University Language Policy and Planning in the United Kingdom: Modern Foreign Languages Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Government language policy in English-speaking countries has rarely focused on language learning at universities, and policy documents are almost silent on universities’ role in realising language policy aims. This uses publicly available information about universities language practices in the form of information provided to students about language learning and its place in degree programmes. The focus of the chapter is to examine broadly how UK universities provide for education in Modern Languages and the ways that universities offer languages to their students, examining the ways languages are positioned in the curriculum of universities and the nature of the programmes made available as a way of understanding the implicit policies of universities in language provision. The chapter shows that policies about educational provision tend to be highly diverse across institutions, but that languages tend to be more valued at prestigious academically oriented institutions and less valued at professionally oriented institutions. Moreover, languages are largely positioned as specialist academic knowledge and do not seem to be closely connected to universities’ policies about internationalisation or graduate employability. Overall the policies of UK universities reveal a profoundly monolingual habitus that informs universities’ decision-making.