How can we move from cold spots to hot spots? Learning from current practices which nurture languages education in the four nations of the United Kingdom

Jo Biddle and Jane Andrews
1 day ago
5 min read

Updated: 17 hours ago

Jo Biddle and Jane Andrews | 9th July 2025 | Opinion Piece

In this opinion piece, Jo Biddle and Jane Andrews consider a small set of examples of close-to-practice research from the four nations of the UK to learn from initiatives which have potential to be transferred into new contexts. Our focus on existing practices seeks to support the move from language education cold spots to hot spots.

Introduction

Marsden and Hawkes (2024) call for more curiosity-driven interactions between language practitioners, researchers and policy makers, signalling the need for continued efforts to tackle the well-documented challenges apparent in UK languages education. One approach could be to bring together different voices and accounts of practice from the four nations of the UK as a way of learning from what the British Educational Research Association (BERA) have named close-to-practice (CtP) research (BERA, 2018). CtP research involves collaborations between practitioners and researchers to better understand or improve initiatives and practices that are already taking place. We value the importance CtP research places on the context in which the research takes place, recognising distinctive language policies in place as well as socio-economic, geographical and political characteristics, all of which influence the educational practices being studied.

This opinion piece considers a selection of CtP studies of languages education conducted in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, acknowledging the distinctive linguistic and policy-related characteristics of each. We conclude with our reflections on these initiatives and what may be transferred to new contexts to bring benefits to language learners, educators, communities and wider society. We begin with a brief statement about our positionalities.

We are currently university-based lecturers in the south-west of England, noted as a “cold spot” for school-based languages education (Ayres-Bennett & Forsdick, 2024). Our prior experiences have covered teaching ML, EAL and EFL, in a variety of countries including Wales and England.

Learning from Current Practices in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England

We now draw on four examples of CtP research, each of which illustrates a proactive approach to addressing one of the multiple challenges evident in language education currently. These approaches are, in order, i) a way of addressing a shortage of staff expertise; ii) tackling the decline in uptake of languages through the provision of mentoring support for young people, iii) connecting language learning in school with the linguistic diversity present in learners’ families and communities, and iv) raising awareness of the interconnectedness between languages and identities in language teaching in secondary schools.

Regular curriculum reviews across the four nations of the UK update requirements for languages education and yet there remain ongoing challenges as to how to staff the expected provision. One approach to staffing, within the primary school sector in Scotland, has been documented in an ethnographic study conducted by Bonacina-Pugh & Zhang (2023). This study’s vignettes of classroom practice show a co-teaching model where a volunteer Mandarin speaker works alongside a trained, mainstream primary school teacher in a symbiotic teaching relationship, each playing to their respective strength in terms of linguistic expertise and pedagogic skills. While a reliance on volunteer staff could be critiqued, the model of collaborative provision documented in this study could offer a way of working in other educational contexts. With appropriate funding and support, a co-teaching model could draw upon the linguistic resources within communities across the UK, recognising what Phipps (2017) has called language plenty, in our multilingual society.

Gorrara, Jenkins & Mosley (2019) presented an approach to addressing the decline in young people choosing to study languages in Wales through the use of ML university student mentors working with young people in years 8 and 9 (ages 14-16). At the heart of this project has been the opportunity for learners and their university student mentors to develop supportive relationships in which a love of languages and cultures could be shared.

In the Northern Ireland context, a priority is identified by Henderson & Carruthers (2022: 727) as being the need to support “pupils to make positive decisions around language continuation”. For Jones (2020), one way of securing access to the benefits offered by studying languages is for schools to make greater use of the expertise of multilingual families. An enhanced connection between languages used in homes and schools can contribute to building positive attitudes to languages from an early age and the valuing of diverse languages and cultural practices.

The pedagogy used in secondary school languages classrooms in England is the focus for the intervention research of Forbes et al (2021). Their work studied the impact of focusing upon identities in relation to the use, and learning, of languages, encompassing the learner’s own linguistic identity as well as the identities of others. This project sought to break out of the narrow focus on linguistic skill development traditionally prioritised in languages curricula and, instead, promote young people’s investment in languages and reflexivity towards their own and others’ multilingual skills and identities.

Conclusion

This opinion piece has highlighted some initiatives already taking place in the UK. However, we believe that continued action is needed, if the well-known challenges in languages education are to be tackled effectively. Our review reports on CtP studies which have the potential to be transferred to other settings. The transfer of practices is needed if the languages cold spots are to be turned into hot spots. The work we reviewed clusters around connectivity within our diverse linguistic landscapes, between (i) families, communities and schools, (ii) language learners across sectors, and (iii) teachers, teacher educators and language education researchers. The mechanisms for transferring learning across policy contexts may lie in existing professional and research associations and networks. With a strong focus on accessibility of events (physically and financially) and reach (locally, nationaly and internationally), such groups have the potential to inspire innovation, collaboration and professional learning.

Reference

Phipps, Alison. 2017. Language Plenty, Refugees and the Post-Brexit World: New Practices from Scotland in Kelly, Michael (Ed.) Languages after Brexit: How the UK Speaks to the World London: Palgrave Macmillan

About the Authors

Jo Biddle is a modern languages (ML) graduate of French and Spanish holding a PGCE in Modern Languages and is a former Head of Department of Modern Languages and teacher of French, Spanish and German across all key stages in secondary and primary schools in Wales. Since 2018, she has been working in Initial Teacher Education at the University of the West of England on a ML secondary PGCE programme and also contributes ML content to primary teacher education programmes.

Jane Andrews is a ML graduate of French and Italian who trained as a secondary school teacher of TESOL/EAL and modern languages. Jane currently teaches and researches at the University of the West of England, working with undergraduate and doctoral students on multilingualism and learning.