Latest News

A close up on film... The European Day of Languages on film 26 September is the European Day of Languages, so to tie in with this event and help schools celebrate linguistic diversity, ALL has teamed up with FILMCLUB to put together an enrichment resource featuring...

Good news but more action needed Today’s GCSE news has been greeted with cautious optimism by ALL officers and members. It provides a spark of hope after the disappointing A level languages statistics last week and recent stories in the media that recruiting...

The Headlines: Across all subjects, entries for A-Levels are down by 1.3% compared to 2012. A-Level language entries (including Irish and Welsh) have fallen by 5% overall - they now make up only 3.9% of all subject entries (3.8% discounting Irish and Welsh) French and...

Languages entries are up significantly (likely to be due to impact of EBacc). German up 9.4%, French 15.5%, Spanish 25.8%. Increase in other MLs as well. 44% of cohort took a language. Follow our website today for further analysis and comment.

Entries There has been a significant rise in the number of GCSE entries for languages in 2013 - Main languages taught: up 16.9% overall, with French up 15.5%, German 9.4%, Spanish 25.8%. - Other Modern Languages: up 5.1% but this compares to a much higher rise last...

A British Chambers of Commerce survey released in June shows that more and more British firms wish to export goods abroad, but a shortfall in language skills and exporting know-how in the business community is preventing them from doing so. Knowledge of other...

Curriculum Update The Secretary of State for Education, the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, has today launched a statutory consultation on the draft legislative Order for the new national curriculum. The most important change regarding languages has been the removal of the...

New GCSEs in Modern Foreign Languages and Ancient Languages The subject content and assessment objectives for new GCSEs in Modern Foreign Languages and Ancient Languages have now been published. These are the criteria that Ofqual will use to regulate and...

CfBT Education Trust has now published the results of the Language Trends Survey 2012, a national survey of primary and secondary schools, revealing the multiple challenges for languages within the new English National Curriculum. The ‘Language Trends’...

The CILT Library collections have, through action coordinated by ALL and partners been conserved for future generations. At Easter 2011 CILT - the National Centre for Languages was required to merge with CfBT and moved its operations from London to Reading. The...

Your Association needs you! Nominations are now open for the following positions in ALL for the period 2013-2016: • ALL (Executive) Council members (three year term of office from 1 September 2013) These are important roles within ALL and give full individual...

Just to say… thank you! ALL is an educational charity with a very small salaried staff of just four in its main office. We rely on volunteers across the UK to help us to provide so much of what we do – organising, running and speaking at events, locally,...

Last week’s announcements on the draft National Curriculum for England, Michael Gove’s U-turn on the EBacc Certificates and the news of further consultation on performance measures at Key Stage 4 (the EBacc) have been received by officers and members of...

The BBC languages website (bbc.co.uk/languages) is no longer being maintained, as a notice on the site indicates. ALL contacted the BBC's Controller of Learning, Saul Nasse, who stated that the BBC is creating a new online area to contain its educational content, and...

In their recent report, Languages: The State of the Nation, the British Academy has warned of a "vicious circle of monolingualism" despite rising global demand for language skills: as too few UK students are studying too narrow a range of courses at...

The European Language Label is an award for innovative language-learning projects open to all languages. It is funded by the EU Commission and has been running for over 10 years with great success in all EU member states. In the UK, the Label is managed by CfBT...

Bad weather did not stop play at the ALL London January Event @ SOAS, 19 Jan 2013 “At this event I was looking for help with running a Swahili workshop in Tanzania and materials on water use in various languages – and I found both,” a delegate said....

Originally funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the Home Language Accreditation Project (HoLA) in Sheffield aims to assist bilingual children gain qualifications in their home language. The project hopes to develop relationships between community language schools and...

Translation Nation is a project of the Eastside Educational Trust, an award winning arts education charity, which offers creative learning projects for children and young people. The Trust works in schools across the South-East of England, and is dedicated to...

Newly elected member of the ALL Executive Council, Teresa Tinsley, sums up for members the latest edition of the CBI’s Education and Skills Survey, Building for Growth, which underlines the need for better foreign language skills in the workforce.   Please...