ALL Briefing No. 45 Date: July 2025
Background: Language Trends is the annual review of trends in Languages Education commissioned by the British Council.
Key messages: The report identifies these headlines findings for 2025:
- At primary level, French continues to be the most widely taught language.
- No reported improvements with regards to primary-secondary transition.
- Spanish has overtaken French as the most popular GCSE language, while access to German is close to disappearing in less affluent school settings.
- Uptake for Modern Languages GCSEs is more than 20% higher in the most affluent state-funded schools.
- State-funded (60+%) and independent schools (50+%) report difficulties recruiting language teachers.
- While last year’s data has shown a slight increase in A-level uptake, small class sizes challenge longer-term sustainability of such courses.
Points for reflection / action:
Primary-Secondary Contact 49% of state Primary schools have contact with a local state secondary school in relation to language learning.
What could we / should we do to increase contact between local state primary and secondary schools to enhance the languages experience and give languages better continuity from KS2-KS3? Let ALL know, email: [email protected] subject ‘KS2-KS3’
AI (Artificial Intelligence) for language teaching has not been widely adopted by primary and secondary teachers.
What should ALL offer to help upskill languages teachers (and their learners) in using AI as a force for good in the languages teacher toolkit and classroom? Let ALL know, email: [email protected] subject ‘AI for language teaching’
International Engagement
One of the most positive features in this year’s Language report is international engagement. This year’s report finds that schools have returned to offering international opportunities nearly at pre-pandemic level. Most of those schools have not utilised the available Turing funding.
Can you share stories or strategies to raise awareness and access to Turing Funding and enable more schools to further increase international engagement? Let ALL know, email: [email protected] subject ‘Turing’
You can read this Teacher Briefing in full here: Teacher Briefing 45 Language Trends England 2025v