Foreign Language Study and Language Awareness

Twenty-five years ago, Language Awareness (LA) was put forward, primarily by modern linguists, as a new 'bridging' element in the UK school curriculum. It was viewed as a solution to several of the failures in UK schools: illiteracy in English, failure to learn foreign languages, and divisive prejudices. The intervening years have inevitably seen a number of developments that cause us to reflect further on the need for foreign language teachers and other teachers to cooperate. Three relevant issues are discussed here. Firstly, natural approaches to foreign language learning, bolstered by the Chomskyan notion of the Language Acquisition Device, prompted a taboo during the 1970s and 1980s on formal language instruction and talk about language. Secondly, the recent emphasis on foreign languages as useful skills rather than part of education has also led attention away from the wider value of awareness. Thirdly, the fact that UK university students are choosing more and more to pursue a different foreign language from that studied at school highlights the unpredictability, especially in English-speaking countries, of a pupil's future language needs. LA can address this growing phenomenon as part of a progressive 'language apprenticeship'.