Speaking at the Hay literary festival on Friday, a panel including Cardiff University professor Claire Gorrara and linguist Teresa Tinsley, said that Britons had too long relied on a false belief that English was the world’s lingua franca. Only 6% of the global population are native English speakers, with 75% of the world unable to speak English at all. But three-quarters of UK residents can only speak English. [...]
The same report also found that there was a “growing language deficit” in the UK, which is expected only to grow post-Brexit because the UK’s £1bn “language industry” – including services such as translation and interpreting – already heavily relies on EU citizens, whose expertise may become harder to access.
Speaking at Hay, Tinsley said that in forthcoming research commissioned by the British Council, due to be published next month, a survey of around 700 modern-language teachers in England found that a third felt Brexit had resulted in a negative attitude towards learning foreign languages in their school, among both parents and pupils.
No comments:
Post a Comment