Skip to main content

Monolingualism in Britain

In 2016, the UK was chosen as the worst country in Europe at learning other languages. Coincidentally, that was also the year in which 17 million people voted to leave the European Union in the Brexit referendum, triggering a political earthquake that continues to be felt today. Politics aside, though, why are Britons notoriously bad at learning another language? It's not an easy question to answer, but in this post I will attempt to do just that.

Anyone who has watched the first episode of the Netflix series “Red Rose” will have seen a group of sixteen-year-old school leavers in the north of England celebrate not having to endure any more “boring” French lessons. This scene stayed with me, one reason being that I, on the contrary, enjoyed learning French at school, although there were times when I was expected to memorise long lists of verb conjugations, a rather dull process that is best avoided, in my opinion. Schools in the UK now allow pupils to opt out of modern languages at GCSE level, a move which seems to support the view that native speakers of English don't need to know another language. Yes, English is a global language, but does that really give you an excuse? Spanish is also widely spoken. Do Spanish speakers eschew learning English for that reason?

Journalists and academics point to the conclusion that there is a monolingual mindset in Britain, and it is rooted in the country's history. Anglo-Saxon culture came to dominate much of the island of Great Britain, and English evolved and became the language of power and influence, which then spread to colonies overseas. Wikipedia gives an eloquent perspective: “The predominance of English in many sectors, such as world trade, technology and science, has contributed to English-speaking societies being persistently monolingual.” There is a joke about Americans which could also apply to the British. What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. And someone who speaks one language? American.

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, I was involved in an online discussion about popular activities among Britons during the first lockdown. I asked if anyone had spent time learning another language, like Spanish. One man replied that learning to ride a unicycle would be more useful. And there you have it. Never mind the professional and cultural benefits of learning a language spoken by half-a-billion people worldwide! His attitude is by no means uncommon.

Admittedly, I didn't bother much with languages after studying GCSE German and French. It wasn't until I arrived in Poland in my late twenties that I decided to immerse myself in another language. Since then, I've gained a wealth of knowledge about Polish and Slavic languages in general, and I'm glad to say that my level of Polish is around B1, which means I can communicate in a variety of contexts. It also means that I have a better understanding of the challenges faced by Polish people learning English, how their mother tongue influences their speech, and so on.

The British may be largely reluctant to speak a language other than English; however, there are many people who, like me, are trying to buck the trend.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Robots Are Coming

Much has been written recently about AI and its potential to profoundly alter the course of human history. Such warnings tend to evoke a certain science fiction film in which humanity fights for survival in a future world dominated by machines. But if I can divert your attention away from the Terminator franchise for a few moments, I'd like to present you with some research on artificial intelligence in the world of ELT. In a recent survey conducted by the British Council , teachers were asked if they agreed with the statement “AI and automated translation will eventually make learning languages unnecessary.” Reassuringly, a significant majority disagreed. Teachers' jobs seem safe for now, although some private schools in Europe may have seen a drop in the number of students of late, probably due to the economic climate. The way I see it, AI offers more opportunities to improve speaking and writing, in addition to what a flesh-and-blood teacher does. Furthermore, teachers can u...
Post a Comment
Read more

Three Tips for Learners

When not teaching English, I try to teach myself a little Polish or Spanish. It's the former I struggle with more. Polish is a highly inflected language and even simple utterances can invoke several grammar rules. Translate the sentence 'I drink green tea', for example, where there is a subject followed by a verb, an adjective and finally a noun. In Polish, you not only conjugate the verb, but also make the adjective agree with the gender of the noun AND change the endings of both of those words as they constitute the object of the verb. Do you see what people mean when they say that Polish is a hard language to learn? I know I'll never speak the language perfectly, but no one is asking me to. Therein lies a problem when it comes to language learners' expectations: Some people want perfection; they want to be fluent and flawless. Very often, though, you can't be both. You might speak English fluently, but make a lot of mistakes. On the other hand, you might spea...
Post a Comment
Read more

Introducing Shakespeare

A train threads its way through the darkening suburbs of Liverpool as bright orange flames leap up from people's gardens. It's Bonfire Night, and my fellow drama students and I are going to see Macbeth at the Royal Court Theatre. There's some excited chatter about the prospect of seeing Pete Postlethwaite in the lead role. Other than that, my memories of that evening are rather blurry, hardly surprising when you consider that it was more than twenty-five years ago. For anyone not familiar with English customs, Bonfire Night takes place annually on the fifth of November and commemorates the failed plot to destroy the Houses of Parliament in 1605. It is believed that William Shakespeare's play Macbeth was performed for the first time in 1606, so it's quite possible that the famous playwright was working on it when Guy Fawkes, a chief conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, was discovered in a cellar underneath Parliament along with dozens of barrels of gunpowder. Natural...
Post a Comment
Read more