languages), and schools who were early adopters of the Asset Languages assessment scheme described above (N. J ONES 2007). The study found significant differences in children’s attitudes in the different school types, again suggesting that extra enthusiasm and commitment of resources on the part of schools and teachers can positively affect attitudes to some degree. The causes of relatively weak motivation among British schoolchildren, and the related decline in language study in Key Stage 4 following abandonment of the 1990s ‘languages for all’ policy, have been extensively debated among British researchers. Some have criticised curriculum, assessment and/ or pedagogic practice, as sources of poor motivation and drop-out. Thus for example, P ACHLER (2007) criticises the narrowly transactional content and outcomes-driven nature of language curricula, and the emphasis on summative assessment, which together undermine the notion of language as anything other than a skill to be performed. M ITCHELL (2003, 2010) makes similar comments; GCSE pedagogy in particular is commonly critiqued as assessment dominated, with uninspiring content, rote learning a common practice, and consequent disaffection of able students (F ISHER 2001; G APPER 2005). The problems of pedagogy are 58 Rosamond Mitchell 40 (2011) • Heft 1 compounded by the comparatively small amount of time available for foreign language instruction during an English school week. According to OECD figures, learners aged 12-14 in England spend only 7 per cent of their total instructional time learning foreign languages, the smallest percentage of all countries surveyed (OECD 2010). M ACARO (2008) argues that the imposition of monolingual (i.e. target language medium) pedagogy as a ‘communicative’ orthodoxy has also had negative effects on learner engagement; he argues against a return to compulsion in Key Stage 4, on the grounds that this negates enjoyment and consequently depresses achievement. On the other hand, C OLEMAN (2009) attributes the recent decline in uptake of largely to broader societal factors, in particular to increasing isolationism in the United Kingdom in the 2000s. A further small scale study of parental attitudes toward language learning in two secondary schools (C. J ONES 2009) suggests the existence of social class bias in languages motivation; parents from a socially disadvantaged school perceived languages as “less important, less useful and more difficult” (ibid.: 96) than those from a more middle-class school. Regarding attitudes towards German in particular, and the reasons for the particularly sharp decline in numbers taking German to examination level, there are many expressions of opinion, but more limited research evidence. The two reasons generally suggested are a) that German is perceived as linguistically ‘difficult’ and challenging to learn; and b) that German is less attractive as a target language than other European languages, for sociohistorical reasons (see discussion in G APPER 2005). One study which has investigated these questions in some detail for school age students is a comparative survey by B ARTRAM (2010) of Key Stage 4 students learning French, German and/ or English as foreign languages in England, the Netherlands and Germany. The British data shows that German is perceived as difficult to learn, but that this is also true for French. Sociocultural perceptions of German are nuanced: students report that Germany and the Germans are represented very negatively in British media, but claim themselves not to be influenced by these representations. They generally report neutral or mildly positive personal perceptions of Germany. However, B ARTRAM notes the absence of any active interest in Germany, i.e. integrative motivation is weak. Future needs for German are expressed in hypothetical terms: “It would be useful if I was to go to Germany in the future for work experience or a holiday” (English boy, ibid.: 95). This contrasted strongly with the Dutch learners of German in B ARTRAM ’s sample, for example, who expressed clear and direct utilitarian needs for German. Somewhat older school learners (age 16) in Northern Ireland who had opted voluntarily to study German as a second foreign language were interviewed by P URDY (2007). This ‘volunteer’ group expressed positive attitudes towards the language, including clear expressions of instrumental motivation (“I thought it would be good for jobs”, ibid.: 22). However this group did perceive German as harder to learn than their first foreign language, French. A survey of first year university students learning languages as a minor subject again indicates that French and German are perceived as being of similar difficulty Still gardening in a gale: Policy, research and practice in foreign language education … 59 40 (2011) • Heft 1 (P EGRUM / H ALL 2006). What stands out in this survey is the “overwhelming student perception that Spanish is easy” (ibid.: 19). Students in this study highlighted the sociohistorical fact of the “British holiday connection” (ibid.: 18), to which B USHELL (2009: 3) adds “the prospect of an exotic South American gap year”. A further study of motivation among learners of German at two other British universities was conducted by B USSE / W ILLIAMS (2010). They surveyed 97 respondents by questionnaire, and also conducted qualitative interviews. The study showed that these ‘survivors’, who had remained committed to languages and ended up by specialising in German at university, were motivated primarily by a wish for high language proficiency, and by an enjoyment of the language learning process. Their ‘ideal L2 self’ (D ÖRNYEI / U SHIODA 2009) was to be a fluent user of German in contact situations. On the other hand, they were less strongly motivated by either instrumental or integrative reasons, and the ‘ought-to self’ played little role. The questionnaire could not uncover fully the sources of the ‘wish for fluency’ and intrinsic motivation which had brought these students to specialise in German. However, the interviews suggested that a positive learning history at school had “stimulated students’ wishes to become proficient”, and that they did not otherwise feel societal pressure to learn German (ibid.: 79). Like M ACARO (2008), these researchers believe that a return to compulsion in the middle years of secondary school (i.e. in Key Stage 4) could have negative effects by reducing enjoyment, without significantly increasing the pool of learners with good achievement levels. 3.2 Languages in the primary school For languages specialists, the most positive feature of the educational scene in England during the 2000s has been the promotion of foreign language learning in the primary school. This development has been tracked by a number of researchers, including (C ABLE et al. 2010; D RISCOLL et al. 2004; E NEVER 2010; H UNT et al. 2005; M UIJS et al. 2005; W ADE / M ARSHALL 2009), and is surveyed in two special issues of Language Learning Journal (37: 2, July 2009, and 38: 2, July 2010). These studies have generally discussed similar themes. Schools are frequently very enthusiastic about the introduction of languages, but concerned about the availability of staff with the needed language proficiency and methodological skills, and the provision of staff training (H UNT et al. 2005). Government investment has partly addressed these problems, but most trainee teachers still do not study foreign language pedagogy, and therefore schools perceive a continuing need for ongoing staff development. The curriculum is crowded, and weekly language lessons typically last around 40 minutes, rather than the prescribed 60 minutes (C ABLE et al. 2010). Only some strands of the Key Stage 2 Framework are getting systematic attention (oracy most consistently so); assessment practice is undeveloped, and liaison with secondary schools is weak (J. J ONES 2010). C ABLE et al. (2010) studied a cohort of 40 ‘early adopter’ schools, i.e. primary schools which were already teaching languages to all year groups in Key Stage 2 by 60 Rosamond Mitchell 40 (2011) • Heft 1 2005. These schools were followed for three years (2006-2009), with regular visits to observe lessons, to interview a range of staff and children, to collect attitudinal data from children by questionnaire, and to assess their resulting foreign language proficiency. Like other primary studies, C ABLE et al. (2010) report extremely favourable attitudes towards languages on the part of participating teachers, who believed language learning was promoting an international ethos within the school, providing opportunities for intercultural learning, and building children’s confidence in speaking and listening across the curriculum. Children’s attitudes reflected in questionnaire responses were also generally very favourable, though with some decline from age 8 to age 11 (see Table 3 below). Over 90 per cent of Year 5 and 6 children said they wanted to visit the target language country, and over 75 per cent agreed they were “looking forward” to learning more of the language. However, children’s responses in both focus groups and questionnaires also showed quite strong belief in the instrumental and communicative uses of languages. Typical Year 6 focus group comments included: We’re going to have a French or German person staying with us on an exchange and it would be good if you knew the language. If you go to another country on holiday you need to know how to speak, and if you speak the language that you use where you live in your normal country it’s an insult to them ... you’re basically saying ‘oh I can’t be bothered to learn your language, I’m just going to speak English’. It is interesting to compare these young learner comments, essentially imagining future scenarios where they expect a language to be useful, with the greater scepticism expressed by older and more experienced learners in the motivation surveys cited earlier, regarding the usefulness of foreign languages for English speakers. Year Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 2006/ 07 % (n=136) % (n=139) % (n=141) % (n=142) Yes Sometimes No 81.6 16.9 1.5 71.7 25.4 2.9 69.5 28.4 2.1 58.5 38.7 2.8 2007/ 08 % (n=144) % (n=146) % (n=152) % (n=143) Yes Sometimes No 86.7 13.3 0.0 75.3 24.0 0.7 73.7 24.3 2.0 69.2 28.7 2.1 Table 3: “Do you enjoy languages? ” (Questionnaire data, adapted from C ABLE et al. 2010) In terms of classroom pedagogy, the lessons observed by C ABLE et al. (2010) were primarily concerned with promoting listening and speaking, with an emphasis on ‘fun’ Still gardening in a gale: Policy, research and practice in foreign language education … 61 40 (2011) • Heft 1 activities (working with realia, visuals and DVDs, games, songs etc). The attention being paid to target language literacy and to intercultural understanding (ICU) was considerably less; it seemed that ICU in particular was largely promoted through periodic events such as visits, special celebratory days, and links with schools in other countries. (However, a recent study of a video link-up project shows a one-sided focus on language proficiency development, rather than on ICU, cf. P RITCHARD / H UNT / B ARNES 2010). Progression in ICU, from the learning of basic facts about one or more target countries, towards development of empathy and reflection on the home culture, was not clearly conceptualised. Literacy activities included story-reading as well as some study of target language phonics, but these rarely constituted a coherent scheme which seemed likely to create autonomous readers. Children’s attainment was measured partly with Asset Languages tests, and partly with group tasks devised by the research team (see C ABLE et al. 2010, chapter 6). Learning outcomes were mixed, though some improvement was seen over the 3 years of this longitudinal study. Not surprisingly, given the limited amount of teaching time available, only a minority were judged by the research team as having reached the equivalent of Band A1 on the CEFR. Schools themselves were not conducting much formal assessment; quite a few teachers expressed fears that more formalised assessment, as happens for core National Curriculum subjects, might undermine the ‘fun’ aspect of language learning. However, they were also concerned that transition to secondary school was not (yet) working smoothly for languages, and acknowledged that greater coordination was needed. (Of course, the very different origins and nature of the respective Framework documents for Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 described above in Section 2, presented added challenges for transition.) 3.3 Research on language learning strategies The two foregoing subsections have dealt with research on foreign language education which can best be described as ‘reactive’. That is to say, research on motivation has been driven largely by concerns about low motivation and decline in numbers studying languages, and the wish to identify effective means of combating these. Research on primary languages has accompanied the policy initiatives in this area of the early 2000s, and has broadly performed an evaluative function. In this subsection we show that British foreign language education research can also be proactive, by examining recent work in the area of language learning strategies. This work has benefited from the creation of the research group “UK Project on Learner Strategies” (UKPOLLS, see G RENFELL 2007). This group has promoted projects, conferences and publications around the learning strategies theme (for details see their website at http: / / ukpolls.net/ index.html), and has contributed to theoretical conceptualisations of learning strategies (e.g. M ACARO 2006). A distinctive feature of UKPOLLS’ work is its focus on younger learners than is typical of strategy research. The work illustrated here deals with learners’ strategy awareness, and strategy training. 62 Rosamond Mitchell 40 (2011) • Heft 1 We saw in an earlier section that the reasonably well motivated learners of French and German aged 12 and 14 studied by W ILLIAMS / B URDEN / L ANVERS (2002) had low levels of metacognitive awareness about their learning. UKPOLLS studies of this age have found similar results. G ALLAGHER -B RETT (2007) reported a small scale questionnaire study of 14 year old learners of German, which explored their awareness of strategies for speaking. The learners chose ‘practice’ and ‘revision’ as their most popular strategies. However, they also reported reluctance to speak in class, and this seemed connected to high levels of anxiety and lack of confidence when speaking, i.e. poorly developed affective strategies. E RLER (2007) developed a questionnaire suitable to explore the reading strategies used by Year 7 learners (age 12). This was used by M ACARO / E RLER (2008) to identify the most popular strategies of Year 7 learners (prior to strategy instruction), which were: • Try to understand each word • Wait for the teacher to explain the text • Ask the teacher • Ask a friend • Guess from the pictures. M ACARO (2007) conducted another small scale longitudinal study of the writing strategies used by learners of French, tracking them from Year 7 (age 12) until year 8 (age 13). These learners were asked to undertake some simple writing tasks - copywriting and free composition - and were interviewed about the writing strategies they had employed. When copywriting, which they generally did successfully, it seemed most learners tried to extract some meaning from the target word or phrase. They then tried to construct a phonological representation of the target (i.e. to read it aloud), and then proceeded to copywrite. However their poor command of French phoneme-grapheme correspondences meant that they concluded the exercise by reverting to a letter by letter checking process, comparing the target and their own rendition. By comparison with copywriting, free composition was evidently an unfamiliar practice for the learners. Most of them tried to retrieve previously learned set phrases broadly related to the topic they had chosen, and to transcribe these; few of them demonstrated the composing and monitoring strategies which would allow them to write creatively and convey personal/ original meanings. Overall, these UKPOLLS studies show early language learners to be using a very limited range of cognitive strategies to support target language use. However, further studies show that strategy training interventions with similar learners can produce positive results. After a limited amount of strategy instruction (SI), spread over time, M ACARO / E RLER (2008) could show that the reading strategies used by Year 7 learners in their ‘intervention’ group had changed, so that they could be more self-reliant: • Scan for familiar words and use them to guess meaning • Try to understand each word • Scan for English-like words and use them to guess meaning Still gardening in a gale: Policy, research and practice in foreign language education … 63 40 (2011) • Heft 1 • Guess from the pictures • Go back and double-check for sense. A study by H ARRIS (2007) confirmed that SI with Year 8 learners (age 13) produced benefits for student learning outcomes in both reading and listening. However, Harris was also interested in learners’ reactions to the SI itself, and found they perceived training in reading strategies more accessible and useful than training in listening strategies. Some learners reported strategy training exercises to be ‘boring’, and ‘confusing’, while others found contradictions between the strategies they personally found helpful, and those being promoted through SI. More work is clearly needed, as Harris argues, on effective SI for this age group. Similarly, G RAHAM / M ACARO (2007) report a project which developed and trialled a set of SI materials for listening and writing with somewhat older (A Level) students of French, who might in principle be expected to be more receptive to SI. Overall, the materials were favourably received by teachers and students, though striking a balance between SI and ‘normal teaching activities’ proved problematic in some cases, and teachers and students found the introduction of SI at this relatively advanced stage in their learning career somewhat disruptive of well established teaching and learning routines. These researchers therefore argue for the integration of SI into the curriculum for younger learners. (In the policy section of this paper we have noted references to learning strategies in e.g. the Key Stage 2 Framework, but the observational studies of primary languages do not report any systematic SI.) 4. Conclusion: the impact of research This paper has described a long term struggle by educational policymakers and also by language learning researchers to make sense of foreign language education in a setting where the instrumental value attaching to foreign language learning is low. The survey has also shown that links between policy, research and practice remain systemically weak. In local experiments, researchers have shown how classroom innovations such as e.g. strategy instruction, task-based instruction, and out-of-class links with businesses and partner schools, can improve both language learning and motivation in English schools, at least to some degree. However, while learning is managed top-down through the achievement of outcomes-focussed National Curriculum levels, and schools are held publicly accountable for their examination results, the limited class time available in English schools for foreign languages will remain dominated by assessment requirements; system-wide innovation in curriculum and/ or pedagogy is correspondingly harder to achieve. The growth of primary languages in the 2000s, without tough regulation through assessment, gives a hopeful indication of how a more process-oriented approach to language education can succeed in promoting and sustaining motivation and learner confidence. Even at secondary school level, current research offers many ideas on how the curriculum and the assessment system itself could change to suit current circumstances 64 Rosamond Mitchell 40 (2011) • Heft 1 better, whether through re-balancing the attention given to the ‘four skills’ and to accuracy vs fluency, or giving greater priority to dimensions such as learning strategies, language awareness, and intercultural understanding - including acknowledgement, very belatedly, of the increasingly multilingual nature of the school population in the UK. But the languages community in Britain needs political skills too, and must find the right moment to push for some such overall re-design of the foreign language education system, to better fit the distinctive circumstances of an Anglophone environment in a globalising century. Literature B ARTRAM , Brendan (2010): Attitudes to Modern Foreign Language Learning. London: Continuum. 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