cpnlsn88 wrote:I think the UK needs a profound rethink of language education in order to turn the situation around.
Firstly we massively overvalue what language education can achieve. Certainly we don't produce near native speakers at 16 or even 18 or even after 4 years of University.
Formal education offers nowhere near enough input to come to any where near C1 or C2. Lower levels are however in reach if we would be more realistic. Lots of pleasurable input could lead to marked improvement for those interested.
Much harder for the UK because of the prevalence of English internationally. School level education can help to introduce languages and introduce to touristic usage (nothing wrong with that), but to go a lot further requires huge levels of input that are not feasible or appropriate for most people. The biggest danger is to leave young people in compulsory education with negative feelings about languages (same for other subjects - sports teaching that puts you off any form of sport; literature study that puts you off reading for life and so on).
I think (for the UK at any rate) formal education should really lower its sights but I think language learning in general is more important so that those wanting to go further can access comprehensible input to improve..
I agree some readjustment of expectations is required. After spending a lot of time in Asia, where many people learn English for many years at school, fluency in English is also very difficult unless there has been extra external support.
Perhaps the expectations st 16 years old should be changed to "we aim to provide a working knowledge of the basics of the language and a platform to move onwards to advanced studies and lifelong learning".