Cold spots
New article on cold spots in language degree provision in England, open access:
Language Learning Journal
On LinkedIn author Prof. Becky Muradas- Taylor extracts these key points:
- There is a lot of interest in language learning in the UK – we have more people learning two or more languages on Duolingo than almost any other country in the world, thousands of people attend City of Languages events, and new language degree programmes continue to be launched.
- Among English universities, the focus of the research, there are cold spots in the South West for British Sign Language, Japanese and Korean, and a cold spot in the Midlands for Arabic and Japanese – areas of the country more than a commutable distance away from a university offering these languages.
- For lower tariff universities, there is clustering in the South East for German and
Italian. The North East has very poor provision and there are no lower tariff universities offering languages in the South West. Of the 73 universities with entry tariffs below 136 UCAS points (AAB), only 22 offer languages. - Cold spots are a social justice issue because they disproportionately affect people who can’t afford to leave home, or need to stay with family because of disabilities, caring responsibilities or other reasons.
- A targeted government fund to enable universities in cold spots to open language degrees could eliminate the cold spots, making language degrees accessible to all.
- The article includes cold spot maps for each language that universities can use if they are considering expanding their language provision or campaigning against closure.