Rather infamously Alan Hansen uttered the words: “you can’t win anything with kids”, but that is precisely where the biggest wins can be found in attempts to resuscitate the popularity of language learning.
The path towards a nationwide language resurgence is winding, but schemes like The Queen’s College Translation Exchange (QTE) show the way forward.
School children, primarily in Key Stage 2 and 3, attend sessions run by Oxford undergraduate students who pick the texts. Previously they’ve been tasked with translating graphic novels, poems and comics.
The emphasis lies in the process of creative translation, rather than “functional” translation.
In 2025, 22,000 students aged 11-18 took part in the college’s Anthea Bell Translation Prize and the 2025-2026 competition will run from Monday until 27 March.
Dr Charlotte Ryland, the founding director of The Queen’s College Translation Exchange, said: “We’re trying to present an alternative narrative to the doom and gloom.
“Doing linguistic work in the service of something creative and purposeful, which is what we think is missing from school curriculums.”
The prize has proved extremely popular since it’s 2018 origins and in 2025, QTE were able to add Russian language as their sixth language strand included in the translation prize.
Ryland said: “It’s a Russian language prize rather than Russian literature. So there’s texts from writers who are grew up in and lived in countries before the Soviet Union and that’s a really important part of how it is presented.”
Oxford University Professor of Brazilian Literature and Culture Claire Williams added: “Language teaching should be embedded in education, as it used to be.
“The earlier children start learning another language, the more they appreciate the nuances between languages, never mind not having the inhibitions that self-conscious teenagers do.”
In the 2023/24 academic year, less than half (46%) of eligible students in England opted for a language GCSE.
That is compared to 98% of upper secondary students in the EU who study a minimum of one foreign language, according to a recent University of Cambridge study.
QTE also values the languages spoken outside of the school gates, too.
Ryland said: “It’s so important. If we’re going to raise the profile of languages and language learning across the country, we have to start out there with the languages that are in our classrooms rooms, in our homes, and validate those.”
Although the government’s pledge to once again join Erasmus+ in 2027 is a step towards re-building bridges, modern foreign language provision remains in critical condition across the education spectrum in the UK.
A host of universities in the East Midlands are facing modern language course closures.
At the University of Nottingham, all undergraduate modern language degrees will be suspended under the proposed Phase 2 of Future Nottingham, which was announced on 6 November.
They would be the only Russell Group university not to offer modern languages. This unpopular decision comes as a result of the drastic reduction in applicants.
Moreover, the University of Leicester has also proposed closing their languages department and will not accept students from 2026/27 onwards.
Williams said: “I felt shock and disappointment at the short-sightedness of closures and the lack of investment in language-learning.”
Nottingham’s 2023/24 cycle only saw 42 applications to study BA Hons French, in comparison to Oxford University’s 331 applications for the same cycle.
At Oxford University, French still receives the highest number of applicants with 331 in 2024, with Spanish in second, having 226 applicants. However both these numbers have consistently dropped from 2021.
Total 2021 MML applicants (not including joint honours degree with subjects such as English) came to 1,017 in 2021 but fell by 18% by 2024 with 831 applicants, according to Oxford’s own faculty data.
Italian saw the greatest decline with an 84% decrease in applicants from 2021 to 2024.
With such a numerical disparity, the issue of a two-tiered university system manifests as a legitimate concern.
Williams said: “I’m really worried that this might happen, unless we start teaching languages at primary school, or capitalising on the multilingualism of primary schools.”
The QTE has made steps to address this regional disproportionality at secondary school level.
The translation exchange is currently working with six schools in the North West of England to pilot their Think like a Linguist programme.
Students in Blackpool and Rochdale are experiencing the programme that introduces children who live in more monoculture environments to language learning.
Even more worryingly, out of the students who have continued with languages at A-Level and receive university offers, even fewer actually accept to study them at a higher level.
According to the University of Nottingham’s own data, only less than 10% of students holding offers to study Hispanic Studies accepted in 2023/24 – four out of 42 students.
Williams said: “Perhaps more candidates will apply to Oxford. Hopefully they don’t decide that Modern Languages is not a ‘useful’ degree course.
“My students have learned valuable transferable skills: formulating a persuasive argument, intercultural criticism, close reading, confidence in expressing their ideas in several languages, time management, translation, to name a few.
“Knowing another language is cool, a superpower, not something to be ashamed of.”
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