Report on 'Language Policies in the Isles'

Conference at Stirling University, Monday Jan 22nd 2001.

Conference at Stirling University, Monday Jan 22^nd 2001.

Including the Scottish launch of the European Year of Languages 2001.

This was the first day of a 2-day meeting supported by the European Commission and the Council of Europe and by the UK CILT- Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research, who all sent speakers.

It was timed to coincide with the second national launch across the European Community of the European Year of Languages.

A number of projects and reports (see abstracts) in Scotland during the last year laid the background to the conference which covered-

• Modern Languages- policy in each of the UK regions;
• Community Languages- including those with a small ‘c’ as in immigrant populations, sign language, etc., and those with a large ‘C’ as in those spoken as official EEC languages; and
• Heritage Languages as in Gaelic, Welsh etc.

The Scottish launch of EYL was let into the programme, and the Minister for Education, Europe, and External Affairs, Jack McConnell, attended to officiate and give his support along with the other conference sponsors.

The second day went on to discuss multilingualism in schools, and form conclusions from the meeting.

Day 1 started with introductory speakers from the 3 sponsoring organisations- the Council of Europe, the European Commission, and (UK)CILT- Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research. They highlighted the reasons and importance of EYL and the various projects that each organisation was involved in. These were:

• The Language Passport and the European Framework (Council of Europe)
• New web-site: www.eurolang2001.org, COMENIUS, SOCRATES, etc. (EC)
• The Languages Challenge (CILT)

The Keynote speaker, Joe Lo Bianco, gave a very wide-ranging discourse on the effects of the global economy on the spread of languages and the different pressures on their proliferation or survival. He described the history of the development of language in response to governance and politics in the past and present, and covered some of the theories of academic linguists as to the future of nation states depending on their languages. He also discussed how different languages can coexist in a multifunctional way, and how multilingualism dates back to ancient civilisations and governments. He illustrated the effects of migration, cultural dominance, and government policies on the fate of indigenous world languages and gave figures about the number and distribution across the continents. (Europe accounts for only 3%, Asia, 32%). He discussed how Australia had reversed negative policies and increased exam entries in 2^nd languages at year 12 from 5% in 1987 to 45%, now the highest ever. His paper will be published and Scottish CILT and CILT will make conference papers available on their web-sites: www.stir.ac.uk/Departments/HumanSciences/SCILT/ and www.cilt.org.uk/

The programme continued with presentations on Language policy in each of the UK regions- with Lid King describing that for Modern Language and community languages in England and Wales, and the raft of publications ending with the recent Nuffield Language Report in May 2000. John Mulgrew spoke about the recent review in Scotland and his Action Group report in December 2000, which the minister has received well and will respond to by March. The Northern Ireland presentation was postponed due to time constraints and we progressed to the EYL launch by the minister.

SCILT had prepared a video on various language projects by local authorities, including teaching sign language and bilingual story telling. The launch promoted the Language Challenge- aiming to involve the whole public in learning a new language this year. Jack McConnell is learning French.

The afternoon started with community languages. (NB small c)

Arturo Tosi spoke about how changing the name of the National Council for Mother Tongue Teaching to the Council for Community Languages, had changed its status and focus. Community language teaching had suffered by having standards and pedagogy more suited to Modern Languages forced upon it. For example the Italian syllabus for native speakers was based on the French syllabus and taught outside the curriculum; colloquial usage was continually ‘corrected’. Italian is now a (European) Community as well as a community language, and this has helped its status above other ethnic language teaching. The UK government has an inconsistent record of supporting the provision of bilingual education and had shifted responsibility for teaching community languages onto the communities and families. We are still trying to correct such damage.

Jeff McWhinney of the BDA gave a fascinating signed presentation on sign language, through an interpreter. There is a very long history of different national sign languages, there is biblical reference, and the first book about signing was published in 1644. In the past whole communities would learn to sign to deaf members, and there was no difficulty in individuals following skilled and learned careers as barristers, politicians, scientists and head teachers. Braidwood’s bilingual school in Edinburgh taught in BSL and English throughout the C18 ad C19. In 1880 the Milan Conference decided to ban sign language and force the deaf to conform to standards of spoken languages. In 1889 a Royal Commission in the UK ratified the ban, and within a week a head teacher in Yorkshire was sacked from his job. He became a founder member of the BDA in 1890. Research in the 1970s revealed that deaf school leavers had an average reading age of 8 and three quarters, and that 90 years of oral teaching had failed. To lip-read, one needed to have the rudiments of spoken English, but signing has a very different and complex grammar. After this research things have improved, but there is still a major fight to have sign language recognised and supported by both national European governments. The Council of Europe have a Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, but refuse to recognise sign languages and told 3 governments to remove them from their approved lists. Deaf people see it as a Human Rights issue but it is regularly consigned to the Disability Rights Commission.

He gave some amusing anecdotes of the current day advantages of signing- a Bristol football coach, the Israeli army, distance communications and where sound sensitive equipment is being used, and sub-aqua. It is the most popular evening class, and the commonest second language in the UK.

The rest of the programme covered Heritage Languages – Scottish and Irish Gaelic, Scots and Welsh but I was unable to stay.

ABSTRACT

Languages Policy in the Isles: Introduction to the Conference

Scotland has seen considerable activity in relation to languages policy in the last year:

• The SCOTLANG project, designed to enhance the research infrastructure for research into languages learning and teaching in Scotland, was initiated at Scottish CILT just over a year ago.
• In December 1999, the Centre for Education for Racial Equality launched a policy paper on community languages and bilingualism in the context of a devolved Scotland.
• As with the rest of the UK, the publication of the Nuffield Report in May 2000 has implications for our understanding of the language capability needs of Scotland in the 21^st century and how these can be met.
• The National Cultural Strategy published by the Scottish Parliament earlier this year stresses the value of cultural and linguistic diversity in Scotland and, among a range of proposals, includes a feasibility study into the setting up of a centre for the languages of Scotland (Gaelic and Scots) and the setting up of an Action Group to investigate ways of celebrating and enhancing provision for the cultures and languages of newer ethnic groups in Scotland.
• In December 2000, the report of the Action Group for Languages, which has reviewed provision for languages education in schools, was launched.

These activities are undoubtedly mirrored elsewhere in the isles. However, the advantages of devolution, which have enabled us to take a fresh look at languages within Scottish also mean that we are less familiar with developments elsewhere. We suppose that this is the case for researchers, policy makers and practitioners in other parts of the isles and for those working in different sectors.

The aim of this conference is to develop strategic thinking in an area currently fragmented across linguistic and ‘national’ boundaries. Participants will be able to share their knowledge and understanding of their own areas of activity and learn from others’ experiences.

Academic and professional speakers from Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, with research and policy expertise in ‘modern’ languages, ‘community’ languages, ‘heritage’ languages and in multilingualism have been invited to present papers addressing the following questions:

• What are the aims and features of current policy in your field?
• Who determines policy?
• Who benefits and who loses out?
• What developments in current policy are likely/ desirable?
• How might policy in your field benefit from links with other language fields or from greater understanding of developments throughout the year?

We hope that the conference will identify obstacles and opportunities for ‘joined-up thinking’ in policy across the isles and that the implications at national level and within the wider context of the isles and of Europe can be explored.