Careers
6 December 2019 (Irish Times)
Some 3,000 students attended an event in Dublin’s Convention Centre aimed at highlighting the personal, social, professional and economic benefits of language learning.
While most Irish students study foreign languages in school, surveys show Irish adults lag behind other Europeans in language competence.
Karen Ruddock, director of Post Primary Languages Ireland, said the global dominance of English has given rise to the mistaken belief that “English is enough”.
This, she said, can result in complacency and a lack of motivation to learn other languages.
“Today’s event is about delivering a message that learning a foreign langauge will create more work opportunties, more chances to make friends and have great life experiences,” she said.
Read more...
6 December 2019 (SCILT)
The job profiles on our website cover a range of careers where languages are in use. Our most recent addition comes from Marion Geoffray, a theatre maker and drama teacher, who is the artistic director of Theatre Sans Accents, an innovative bilingual theatre company in Edinburgh.
Marion performs in several languages and believes immersing yourself in the language and culture is the most effective way to learn and to have fun!
Teachers use this resource with your pupils to support the Developing the Young Workforce initiative and highlight the benefits of language learning as a life skill.
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5 December 2019 (University of Stirling)
Over the course of this Autumn/Winter semester at Stirling, we’ve continued to develop our work with secondary schools, sometimes focusing primarily on French, sometimes working in collaboration with our colleagues in Spanish, always underlining the advantages that come through studying languages. We’re hoping to post a few more updates about these activities over the coming weeks and, to start with, we’re pleased to be able to post the following article, co-written by Laura, who is in the final year of a BA Hons in English Studies and French, and Michael, who is in Year 2 of his BA Hons programme in Professional Education (Primary) with a specialism in Modern Languages. Laura and Michael’s day saw them representing French at Stirling as Language Ambassadors at Williamwood High School in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire.
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19 November 2019 (Study International)
Does knowing more than one language really elevate your career prospects, allowing you to strategically position your talents in a competitive job market?
Citing numerous benefits of being multilingual, the British Academy considers language skills to be essential for thriving in the future of work and enhancing your professional and personal development.
In a shared statement, the British Academy, the Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Academy of Engineering all maintain that the “UK’s poor language capacity has resulted in the loss of economic, social, cultural, and research opportunities,” stating that, “The economic cost of the UK’s linguistic underperformance in terms of lost trade and investment has been estimated at 3.5 percent of GDP.”
President of the British Academy, David Cannadine, requests a step-change in the way the nation approaches language learning.
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8 November 2019 (SCILT)
We have job profiles on our website covering a wide range of careers where languages are in use. Our latest addition comes from Mark McLaughlin, a Researcher in International Law, whose language skills have enabled him to live and work in China. Mark tells us learning the language of the place you're living really helps you get an understanding of the country's culture.
Teachers use this resource with your pupils to support the Developing the Young Workforce initiative and highlight the benefits of language learning as a life skill.
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6 November 2019 (The Telegraph)
Your Year 9 French teacher was right: learning a language can open a lot of doors. Not only will your fluency allow you to travel to distant corners of the globe, but having a degree in a language can make you highly employable.
Mastering a language has always been impressive to employers: it shows tenacity and commitment, but can also come in handy if they work with overseas clients.
Now, language skills are more sought after than ever, given the potential impact of Brexit on British industry, according to the CBI/Pearson Education and Skills Report 2018. “The need for languages has been heightened by the UK’s departure from the European Union,” the report states.
The British Council has also stressed the need for young people to learn a foreign language in order for Britain to become a “truly global nation”. In their most recent Languages for the Future report in 2017, the British Council listed the following as the most important languages for the UK’s prosperity: Spanish, Mandarin, French, Arabic, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese and Russian.
Even though multilingualism is needed for the UK’s prosperity, just 1 in 3 Britons can hold a conversation in a foreign language, according to the report from the British Council.
So, those who can speak another language are more needed than ever - as is clear from the 2018 CBI/Pearson Education and Skills Report, which surveyed almost 500 British employers and calculated which languages are most desirable to them. The following are the results from that report and, thus, the best languages to study for graduate employment.
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20 October 2019 (The Scottish Sun)
Liam Henderson's Italian is coming on nicely — but brother Ewan reckons his success speaks for itself.
Celtic kid Ewan, 19, is following in Liam’s footsteps by coming through the ranks at Parkhead. Liam, 23, is playing for Hellas Verona in Serie A after helping them to promotion last season.
[...]“He’s taking Italian lessons and his language skills have improved a lot since he first went over.
“There aren’t many boys from Scotland who have gone over and done what he’s done. It shows it’s possible for Scottish players to try things like that."
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Making languages your business
18 October 2019 (SCILT)
The newly refurbished Ramshorn building at the University of Strathclyde played host to an important dialogue between the worlds of business and education recently. On 2 October, thirty-eight representatives from a range of industry sectors met with delegates from schools, further and higher education with the aim of improving the supply of language skills from education to the workplace and better matching the needs of the labour market. Sectors represented included tourism, engineering, manufacturing and law.
Delegates were welcomed to “Make languages your business” by Professor Sir Jim McDonald, Principal of the University of Strathclyde, who noted that it was now “imperative” that graduates are equipped with the necessary skills, in particular the ability to speak other languages, to operate on a global stage. The keynote speech was delivered by Ivan McKee MSP, Scottish Government Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation.
Mr McKee said: “Learning other languages facilitates cultural awareness and helps us make connections with people from around the world – skills that are crucial in the 21st century.
“If Scotland is to continue to compete on the world stage, we need our young people to be open to new technologies, to people and cultures from around the world and crucially to the changing ways of doing business. It is essential that we inspire children and young people to learn other languages and, through doing so, provide them with the knowledge and skills they need to help them take full advantage of the opportunities in our fast-changing world.”
In his plenary speech, Charandeep Singh, Deputy Chief Executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, made reference to Scotland’s wealth of linguistic diversity and outlined the importance of languages to companies and organisations looking to operate internationally.
The central part of the event consisted of a Q&A session, chaired by John Crawford of Scottish Development International. Panellists provided insights into the importance of language and intercultural skills in their careers, and how the capacity to engage with clients in their native languages has benefited their organisations.
“Make languages your business” was organised by SCILT, Scotland’s National Centre for Languages based at the University of Strathclyde. It is the culmination of the first phase of a three-year Erasmus+ project, “Generation Global”. At the event, SCILT launched an online toolkit to help Scottish businesses to grow their international markets and to develop the language and intercultural skills of their staff.
Fhiona Mackay, Director of SCILT said: “Erasmus+ funding has enabled SCILT to collaborate with its counterpart agencies in Norway and Denmark so that the Generation Global project could be realised. Each of the three countries working together can make a real difference to young people in Scotland and the other partner countries. Schools by themselves cannot be given sole responsibility for creating an appetite for language learning. It is when schools, universities and the world of industry and business come together that we can truly create a climate in which all languages are celebrated and language learning can flourish.”
The project is coordinated by SCILT on behalf of the Scottish Government Wider Engagement Network.
More information on Generation Global.
Access the Toolkit.
Meaningful employer engagement and the provision of relevant careers advice are key recommendations of Scotland’s Youth Employment Strategy, “Developing the young workforce”.
This collaboration between education and businesses supports Scotland’s International Policy to equip young people with communication and employability skills that they will need in our increasingly globalised society and economy.
The panellists for the Q&A session were Dr Jonathan Downie (Integrity Languages), Andrew Gillespie (ACE Aquatec), Mark Pentleton (Radio Lingua) and Paul Sheerin (Scottish Engineering).
21 September 2019 (The Times)
They come for castles, clan history and clootie dumpling only to be thwarted by the language barrier.
Crowds of Chinese tourists who travel thousands of miles to visit Scotland every year are being wooed by canny restaurateurs and retailers keen to help them spend their currency and now Roy Brett, owner and head chef at the Ondine seafood bar, is looking for Mandarin-speaking serving staff.
Subscription required to read full article
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13 September 2019 (The Economist)
Unemployed Londoners hoping to work for Gucci, an Italian fashion retailer, may be surprised by the skills required. As well as knowledge of luxury products, including accessories and leather goods, and industry trends, candidates to be a “brand ambassador” at the outlet in Harrods need something extra. Because the posh department store’s customers include rich visitors from the Gulf, you must also speak Arabic.
Foreign languages remain a coveted skill in Britain, according to an analysis of data from Indeed, a recruitment website. Of the millions of jobs in Britain listed there, around one in 200 requires require foreign languages. German and French, the most desirable languages, feature in about 115 out of every 100,000 postings, over twice as often as Chinese, Italian or Spanish. Twenty-nine in 100,000 listings require Dutch; 20 call for Japanese, Polish or Russian. Despite the rise of translation software, people prefer to be served by fellow humans who can speak their mother tongue.
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23 August 2019 (SCILT)
We have job profiles on our website covering a wide range of careers where languages are in use. Our latest addition comes from Stephanie Mitchell, a Civil Servant in the Scottish Government who has previously worked in Europe and Asia, thanks to her language skills. Stephanie shares her experiences and how vital languages have been throughout her life and career.
Teachers use this resource with your pupils to support the Developing the Young Workforce initiative and highlight the benefits of language learning as a life skill.
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22 August 2019 (SCILT)
SCILT requires a Professional Development Officer to advise and support primary schools across Scotland with language learning and teaching. This is an exciting opportunity to work at national level and drive forward Scotland’s agenda for languages at a strategic level.
The Professional Development Officer will be responsible for developing and delivering a broad range of support measures for teachers of languages. This would include, for example, leading professional learning, managing projects, assuming responsibility for national awards/competitions and other language related events.
It is expected that the postholder will support practitioners in turning policy into practice to create a positive impact on learners. This will be based on identification of practitioners’ needs, with particular reference to the aims of the National Improvement Framework, the 1+2 languages policy and Developing the Young Workforce. The postholder would need extensive experience of leading recent modern language initiatives in a primary school context. Established expertise in creative approaches to learning, teaching and assessment is essential.
Ideally, the post holder will have experience of external partnership working with the aim of developing interesting contexts for learning and intercultural awareness. The successful candidate will be competent in the use of digital technologies and will have the ability to work not only on her/his own initiative but also as part of a team. Excellent organisational, ICT and communication skills are essential, as is an ability to be flexible and responsive to our stakeholders’ needs.
Visit the University of Strathclyde's vacancy portal for further information and to apply. Closing date: 3 September 2019.
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9 November 2018 (SCILT)
The job profiles on our website cover a range of professions where languages are being used.
We have a new profile from David Cant, Managing Director of Albion (Overseas) Ltd, a company which helps UK businesses to enter the Russian market. After learning French and German at school, David tells us that he took up Russian by chance at university - a choice which became life-changing.
Teachers use our profiles in the classroom to enhance learning about the world of work and how languages can play a part.
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31 October 2018 (The Indepedent)
Jeremy Hunt will vow to recruit 1,000 more diplomatic staff and boost their language skills, as he fights warnings that Brexit will weaken Britain’s international clout.
In a major speech, the foreign secretary will promise “the biggest expansion of Britain’s diplomatic network for a generation”, opening new embassies in Africa and South East Asia.
There will also be a doubling of diplomats who speak the local language to 1,000, Mr Hunt will say – and an increase in the number of languages the Foreign Office teaches, from 50 to 70.
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29 September 2018 (The Scotsman)
Scotland’s independent schools maintain a track record of academic excellence, and this has continued in 2018 with another set of outstanding exam results, which is only strengthened by individual and collective success in sports, art, music and other community endeavours.
With upwards of 30,000 pupils across Scotland, these schools, represented by The Scottish Council of Independent Schools (SCIS), strive to deliver the best level of service to their pupils and parents.
Independent schools aim to prepare their pupils for further and higher education, their chosen career and their place as global citizens. As an education sector that can design and implement a bespoke school curriculum, we are seeing modern languages continue as a popular and desired subject of choice within schools.
Nelson Mandela said: ‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language that goes to his heart.” This is a powerful reminder that we can’t just rely on English when wanting to build relationships and trust with people from other countries.
From this year’s recent exam results, we can see that languages are topping the league tables with the highest pass rates within independent schools. A total of 68 per cent of pupils who studied foreign languages achieved a Higher grade A.
The data, collected from SCIS’s 74 member schools, showed that 72 per cent of students achieved a Higher grade A in Mandarin, while 72 per cent of those studying German, 69 per cent of those studying French and 63 per cent studying Spanish also achieved an A.
This demonstrates that independent schools in Scotland are supporting foreign languages as vital skills that children and young people will undoubtedly require in the future. Languages now, as a subject choice, are being held in the same regard as STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in independent school curriculums and elsewhere.
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28 September 2018 (SCILT)
SCILT has published a series of videos demonstrating the value of languages in a variety of sectors. Contributors include Judy Murray and Jim Fleeting from the SFA. The series looks at languages in the creative industries, hospitality and tourism, engineering, health and business.
To complement this resource, SCILT has produced a toolkit to support schools in organising their own business and language events. These might include:
- careers fairs
- promotional talks
- partnerships with schools and individual businesses
- business brunches
Read more...
7 September 2018 (SCILT)
Would you like to invite 10 of your S3-S6 pupils to discover the benefits of language skills in the world of work and engage with a variety of dynamic employers to encourage learners to continue with their language studies into the senior phase of their education, and beyond school? Look no further….
For the fifth year in succession, SCILT, in partnership with Developing the Young Workforce and the University Council of Modern Languages Scotland will be hosting a series of five Business Brunch events in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness over the course of December this year, and January 2019. Registration will open at 9am on Friday 14th September.
Find out more on our Business Brunches webpage.
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6 September 2018 (They Work For You)
Baroness Coussins, co-chair of the All-Party Group on Modern Languages, calls for language skills to be prioritised in careers advice in schools in today's Lords' debate.
In contributing to the debate she highlighted the specific need for careers education and advice to convey the enormous and increasing value of language skills to school leavers and graduates as they make their career choices. Stating this advice must also start early enough for school students to have the opportunity to choose one or more foreign languages among their GCSE options.
She went on to stress that it is often wrongly assumed that studying foreign languages is just for the brightest students, and that they can be beneficial for anyone, at whatever level. Foreign language skills are in use in practically every sector in the economy, with higher than average demand in the financial services, IT and telecommunications, passenger transport, fashion and design and hotel and catering industries. They are in use at all levels in the workforce, not just senior management. In fact, the greatest skills gaps are among administrative and clerical staff, and those working at elementary grades. All that is before we even mention the need for languages and linguists in diplomacy, defence and security.
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2 September 2018 (The Guardian)
Thousands more Chinese students are taking up Latin American languages with an eye to improved employability.
When Zhang Fangming started learning Portuguese, it was with an eye to becoming a top Chinese diplomat in Brazil.
For Sun Jianglin, a Portuguese degree was about landing a job, but also a deeper knowledge of Brazilian music. “Bossa nova!” the 19-year-old undergraduate cooed. “I really like this kind-of-close-to-jazz music!”
The pair – who also go by the names Rodrigo and Antonia – are part of a new generation of Chinese students hoping a mastery of Latin America’s languages coupled with their country’s expanding role in the region will prove a recipe for success.
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30 August 2018 (SCILT/CISS/Founders4Schools)
SCILT/CISS would like to bring the DYWScot Founders4Schools online platform to the attention of all teachers, especially language teachers looking for support for promotional events.
This free platform allows teachers to explore businesses in their area and invite them to visit their school to attend language promotions, careers events, deliver workshops or meet with school parents.
To find a business in your area simply visit the Founders4Schools website and select 'Create event+'. Enter the school postcode, and the platform will allow you to explore who is available to support your event. You can select what type of support you are looking for and your preferred date.
Remember requests do not necessarily have to be only for one-off events, and you may be able to build a lasting relationship with the business contact.
Visit the DYWScot Founders4Schools website for more information.
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18 August 2018 (The Guardian)
Learning European languages may no longer have much cachet among schoolchildren, but for millennials eyeing the job market, German appears to be more attractive than ever. Growing numbers of young adults aged between 18 and 30 in Britain are learning the language of Friedrich Schiller, Christa Wolf and Thomas Mann, according to the Goethe-Institut, with more than 3,000 people signing up for courses run by the cultural institution.
Read more...
New job profiles on the SCILT website
17 August 2018 (SCILT)
The job profiles on our website cover a range of professions where languages are being used.
We have two new profiles for the start of the new school session:
- Lorne Gillies is an award winning journalist whose language skills have enabled her to connect with people around the world, whilst helping her understanding of English.
- Ian Ross is a specialist in international trade and investment. Dealing with several Chinese companies, he tells us cultural awareness is as important as learning the language.
Teachers use our profiles in the classroom to enhance learning about the world of work and how languages can play a part.
6 August 2018 (San Francisco Chronicle)
The United States may be the single most powerful nation in the world militarily, and remains a global economic giant, but we have seen repeatedly that our influence is limited. In part, we are constrained by our inadequate understanding of other nations and peoples, and by our inability to communicate effectively with them.
It is therefore disturbing, and evidence of a dangerous myopia, that we continue to neglect training and education in languages other than English.
In 1979, I was a member of the President’s Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies, which found that “Americans’ incompetence in foreign languages is nothing short of scandalous.” Last year, nearly 40 years later, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences released a similar report, “America’s Languages,” and its findings were eerily similar: “[T]he dominance of English, to the exclusion of other languages, has also had adverse and often unforeseen consequences at home and abroad — in business and diplomacy, in civic life, and in the exchange of ideas.”
Much has changed in the decades between these two reports, including the continuing spread of English globally. Today, English is an official language of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Criminal Court, and NATO, as well as the unofficial language of international business.
What has not changed, however, is that English alone — an education in English to the exclusion of other languages — remains insufficient to meeting our needs in a global world.
In times of great national security challenges, such as those we face today, as well as in times of great opportunity, such as the opening of new international markets, we find ourselves scrambling for people who can speak, write, and think in languages other than English. In those moments, we search high and low for people who can communicate in Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, Pashto — and especially for people who understand the idioms and nuances that characterize true communication in any culture.
Because it is difficult to find such people immediately, we are at a disadvantage. Language acquisition is a marathon, not a sprint. By the time we educate and train the experts we need to help us address a particular language gap, we are often too late. The crisis has shifted. Others have captured the new market.
As a matter of public policy, this is a terribly inefficient way to operate.
Read more...
3 August 2018 (Good Morning Britain)
The government has announced plans to improve teaching to boost the number of students opting to take foreign languages at GCSE level. Minister for School Standards, Nick Gibb, believes that learning an extra language is good for young people for traveling and opens more opportunities within the workplace.
See the video interview broadcast on Good Morning Britain.
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7 June 2018 (Language Magazine)
For the last 30 years, the world economy has been more global and multicultural than ever before. In any given country, foreign-based companies operate every day, while overseas branches of the same companies are often present in various countries. The job market is consequently more global, multilingual, and multicultural in nature, and the workforce of the future will need to be more linguistically and culturally heterogeneous.
In that context, bilingual and bicultural individuals, even with limited knowledge of one or more languages and their attendant cultures, have a clear advantage, since more and more jobs will require experience in international and cross-cultural areas.
On the other hand, we also know that half of the world’s population speaks two or more languages and there are many places where bilingualism or multilingualism is the norm, for example in regions of Africa.2
So, will half the world then benefit from the new job opportunities created by a more global job market? Not exactly.
Being bilingual, bicultural, and biliterate are not equivalent skills, and being bilingual is not the only condition to be hired for any job. It does not replace a solid further education, but it is becoming obvious that linguistic and cultural fluency enhances one’s “human capital” (the measure of the economic value of a person’s skill set). More and more, at equal technical skills, a bilingual individual will be chosen over a monolingual person.
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29 May 2018 (BBC)
I recently spent four months working at the BBC in London, and English always sounded far smarter in my head than when it came out of my mouth. I often forgot words, made grammatical slips, and missed the usual precision of my native Spanish. It felt like trying to eat soup with a fork. As I write this, I have a dictionary open in front of me because I have learned to mistrust my ideas about what some words mean.
But there is a silver lining for those who are working in languages other than their native one. Research has recently shown that people who can speak a foreign language are likely to be more analytical. Other studies have suggested that people who are bilingual make decisions in different ways from those with one language.
It suggests that as well as giving you an extra string to your bow in terms of where you can work and who you can work with, a foreign language also makes you a different kind of worker. But the real question is – does it make you a better worker?
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18 May 2018 (SCILT)
The Business Brunches took place earlier on this year across Scotland, and supported DYW and the Scottish Attainment Challenge by giving young people the opportunity to ask questions and find out more about the role of languages in the business world.
Take a journey through the entire series of events and explore some of the highlights for yourself, such as:
- A taste of what really went on at these events and why languages play an important role in the world of work by viewing our Business Brunch video located on the main page
- Inspiring quotes and uploads of presentations from a handful of business leaders who were present that you can share with your own learners
- Feedback received from pupils who participated
- Images, tweets, press releases and more
Read through our resources and materials which you may find useful to promote languages for employability in your own school.
Important news! Business Brunches will be returning for year 2018/19. Further details will be announced on the SCILT website and through our e-bulletin after the summer with instructions on how you can register your school to attend. Keep your eyes peeled!
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5 February 2018 (SCILT)
For relevant, labour-market focused career advice on languages, direct from the workplace, read our latest Job Profile. Willie Cameron is a founding Director of The Cobbs Group of Companies, which has hotels, coffee shops, retail units and a bakery in various locations throughout Scotland. In this job profile, Willie discusses the value of languages in Hospitality. Teachers, use this resource in your classroom to enhance learning about the world of work.
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24 November 2017 (The Telegraph)
Languages graduates are now the least employable in Britain, new figures show.
Data released by the Office for National Statistics shows that recent graduates who have studied languages have an employment rate of 84 per cent, the lowest of any degree subject, and their average annual salary has fallen by more than £5,000 in four years.
The figure has fallen from 87 per cent in 2013, the last time the data, was released, and puts the discipline below arts, humanities and social sciences in terms of employment rates.
Entries to university for modern languages have declined sharply in recent years, as fewer students take the subjects at GCSE and A-Level.
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14 November 2017 (The Scotsman)
A university is to discuss whether speaking one of Scotland’s mother tongues could offer an advantage to businesses.
International business expert Seonaidh MacDonald will talk about his experiences of using Gaelic in a global business context at a lunchtime seminar offered by the University of the Highlands and Islands.
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10 November 2017 (The Guardian)
Kate Pemberton, 24, spent a semester of her undergraduate anthropology and international relations degree at the University of Copenhagen. She loved it – so when it came to choosing a master’s, the city was her first choice.
[...] Pemberton feels the experience of studying abroad has given her valuable skills. “I’ve been learning Danish, which isn’t the most useful language, but I think any language is a bonus on your CV,” she says. “Plus, employers want what moving abroad and living in a different country gives you – you become more adaptable and can survive in stressful situations. It makes you more resilient and you open yourself up to more opportunities.”
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9 November 2017 (The Herald)
Glasgow-based Pursuit Marketing has announced its creation of 75 jobs, citing a “surge” in demand for its services from the technology sector, writes Ian McConnell.
The telemarketing and digital marketing services business, which was founded six years ago, said about 30 of the new positions were English-speaking roles.
Pursuit Marketing, which currently employs more than 80 people, added that it was also seeking “bilingual and native speakers fluent in French, Spanish, Italian and key Nordic languages”.
Read more...
21 October 2017 (MEITS)
In this podcast Wendy Ayres-Bennett from the University of Cambridge talks to Baroness Jean Coussins, Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages, about the need for a national languages policy and a more holistic approach towards languages in the UK.
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18 August 2017 (SCILT)
The job profiles on our website cover a range of professions where languages are being used.
Our latest addition comes from Emma Gallacher, whose language skills have taken her from Scotland to the Costa Blanca, where she now works as receptionist for an established Real Estate firm. She firmly believes learning the language has enabled her to settle and integrate into the Spanish way of life.
Teachers use our profiles in the classroom to enhance learning about the world of work and how language skills can play a part.
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5 August 2017 (The Herald)
FRESH concerns have been raised that not enough youngsters are learning foreign languages, as figures show a slump in applications to study the subject at university.
The numbers of applications for degree courses linked to European languages have fallen by almost a quarter in the past five years, while the numbers for other language courses have dropped by almost a fifth, according to an analysis by the Press Association. At the same time, there has been a decline in the numbers studying languages traditionally offered by schools, such as French and German, to GCSE and A-level.
The analysis indicates Spanish has grown in popularity in recent times along with other courses, such as Arabic and Chinese.
The British Council, which specialises in international cultural relations, warned that if the UK is to remain globally competitive in the wake of Brexit it needs more young people to be learning languages.
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2 August 2017 (Birmingham Mail / The Mirror)
A new study has found the most lucrative foreign languages for British workers to learn.
Apparently, Japanese and the Chinese languages offer average salaries of more than £31,000 for those who can speak them.
Adzuna compiled the study to mark the anniversary of the Brexit vote.
And researchers uncovered the languages most in demand by UK employers, alongside how much they are willing to pay for them.
A growing interest in non-European languages was revealed, with Japanese, Chinese, Arabic and Russian all featuring in the UK's top 10 most wanted languages, according to the Mirror.
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8 June 2017 (Huffington Post)
In a global economy, simply telling your potential employer that you have what it takes to get the job done doesn’t cut it anymore. Hiring managers at top firms weigh in many factors – some of which might be out of your control. In trying to land that dream job, you may find yourself outmaneuvered by a well-connected candidate or, in many cases, simply pitted against more accomplished peers.
In spite of tough competition, there’s a way for you to stand out: master a foreign language.
In a recent report by the New American Economy, the number of U.S. companies looking for bilingual workers has more than doubled in the last five years. The demand for foreign language proficiency is now at 630,000, a huge jump from 240,000 open positions for candidates with bilingual abilities in 2010. This trend will only continue despite the recent misguided shifts towards nationalism in the US and abroad.
In the past, the majority of listings involved hospitality and customer-service industries. Much has changed over time. Today, the fastest growing categories for bilingual positions now includes financial managers, industrial engineers and editors. We currently have presidents of investment firms, tech giants, and manufacturing companies taking our language courses. They see the value in gaining at least a basic level of understanding in a foreign language. The benefits of language training however are not only for high level executives. Over the years, it has become more evident that bilingual employees have an edge, no matter where they are in the skills-spectrum.
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Celebrating BLC success!
2 June 2017 (CISS)
Pupils from Lasswade High School were presented with certificates and a badge each on Wednesday 31 May for completing an app which they designed for young Chinese visitors to Edinburgh Castle.
The S3 pupils had researched Edinburgh Castle, making a visit before and after designing the trail (the latter visit to test it). With the support of the app company, 'Global Treasure Apps', they created a trail for young speakers of Chinese who might visit the castle. This is an age group the castle want to attract to the premises more effectively; moreover, the number of tourists from China is increasing all the time. After London, Edinburgh Castle is the second favourite spot for Chinese visitors to the UK.
The S3 pupils worked in teams and the winning team all received a phone charger from the app company.
The pupils will build on their success and most will continue with Mandarin into S4.
This is a good example of a Business Language Champions (BLC) project impacting on uptake in the Senior Phase: working together with outside partners such as Historic Environment Scotland, the app company and CISS.
Visit the
BLC pages of our website for more information about the scheme and to find out how schools and businesses can get involved.
12 May 2017 (The Telegraph)
Competition for graduate jobs has never been more fierce. With tuition fees and living costs representing financial sacrifices for many, students reasonably demand degree courses that offer them the best value for money in today's tough jobs market.
Languages feature in the list of the top 12 degree subjects.
Read more...
11 May 2017 (British Council)
Beginning your career or starting a new job brings to mind lots of questions, so we’ve designed a course to guide you through those initial weeks and months so you can make a positive start to your career.
You’ll see videos from employers, giving you insights from around the world into what they look for from their employees. You’ll learn how to communicate across cultures and discover the skills to build and maintain relationships with colleagues, managers and clients.
This is a free 4-week course and is hosted online by FutureLearn.
Read more...
28 April 2017 (SCILT)
The job profiles on our website cover a range of professions where languages are being used.
Our latest addition comes from Charlie Foot, founder of Bili, the online language exchange platform for schools. Charlie explains how speaking to people in their own language creates opportunities for much deeper connections and cultural understanding.
Teachers use our profiles in the classroom to enhance learning about the world of work and how language skills can play a part.
Read more...
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25 April 2017 (SCILT)
A series of five successful Business Brunch events organised by SCILT, Scotland’s National Centre for Languages in partnership with the University Council for Modern Languages Scotland took place this year where 535 learners from S3-S6 were given the opportunity to hear from a wide range of exciting business leaders who view language skills as key to the growth and success of their company.
The events demonstrated the relevance of language skills in a work context and aimed to encourage pupils to continue with their language studies into the senior phase of their secondary education, and beyond school.
Find out more about the events on our new Business Brunch 2017 webpage.
Read more...
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Linking languages to learning about the world of work
25 April 2017 (Skills Development Scotland)
Lesson inserts are a really simple way of linking learning to careers using resources found on My World of Work.
The importance of linking learning to the world of work is highlighted in the Curriculum for Excellence – in both the principles of curriculum design and the entitlements. It is further reinforced in Developing the Young Workforce and the Careers Education Standard.
To support teachers in making these links explicit, Skills Development Scotland has worked with secondary school teachers across Scotland to develop lesson inserts.
Lesson inserts are short activities which link subject content to relevant labour market information, job profiles and videos on My World of Work.
For languages, lesson inserts are available for:
- BGE – Modern Languages job research
- BGE – Modern Languages job market
- National 4/5/Higher – Global citizenship
- BGE – Gaelic (learners)
To access the lesson inserts, teachers need to register on My World of Work as a partner. To do this, check the partner tickbox when registering. Once registered as a partner, the lesson inserts can be accessed.
My World of Work has job profiles, real people stories and videos that you can insert into your lesson as a short reference to answer that question that many young people ask “Why are we doing this?”. It will remind them that what they learn today will help prepare them in choosing and following a career path in the future.
To give you an overview of what they are and how they can help you make a connection between school subjects and the wider world of work, have a look at this recent blog post from Skills Development Scotland.
21 April 2017 (SCILT)
We have a selection of job profiles on our website demonstrating languages being used in a wide range of professions.
Our latest addition comes from David Rodger, Area Manager at Amazon Germany. He tells how people engage with you and realise you're on their side if you demonstrate the willingness to understand their language and culture.
Teachers use our profiles in the classroom to enhance learning about the world of work and how language skills can play a part.
Read more...
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Italian,
Spanish,
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Language Learning,
Language Learning for Work,
Language Skills,
Promoting Languages,
Resources,
SCILT news
Biscuits galore!
20 April 2017 (CISS)
For some S2 pupils from Elgin Academy, the term began with a busy and exciting visit to Walkers Shortbread HQ in Aberlour, Moray.
The pupils have been studying Mandarin since January with the support of the Hanban teacher Sufang Wang and under the guidance of Jerome Lestienne, PT of Modern Languages. The pupils presented to members of the International team from Walkers and the HR team. The presentations reflected what they had learnt so far, which included simple greetings, some numbers (and how to express numbers with hand gestures) and explanations of what is peculiar to the Chinese language such as learning tones, characters, etc.
The presentations also incorporated advice on effective “dos and don’ts” of Chinese Business Etiquette. These were well received by the International Team, who later explained they are increasingly doing business with China. It is now one of the top ten countries with whom they deal and in the near future will be opening an office in Shanghai.
Pupils were judged on presentation skills, clarity of delivery, content, structure and language skills. (The latter were judged by members from CISS and the Hanban teacher.) The winning group were generously rewarded with a prize and all pupils left with a goodie bag.
Pupils were asked questions by the team regarding how they found learning Chinese. They replied they had found it interesting and were grateful to have the chance to learn some Chinese whilst at school.
The Director of the International Team thanked them for the useful and stimulating presentations. He highlighted the fact that future employees with such knowledge would be most welcome for the company to employ.
Posted in:
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CISS news
10 April 2017 (The Conversation)
The formal negotiations to untangle the UK from the intricacies of the European Union are now well underway. And it is clear that looking forward, Britain’s new relationship with the EU will necessitate conducting trade and political communications in a new dynamic – one which is unlikely to be done in the medium of English.
When the UK leaves the EU there will be no member state remaining where English is the lead official language. “Ah”, you say, “what about Ireland, they speak English there”. Yes they do, but in Ireland, Irish Gaelic is considered the first official language.
So to trade with the EU, the UK will need high-level negotiators fluent in German, French and Spanish, which it currently does not have.
Additionally, leaving the EU will result in a restriction of immigrants from across EU member states. The need for visas will drastically reduce the number of workers who can come to the UK to fill jobs British people are either unwilling or unable to do.
And recognising this gap, the Foreign and Common Wealth office and the Ministry of Defence have opened in-house training centres to provide lessons in up to 80 different languages for their staff.
Read more...
5 April 2017 (World Economic Forum)
As the UK prepares to leave the EU, it has a huge number of considerations to ensure its economy prospers. One, which is perhaps overlooked, is Britain’s language policy and how important this is as an economic resource. A strategic language policy and the cultivation of language experts in post-Brexit Britain are essential if it wants to connect with fresh markets overseas.
This has long been a feature of international diplomacy – stretching back long before globalisation as we know it. All the big powers of the Old World depended on understanding other people’s languages to trade across cultures. A “modern” solution was found in Babylonia, an ancient commercial metropolitan hub in the Near East, where a polyglot community of traders came together from the Mediterranean, Persia and Turkey, and beyond.
There are accounts of King Hammurabi deftly exploiting his city’s growing cultural mix as a resource in the 1790s BC. He used bilingual foreign traders as cross-cultural brokers. With their language skills, they played a key role in facilitating long-range trade with distant markets.
One of the biggest challenges facing the UK economy now is a skills shortage. Although funding is promised to support technical skills training, UK business also requires professionals with language skills to achieve sales in fresh markets. These experts will need to speak the languages of trading partners and understand the cultures of new overseas contacts to negotiate and seal deals. Investment in this crucial soft skill is needed.
Read more...
31 March 2017 (SCILT)
We have a selection of job profiles on our website demonstrating languages being used in a wide range of professions.
Our latest addition comes from Jane Robb, PhD student at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich. Jane has studied several languages, including French, German and Spanish and says her Spanish language skills enable her to conduct fieldwork and live and work in Guatemala.
Teachers use our profiles in the classroom to enhance learning about the world of work and how language skills can play a part.
Read more...
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German,
Spanish,
Business,
Careers,
Language Learning,
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Promoting Languages,
Resources,
SCILT news
17 March 2017 (SCILT)
For relevant, labour-market focused career advice on languages, direct from the workplace, read our latest Job Profile from Lynn Sheppard, Masters Student and travel writer, former English teacher, diplomat and civil servant.
Lynn tells how languages have not only helped in all her diverse job roles, but in developing and maintaining personal and professional relationships around the globe. Language skills have given her a cultural insight into how others think and behave.
Teachers, use this resource in your classroom to enhance learning about the world of work.
Read more...
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Resources,
SCILT news
10 March 2017 (SCILT)
We have a range of Job Profiles on our website designed for teachers to use in the classroom to enhance learning about the world of work and how language skills can play a part.
Our latest addition comes from Kirsten Matthews, a Distillery Tour Guide and Public Service Interpreter. Kirsten tells us her language skills make it possible for her to perform a service and to help people in her roles.
You can see Kirsten's profile on our website.
Read more...
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Language Learning - Benefits,
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Language Teaching,
Promoting Languages,
Resources,
SCILT news
7 March 2017 (The Guardian)
Language learning is big business. Each year, students coming to study English in the UK contribute £2bn to the economy. It’s also a market suited to the flexibility of mobile learning and, sure enough, language learning apps are seeking to fill the gaps – more than 350 are listed on the Apple App Store alone.
But language tech isn’t an easy space in which to succeed. Rapid changes in technology have meant that its startups have had to adapt to survive, as Bernhard Niesner, co-founder of busuu, can attest.
Originally from Austria, Niesner had always loved languages: he learned Spanish and travelled in Latin America before undertaking an MBA at the IE Business School in Madrid. There he met Adrian Hilti, originally from Switzerland. It was 2008, Facebook was expanding rapidly, and the two wondered if they could combine technology and learning a language with social media.
So busuu, named after a Cameroonian language, was born, teaching users with interactive courses coupled with a social network of native speakers.
Read more...
3 March 2017 (SCILT)
For relevant, labour-market focused career advice on languages, direct from the workplace, read our latest Job Profile from Sandie Robb, Senior Education Officer for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS).
Working on conservation projects around the globe, Sandie explains how knowing even a little of a language is respectable and polite when working with colleagues worldwide.
Teachers, use this resource in your classroom to enhance learning about the world of work.
Read more...
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SCILT news,
Japanese
24 February 2017 (SCILT)
We have a range of Job Profiles on our website designed for teachers to use in the classroom to enhance learning about the world of work and how language skills can play a part.
Our latest addition comes from Emma Therer, a student of German and Linguistics, whose aim is to become a translator and interpreter. She believes languages are key in getting to know people and to learn about other cultures.
Read her profile and others on our website now.
Read more...
23 February 2017 (British Council)
Are you passionate about French, German or Spanish? If so, you could receive a languages scholarship of £27,500 to train as a secondary school teacher in England.
Visit the British Council website for more information and to apply by 31 July 2017.
Read more...
17 February 2017 (SCILT)
For relevant, labour-market focused career advice on languages, direct from the workplace, read our latest Job Profile from Katie Targett-Adams, a professional singer and harpist currently based in Hong Kong. Teachers, use this resource in your classroom to enhance learning about the world of work.
Read more...
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SCILT news
3 February 2017 (The Conversation)
'If your strategy is to trade only with people that speak English that’s going to be a poor strategy.'
Top US economist Larry Summers recently tweeted this in relation to America’s focus on its so-called special relationship with the UK. And he’s right. The economic impact on the US – or any other country – that closes off its trade barriers with countries that are different to it would be enormous.
Language matters on a large-scale national level and at the level of smaller businesses.
Read more...
3 February 2017 (SCILT)
Our Job Profiles are designed for teachers to use in the classroom to enhance learning about the world of work and how language skills can play a part.
Our latest addition comes from student and part-time racing driver, Josh Martin, who appreciates how languages are key in helping him communicate with fans around the world and in negotiating sponsorship deals.
Read his profile and others on our website now.
Read more...
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Resources,
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27 January 2017 (SCILT)
Inspire the future generation with relevant career advice on languages direct from the workplace via the Job Profiles on our website. These resources are designed for teachers to use in the classroom to enhance learning about the world of work and how language skills can play a part.
Our latest addition comes from modern languages teacher, Olivia Ingleby, who tells how language skills helped her discover new places, cultures and the varied opportunities that brought prior to becoming a languages teacher.
Read more...
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SCILT news
Business brunches: Inspiring Scotland’s future global workforce in Dundee
24 January 2017 (SCILT)
Young people from eight schools across Tayside and Fife had the opportunity to engage with local businesses at the University of Dundee on 18 January 2017. 70 learners from S3-S6 heard from a range of business leaders who view language skills as key to the growth and success of their company. The Business Brunch demonstrated the relevance of language skills in a work context and aimed to encourage pupils to continue with their language studies into the senior phase of their secondary education, and beyond school.
A teacher attending the event said: “Today’s event has given my pupils real food for thought. Before, I think most of them would have said that you would only really use languages in teaching or translating. However, having heard from the different speakers, they have realised very quickly that languages are used for much more than that.”
One of the young people added to this, and commented: “The event today showed me that, even if you haven’t specialised in language study, for example getting a degree in a modern language, there is still a high chance you will end up using language skills in a small or large part of your job and that knowing a language can open up many more opportunities.”
Dawn Hartley from Scottish Dance Theatre, one of the workshop leaders, stated: “Our dancers come from all over the world, and our choreographers too. We travel to many different countries so we’re constantly grateful for all the various language skills our staff have – we always need them!”
The event was organised by SCILT, Scotland’s National Centre for Languages as part of a series of cross-sector partnership activities with the University Council for Modern Languages Scotland. Companies attending included Michelin, Valentine International Business Connections LLP, Scottish Dance Theatre, Tokheim Ltd, Outplay Entertainment Ltd and University of Dundee. Schools represented were Brechin High School, Bell Baxter High School, Harris Academy, Montrose Academy, Morrison’s Academy, Webster's High School, Craigie High School and Braeview Academy.
Fhiona Mackay, Director of SCILT said: “Events such as these are a really important way of providing young people with high quality careers advice delivered by the business people themselves and of demonstrating to them the value of language skills in our increasingly globalised world”.
Marion Spöring, Chair of UCML Scotland added: “The learning of languages is not only fun, but also essential for future employment opportunities of our young people in Scotland. Languages set the foundation for varied careers, for future engineers as well as artists and in tourism, to name but a few.”
Meaningful employer engagement and providing relevant careers advice are both key recommendations of Scotland’s Youth Employment Strategy, “Developing the young workforce”. This Business Brunch supported these aims by giving young people the opportunity to ask questions and find out more about the role of languages in the business world. The targets laid out in the Scottish Attainment Challenge are about achieving equity in educational outcomes, with a particular focus on closing the poverty-related attainment gap. Through hearing from a range of business leaders and interacting with employees, the aspirations of the young people who attended were raised.
This collaboration between schools and businesses supported Scotland’s International Policy to equip young people with international communication and employability skills that they will need in our increasingly globalised society and economy.
The event is one of a series of Business Brunches being held across Scotland in January and February 2017.
More information on SCILT’s 2017 Business Brunches.
20 January 2017 (SCILT)
If you're looking for relevant career advice on languages direct from the workplace, read the Job Profiles on our website. These resources are designed for teachers to use in the classroom to enhance learning about the world of work and how language skills can play a part.
Our latest addition comes from John Barry, a former petroleum engineer and manager with Shell, who explains how his language skills helped him to develop his career with the company.
Read more...
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Language Learning for Work,
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Resources,
SCILT news,
Russian,
Japanese
17 January 2017 (The Telegraph)
I am nervous as I take my seat in front of the Head of Languages; it is GCSE choices evening and the school gym has been transformed, criss-crossed by rows of tables and chairs with eager parents and their offspring gathered around harried-looking teachers.
“I'd like to do Triple Language,” I say, “French, Spanish and Italian.”
She regards me over the top of her sheet full of names, in front of her.
“Oh no, I don't think so. You could do Spanish, maybe, but you'll find three too difficult.”
Seven years later and I am on the brink of successfully completing my undergraduate degree in, you guessed it, languages. And whilst I look back on that exchange now with a certain degree of victorious pride, I still can't help but wonder what prompted her to turn a perfectly capable student away from her course.
In this performance-obsessed climate where a pupil's grades are often put before their education, it is unsurprising that even some of the best teachers find themselves advising students against courses which are deemed too challenging. But we must do away with the notion that languages are an elite subject if we are to improve the dire situation in which we now find ourselves.
Read more...
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Economy,
Language Learning,
Language Learning - Benefits,
Language Learning - Decline,
Language Teaching,
Policy,
Languages in the press,
Brexit
13 January 2017 (SCILT)
Our Job Profiles provide relevant, labour-market focused career advice on languages, direct from the workplace.
Teachers, use them in your classroom to enhance learning about the world of work.
Read our new Job Profile from Dawn Hartley, Head of Creative Learning at Scottish Dance Theatre.
Read more...
21 November 2016 (The Independent)
Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College London, King’s College London and the University of Manchester all ranked highly in terms of graduate employability.
[..] Taking into consideration opinions from 2,500 recruitment managers from international companies in 20 countries around the world, researchers named “professional experience” as the most important factor when predicting a graduate’s employability.
A high degree of specialism, and proficiency in at least two foreign languages were also hailed as important skills favoured by recruiters.
Responding to the results, Vicky Gough, a spokesperson for the British Council, said: “Despite languages being valued by employers the world over – as this latest ranking shows – the UK is currently facing a shortfall in these vital skills."
Read more...
17 November 2016 (Edinburgh News)
A chronic UK-wide shortage of British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters led Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh to launch Scotland’s first BSL degree course in 2012 to equip students with the skills they require for a career in translation and interpretation.
The first cohort graduated in June with many going straight into jobs as a result of the high demand for BSL interpreters.
Many interpreters are self employed, working freelance and using agencies to source work within the deaf community. Others go into salaried employment, as Sam Rojas, 21, did with North East Sensory Services (NESS) in Aberdeen after graduating from Heriot-Watt.
Read more...
17 November 2016 (THE)
This week is the British Council’s International Education Week, which promotes the benefits of international learning and cultural exchange.
The UK is a global hub for international students with more than 400,000 studying here last year. Yet British students travelling outside the UK to study is relatively rare, and this is a problem. Just 1.3 per cent of UK students travelled abroad to study or go on work placement in 2014-15.
For graduates to find jobs and succeed in today’s post-Brexit world, they need international and cross-cultural knowledge. It is also critical for the UK’s competitiveness in international markets that the next generation entering the workplace understands how to compete globally.
Employers expect graduates to appreciate cultural diversity, universal business language and be familiar with globalisation. However, in terms of having a global mindset, nearly a quarter of employers (24 per cent) have rated graduates as weak in this area.
Read more...
11 November 2016 (SCILT)
Our Job Profiles are designed to be used in the classroom to enhance learning about the world of work. They provide really relevant careers advice on languages, direct from the workplace, and cover a range of sectors. See our latest addition:
- Claire Murphy, Translator - a translator at the European Commission, Claire speaks Spanish, German and Italian and is currently learning French. She explains how cultural knowledge is as important as language skills in her role.
See this and other job profiles on our website now.
Read more...
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Language Skills,
Promoting Languages,
Study Abroad,
SCILT news
1 November 2016 (University of Cambridge)
In the fifth of a new series of comment pieces written by linguists at Cambridge, Dr John Gallagher, historian of early modern Europe, argues that Britain should look to its past to rediscover the importance of language learning.
The article also includes links to the previous entries in the series.
Read more...
28 October 2016 (SCILT)
For the third year in succession SCILT, in partnership with University Council for Modern Languages (UCMLS) will be hosting a series of Business Brunch events across Scotland in January and February 2017. These will take place in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness.
Aimed specifically at S3 - S6 pupils, these events will demonstrate the relevance of language skills in a work context with the intention of encouraging pupils to continue with their language studies into the senior phase of their secondary education.
Registration is now open for the Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen events. (Edinburgh and Inverness will open soon).
To find out more and to register by 21 November, visit our Business Brunch 2017 webpage.
Read more...
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6 October 2016 (British Council)
The British Council is pleased to announce a new partnership with the Scottish Government to support more students from Scottish universities to undertake internships in China through the British Council’s Generation UK – China campaign. The partnership will be focused on supporting Scottish students from low-income backgrounds to gain international experience in the world’s second-largest economy.
Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science, Shirley-Anne Somerville, said:
“This is a fantastic opportunity for Scottish students to develop highly valuable knowledge and skills working in one of the world’s fastest-growing and most dynamic economies. The Scottish Government’s support for this programme underlines our commitment to investing in Scotland’s future workforce and further strengthening our growing engagement with China.”
The Generation UK – China campaign will assist the Scottish Government in delivering its International Framework and in further strengthening relations with China. It will also develop the academic achievement and employability of students and recent graduates of Scotland’s higher education institutions.
“My experience interning in Beijing was fast-paced, exciting and always engaging,” said Justine Porter, a graduate of the University of Dundee who completed a two-month internship at a law firm in Beijing through the Generation UK – China campaign last year.
Visit the British Council website for more information.
Read more...
26 September 2016 (The Independent)
Learning a second language can be extremely lucrative for your career opportunities.
And after jobs search engine Adzuna analysed over 1 million live job postings on its website, it found out that some languages are more likely to get you a higher paid job than others in Britain, when employers advertised for jobs looking for someone who was at least bi-lingual.
Considering the UK voted to leave the European Union — dubbed a Brexit — and the nation does not know what that would entail for the jobs market, Adzuna's cofounder pointed out that having a second language could become even more sought-after, especially if businesses look to relocate overseas.
Read more...
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French,
German,
Italian,
Spanish,
Business,
Careers,
Language Learning for Work,
Languages in the press,
Russian,
Japanese,
Arabic
16 September 2016 (SCILT)
New additions to our job profile section this term come from students currently undertaking courses which also allow them to develop their language skills.
Our two latest profiles come from students in the Tourism sector:
- Amy-Jo Fairbairn, who is studying for a HND in Travel and Tourism at the City of Glasgow college.
- Gail Leslie who, after completing her HND course in Travel and Tourism, is now embarking on a degree in Business Studies at UWS..
Whilst choosing different languages to learn, both can see the value of language skills for their future careers and personal lives.
Read their profiles and others on our website.
Read more...
6 September 2016 (British Council Voices)
For many young people in the UK, learning another language is not a priority – only nine per cent of teenagers progressed beyond a basic level in the language they were learning in 2013. But with so many people around the globe already speaking English, I wanted to know if learning another language is really worth it. Here's what I found out from some people who would know.
Read more...
26 August 2016 (SCILT)
A new addition to our job profile section this term comes from Euan Kerr, an aeronautical engineering student at the University of Strathclyde.
Euan aims to pursue a career in engineering and appreciates that language skills will help him broaden his options and secure work overseas.
With that in mind, when Euan spent his third year studying abroad in Prague he chose to take up learning Czech as part of his studies. Having learned French at school helped him pick up a new language and making the effort to speak Czech gained respect with the local community.
So if you have pupils considering STEM subjects when they leave school, they should perhaps take a leaf from Euan's book and consider language electives too.
Read Euan's full profile on our website.
Read more...
17 June 2016 (SCILT)
Highlight the value of languages in the world of work to your pupils. We have a range of job profiles on the SCILT website in which people from a range of sectors - including sport, marketing, technology and many more - explain how language learning has influenced their professional lives. See our latest addition:
- Rosemary Graham, Tour Guide - Rosemary's knowledge of the German language enabled her to live and work in Germany teaching and making jewellery. Now she uses her language skills to guide tourists around Scotland.
See this and other job profiles on our website now.
Read more...
20 May 2016 (SCILT)
Business Language Champions helps schools and businesses to build exciting and sustainable partnerships to equip young people with international communication and employability skills for their future careers. A partnership between Johnstons of Elgin and Elgin Academy demonstrated to S2 pupils the importance of languages in the textile industry as well as developing employability skills within an interdisciplinary context. Learners considered marketing strategies for promoting textile goods in China and delivered a presentation to a “Dragon’s Den” judging panel.
Read more...
12 May 2016 (SCILT)
Let your pupils see that languages are valuable in the world of work. We have a range of job profiles on the SCILT website in which people from a range of sectors - including sport, marketing, technology and many more - explain how language learning has influenced their professional lives. See our latest addition:
See this and other job profiles on our website now.
Read more...
6 May 2016 (SCILT)
SCILT, in partnership with the University Council for Modern Languages Scotland (UCMLS), held a series of Business Brunch events (formerly Business Breakfast) across Scotland, during January and February this year where pupils from S3-S6 heard from a range of business leaders who view language skills as key to the growth and success of their company.
Find out more about the events on our new webpage.
Read more...
1 April 2016 (SCILT)
We have a range of job profiles on the SCILT website to let your pupils see that languages are valuable in the world of work. People from a range of sectors - including sport, marketing, technology and many more - explain how language learning has influenced their professional lives. See our latest profile now:
- Amanda Attfield, Exploration Geologist - Amanda speaks Finnish, German, Spanish and is now learning Russian to help in her current job role. She tells how her love of languages has made her more employable, taken her around the globe and helped forge connections with local people and their cultures.
See this and other job profiles on our website now.
Read more...
29 March 2016 (Scottish Government)
In a global, multi-cultural society, being able to communicate in more than one language is increasingly vital. It is important for the nation’s prosperity that young people are attracted to learning languages and that they become confident in speaking languages other than their own.
According to the CBI's Education and Skills survey 2015, over three quarters of businesses (77%) have a need for language skills among their employees, with over one in ten (11%) stating they would need language skills in the next few years.
The Scottish Government is committed to expanding and improving language learning so that our young people are equipped with the skills and competencies needed for the global economy. That is why we have made an ambitious languages commitment to introduce a norm for language learning based on the EU 1+2 model. This will ensure that all young people in Scotland have excellent language learning opportunities from a young age, as a normal and expected part of a broad, relevant school education.
Ken Lindsay tells us of his experiences of learning languages and how they have helped him in his role as an International Brand Ambassador for Chivas Brothers Ltd.
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19 March 2016 (The Telegraph)
It’s cheaper, yes; but British students are finding other, more surprising benefits in studying abroad.
After thumbing through countless prospectuses, working out predicted A-levels and totting up the price of university, British students are picking up their passports and searching farther afield for an education.
Since 2010, there has been an explosion in English-taught degree programmes in continental Europe. Of the top 1,000 universities in the world offering 36,500 English-taught programmes, 75 per cent are outside Britain.
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17 March 2016 (The Guardian)
I had a lot of good times working abroad – teaching English in Germany and working on summer camps in France and Spain – but I didn’t realise that I was also building valuable skills for my career.
Employers really value those with international experience. Katie Bateman, a careers advisor at the University of Gloucestershire, says it can set you apart from a crowd of other applicants. “Graduates can learn another language and prove just how adaptable they are by embracing change and learning to adjust to a different culture,” she says.
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16 March 2016 (SecEd)
The curriculum is hampering schools’ efforts to improve and develop the employability skills of their young people, argues Phil Crompton.
Everyone spends at least 11 years at school. That’s a long time. So surely it is not unreasonable to expect young people emerging from the education system to be ready to make a positive contribution to the working world?
I am not talking about examination results. They are just one indicator of someone’s capacity to be a great employee, or even an employer. I am talking about the skills that actually matter in the workplace.
Shouldn’t pupils in our schools be given the chance to develop skills in communicating with confidence, working in teams, bouncing back from failure, being polite, and organising themselves. And once they have developed the skills fully shouldn’t some recognition be available? Employers certainly think so. And so do I.
[..] At my three schools, we recognise the existing curriculum isn’t going away and that exams have to be passed, but we are working with local businesses to breathe life into some of the duller parts of the curriculum and to equip our pupils for working life.
Science classes are advising a housing company on how to promote their new eco-homes, German and French students are producing foreign language leaflets for visitors to a local hotel, computing students have worked with an IT firm to create mobile phone apps, A level students have been practising Spanish conversation at a city tapas bar, and a professional actress has worked with a drama class.
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3 March 2016 (Virtual Strategy )
Televerde, the global sales and marketing solutions provider, announces today it has selected Glasgow, Scotland as the location for its European headquarters and contact center.
[..] Over the course of the next 12-24 months, Televerde will hire up to 170 employees, including approximately 130 multilingual contact center agents. The Glasgow contact center will include language capabilities in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Scandinavian and Eastern European languages. Glasgow was specifically chosen as Televerde’s European launching pad based on its ability to serve the company’s customers with its multilingual talent, geographic proximity between the U.S. and continental Europe and through a high-performance partnership with Scottish Development International.
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19 February 2016 (SCILT)
We have a range of job profiles on the SCILT website to let your pupils see that languages are valuable in the world of work. People from a range of sectors - including sport, marketing, technology and many more - explain how language learning has influenced their professional lives.
Our latest profile features Adam Williams. a Spacecraft Operations Engineer working for the European Space Agency on the ExoMars mission, whose goal is to send a robotic vehicle to Mars to try and find evidence of past or present life on Mars. He explains how beneficial language skills are when working with a diverse range of international colleagues.
See this and other job profiles on our website now.
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Inspiring Scotland’s future global workforce in Glasgow
18 January 2016 (SCILT)
Young people from fourteen schools across the west of Scotland had the opportunity to engage with local businesses at the University of Strathclyde on 13 January 2016. 140 learners from S3-S6 heard from a range of business leaders who view language skills as key to the growth and success of their company. The Business Brunch demonstrated the relevance of language skills in a work context and aimed to encourage pupils to continue with their language studies into the senior phase of their secondary education, and beyond school.
A teacher attending the event said: “The speaker demonstrated the value of languages to learners and it was powerful for them to see this in a commercial context. The event gave learners lots to think about in terms of their future careers.” One of the young people added to this, and commented: “When one of the speakers spoke to us in seven languages, this is what influenced me the most to consider languages in the future. His languages seemed to have been very beneficial to his career.”
David Ross from Keppie Design, one of the workshop leaders, stated: “People are what make business work. If you can speak languages it makes life much easier. It's a fallacy that the world speaks English.”
The event was organised by SCILT, Scotland’s National Centre for Languages in partnership with the University Council for Modern Languages Scotland. Companies attending included Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP, Barclays Bank and IBM. Schools represented were Bellshill Academy, Belmont House School, Bishopbriggs Academy, Cathkin High School, Dumbarton Academy, Hillhead High School, Irvine Royal Academy, John Ogilvie High, Kilmarnock Academy, Lenzie Academy, Moffat Academy, Our Lady and St Patrick's High, Our Lady's High Cumbernauld and Uddingston Grammar.
Fhiona Fisher, Director of SCILT said: “Events such as these are a really important way of providing young people with high quality careers advice delivered by the business people themselves and of demonstrating to them the value of language skills in our increasingly globalised world”.
Meaningful employer engagement and providing relevant careers advice are both key recommendations of Scotland’s Youth Employment Strategy, “Developing the young workforce”. This Business Brunch supported these aims by giving young people the opportunity to ask questions and find out more about the role of languages in the business world.
This collaboration between schools and businesses supported Scotland’s International Policy to equip young people with international communication and employability skills that they will need in our increasingly globalised society and economy.
The event is one of a series of Business Brunches being held across Scotland in January and February 2016 which build on the successful series of Business Breakfasts in January 2015.
More information on SCILT’s 2016 Business Brunches.
17 January 2016 (Business Because)
Ask anyone working at a business school what makes it unique and you’ll get a spiel about global diversity. Yet companies are desperate for graduates who have honed multiple languages and cultural norms.
“Languages are always good for us,” says Julia McDonald, head of talent acquisition for EMEA at Infosys. English is the company’s common language, “but our clients often want people that can speak their local language,” Julia says.
Mark Davies, employer relations manager at London’s Imperial College Business School, says there is growing demand for multilingual European language speakers at companies including BP, GE, Johnson & Johnson, and GSK, which have operations in emerging markets.
André Alcalde, an executive at Lojas Renner, Brazil’s largest fast-fashion retailer, speaks English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.
“In a business world that is more internationally-connected,” says the HULT MBA student, “it is mandatory when building an executive career to be able to deal with different cultures.”
Nearly two-thirds of businesses in the UK want to recruit staff with foreign language skills. A survey by the business lobby group the CBI and education company Pearson found European languages are the most sought after: French (50%); German (49%); and Spanish (44%).
Read more...
14 January 2016 (SCILT)
We have a range of job profiles on the SCILT website to let your pupils see that languages are valuable in the world of work. People from a range of sectors - including sport, marketing, technology and many more - explain how language learning has influenced their professional lives.
Our latest profile features Andrew Muir, who lived and studied in Scotland but now works in London as a Character Animator on a children's TV series. He tells us why language learning is important and the opportunities this can offer him to expand his career overseas.
See this and other job profiles on our website now.
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11 January 2016 (TES)
Parents should consider sending their child on a school foreign exchange rather than spending money on a week in Majorca, a headteacher has suggested.
Young people are likely to learn more on a cultural break in a city such as Madrid or Barcelona than they are sitting on a beach, according to Caroline Jordan, headmistress of Headington School in Oxford and the new president of the Girls' Schools Association.
Setting up a foreign exchange for students did not have to be expensive, Ms Jordan said.
"It's trying to convince the parents that that's good use of their finances as opposed to a foreign holiday to Majorca, where they may well be in a Spanish environment but they're less likely to be experiencing Spanish as they would be if they were in somewhere like Madrid or Barcelona on exchange," she said.
"Exchange is very important and we know that languages is a real area of concern in this country. The government is doing quite a lot about this by trying to encourage all children to take a language through the English Baccalaureate."
Figures show that last year, there was a drop in language GCSE entries, with French down 6.2 per cent on 2014, German down 9.8 per cent and Spanish down 2.4 per cent.
As well as ensuring that children learned a foreign language, Ms Jordan added that it was important that modern teenagers were given the opportunity to consider studying at a university overseas, arguing that it could be beneficial to them later on.
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13 December 2015 (BBC)
British astronaut Tim Peake has spent six years training for his mission to the International Space Station which blasts off on Tuesday 15 December.
He's said that the hardest bit was learning Russian - the language is needed to operate the Soyuz rocket and the Russian parts of the ISS.
We tested Tim's vocabulary and pronunciation with the help of two BBC Russian staff, Famil Ismailov and Anya Dorodeyko.
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4 December 2015 (SCILT)
Due to popular demand, SCILT, in partnership with University Council for Modern Languages (UCMLS) is delighted to announce that we will be hosting a series of Business Brunch events (formerly Business Breakfast) across Scotland next year! Last chance to register for all events 4 December (except Edinburgh - 10 December)!
Aimed specifically at S3 - S6 pupils, each event will provide learners with the opportunity to hear from a wide range of dynamic business leaders who view language skills as key to the growth of the success of their organisations and why they compete successfully in a globalised market.
Most importantly, it will give young people the opportunity to ask questions and find out more about the variety of careers and employment opportunities that are open to people who can demonstrate language skills on their CV.
In addition, we will highlight the benefits of offering the SVQ unit 'Building your own Employability Skills' from the Languages for Life and Work Award, because it can be an effective stepping stone for the employability context in National 4/5, Higher and Advanced Higher.
To find out more and register interest for these events, visit our Business Brunches 2016 webpage.
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9 November 2015 (The Guardian)
Resigned to a short sentence shoved at the bottom of CVs, downplaying language skills is a common mistake.
Whether you are completely fluent or stuttering over the subjunctive, you should be shouting about it to employers, says Lizzie Fane, founder of ThirdYearAbroad.com. “It shows an eagerness to learn to your employer and may even lead to you being able to travel abroad or work with clients who speak that language.”
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6 November 2015 (SCILT)
Let your pupils see that languages are valuable in the world of work by visiting the 'Job Profiles' section of the SCILT website. People from a range of sectors - including sport, marketing, technology and many more - explain how language learning has influenced their professional lives.
The latest profile is from Catherine McNicol, a PhD researcher at the University of Exeter, working in the Environment and Sustainability Institute in Cornwall.
SCILT has worked to make all of the job profiles more useful for teachers and learners by organising them by workplace sector.
See Catherine's profile and others on our website now.
Read more...
23 October 2014 (The Southern Reporter)
A recent careers event highlighted the importance of language skills to Galashiels Academy pupils.
S3 pupils participated in the event held in the school on September 23.
It aimed to demonstrate the value of language skills for Scotland’s future workforce and to encourage pupils to consider the relevance of languages for their personal development as well as for further study and future career opportunities.
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15 September 2015 (i100/The Independent)
French is the most useful language British employers look for on CVs, according to a recent study.
Adequate foreign language skills were one of the most highly rated concerns for employees looking to hire, the Confederation of British Industry study found.
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15 September 2015 (Sanako UK)
"In essence, being a football coach of a multi-national team of individuals requires as much ability to communicate as it requires actual coaching knowledge and experience. There is no point in
knowing what you want to say if you can’t get your point across."
Ian Burchnall, 32, is assistant manager at Viking FK and has been the same at Sarpsborg 08 in
the Norwegian top division. He has worked for Leeds United and Bradford City's academies
and, before moving to Norway, was head coach at Leeds University
Read this article in Sanako's autumn newsletter giving his views on how language skills provide a distinct advantage in the world of football.
Read more...
20 July 2015 (The Guardian)
Aspiring police constables must speak a second language to join London’s Metropolitan police under a month-long pilot scheme.
Scotland Yard is hoping the new criterion will help police “engage with London’s diverse communities as effectively as possible”.
From Monday, to be considered for one of the sought-after positions with the capital’s police force, applicants must speak one of 14 languages as well as English.
They are: Arabic, Bengali, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Sinhala (Sri Lanka), Spanish, Turkish or Yoruba (Nigeria).
Read more...
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7 July 2015 (The Guardian)
If you want to work in the competitive legal profession, having foreign language skills can help to set you apart.
The relative lack of foreign language skills among the UK population is well-documented. A recent Guardian survey revealed that 39% of young native English speakers were put off learning a foreign language because “most people speak English”, and 14% by the idea that “most other languages are not useful”.
But for students hoping to enter the legal profession – which is increasingly global in outlook – being able to speak a foreign language is useful, and ever more desirable to employers.
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12 May 2015 (SCILT)
SCILT requires two Professional Development Officers to support secondary schools as they continue to develop their strategy for the implementation of the 1+2 languages policy. This is an exciting opportunity to work at national level and drive forward the strategic languages agenda in Scotland. The Professional Development Officers will be responsible for developing and delivering a broad range of support measures for teachers of languages. This would include, for example, leading professional learning workshops and managing projects, national awards/competitions and other promotional events. It is expected that the post holders will support practitioners to turn policy into practice to create a positive impact on learners. This will be based on identification of practitioners’ needs, with particular reference to the aims of Curriculum for Excellence and the implementation of the 1+2 languages policy.
For the full job specification and how to apply visit the Stathclyde University vacancies webpage.
Closing date for applications is 25 May 2015.
Read more...
8 May 2015 (SCILT)
SCILT was delighted to host three motivational Business Breakfast events in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen at the beginning of this year. Our main aim was to support S3-S6 pupils in the uptake of language learning in the senior phase by providing schools with an opportunity to hear from various dynamic speakers who view language skills as a key part to the success of their businesses.
We have uploaded presentations and photographs from the event onto our website. You might find the presentations useful to use with your pupils to promote the benefits of languages.
Visit our Business Breakfasts 2015 webpage for more information.
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31 March 2015 (Chartered Institute of Linguists)
IoLET, the awarding body of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, exhibited at the Association for Language Learning’s annual gathering of teachers, Language World, now in its 25th year.
At the event held in Newcastle on 20-21 March, IoLET presented its newest qualification, the Certificate in Languages for Business (CLB), attracting keen interest from MFL teachers from around the UK. This practical, work-oriented qualification is initially offered in French, German and Spanish, and is already running across a number of secondary schools and universities.
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28 February 2015 (The Economist)
The last time she was recruiting for her export-sales team, Sarah Grain hired a Lithuanian who speaks Russian, Polish and German. Her two previous hires for Eriez Magnetics, which makes industrial equipment in South Wales, were an Italian who also speaks French, and a Venezuelan who speaks Spanish and Portuguese. All of them speak fluent English. “There were no British applicants who had the requisite language skills,” she says.
Ms Grain’s conclusion is not unusual for a British company. In 2012 a European Commission survey tested the foreign-language proficiency of 54,000 students aged 14 and 15, in 14 nations. Sweden came top, with 82% of pupils reaching an “independent” or “advanced independent” standard. The average for all 14 states was 42%. England came bottom, with just 9%.
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10 February 2015 (The Guardian)
Learn a language, be prepared to move across the world and play to your strengths to get a career in space.
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30 January 2015 (Third Year Abroad)
Third Year Abroad Editor, Florence, discusses why lesser-taught languages such as Arabic and Mandarin are not just useful life skills, but are crucial to the future of the UK.
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16 December 2014 (SCILT)
Let your pupils see that languages are valuable in the world of work by visiting the 'Job Profiles' section of the SCILT website. People from a range of sectors - including sport, marketing, technology and many more - explain how language learning has influenced their professional lives.
Our latest addition to the section comes from
Verena Gräfin von Roedern, Head of the German Consulate General in Edinburgh, who talks about the many reasons why we should learn German.
See this and other job profiles on our website now.
Read more...
16 December 2014 (The Guardian)
Don’t know your bonjours from your buongiornos? You’re not alone: three-quarters of British adults can’t speak a foreign language competently. But the benefits of being able to communicate with overseas clients, suppliers and buyers are huge – as are the costs of lacking that facility.
Read more...
11 December 2014 (Times Higher Education)
A deep understanding of foreign languages is often essential to the combination of cajolery and seduction many companies require in their international negotiators.
That was the argument of Richard Hardie, chair of investment bank UBS, at a Westminster Higher Education Forum seminar on “Priorities for foreign language learning: participation, resources and progression” last week.
Read more...
5 December 2014 (SCILT)
Let your pupils see that languages are valuable in the world of work by visiting the 'Job Profiles' section of the SCILT website. People from a range of sectors - including sport, marketing, technology and many more - explain how language learning has influenced their professional lives.
Our latest addition to the section comes from Heloise Allan, Head of Education for Project Trust, an educational charity specialising in overseas volunteering in 34 countries for school-leavers aged 17-19.
See this and other job profiles on our website now.
Read more...
21 November 2014 (SCILT)
Let your pupils see that languages are valuable in the world of work by visiting the 'Job Profiles' section of the SCILT website. People from a range of sectors - including sport, marketing, technology and many more - explain how language learning has influenced their professional lives.
NEW to the job profiles section:
- Chris Cusack explains how languages have helped him in his music career
- Martin Peterson of Shell shares his view of languages in the world of business
See these and other job profiles on our website now.
Read more...
6 November 2014 (SCILT)
SCILT’s Business Language Champions programme helps schools and businesses to build exciting and sustainable partnerships that equip young people with the international communication and employability skills they need for their future careers.
This case study shows how a partnership between Kilwinning Academy and the Scottish Football Association demonstrated to pupils that languages are necessary in all walks of life. S3 learners visited the Scottish Football Museum and took part in a range of activities which highlighted the relevance of learning French.
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23 October 2014 (SCILT/CISS)
The Confucius Institute for Scotland’s Schools, (CISS) within SCILT, Scotland’s National Centre for Languages, is looking to appoint an Administrative Assistant for this busy centre. CISS is jointly funded by Hanban/Confucius Institute Headquarters and Scottish Government and is expanding to manage new Confucius Classroom Hubs around Scotland in addition to the 12 currently in place.
The postholder will be responsible for providing effective administrative and organisational support to the Confucius Institute for Scotland’s Schools. Support will be primarily for the Project Co-ordinator and Manager of the Confucius Institute and will include events management, organisation of trips to China, responding to enquiries and monitoring CISS expenditure and income. The postholder will also be responsible for updating the CISS website and for collating the CISS newsletter and other publications.
For more information and an application form, visit the University of Strathclyde's vacancy webpage. Application deadline: 26 October 2014.
Read more...
21 October 2014 (SCILT)
SCILT’s Business Language Champions programme helps schools and businesses to build exciting and sustainable partnerships that equip young people with the international communication and employability skills they need for their future careers.
This case study shows how a partnership between Priorsford Primary and Holland & Sherry, a world renown cloth merchant based in Peebles, provided a local context to show young people the opportunities that arise from learning a modern language. The whole school was involved in this BLC project which raised learners’ awareness of what Holland & Sherry does in their local town while building learners’ language skills.
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21 October 2014 (SCILT)
Show your pupils that languages are valuable in the world of work by visiting the 'Job Profiles' section of the SCILT website. People from a range of sectors - including sport, marketing, technology and many more - explain how language learning has influenced their professional lives.
NEW to the job profiles section:
- Susan Young shows us her unusual office, and tells us how she turned her passion in life into her job.
- Amy Baxter shares her story with us in a new video interview just added to her job profile.
Read more...
7 October 2014 (SCILT)
Communicating in another language doesn't necessarily mean you have to speak it. Confused? All will be revealed by interpreter, Paul Belmonte, in the latest job profile added to our website.
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31 May 2014 (Guardian)
Recruiters share the ten key skills students really need when they graduate. Includes a 'global mindset' and a language.
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17 April 2014 (The Guardian)
Multilinguist Nikki Rickett leads groups around Antarctica, a job she wouldn't be able to do without her background in languages.
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4 April 2014 (TESS)
With its opportunities for international travel, plus obligatory high heels and lipstick, the job of the “trolley dolly” or air hostess has long been regarded as a glamorous career choice.
The threat of international terrorism and advent of no-frills travel have served to make the lives of modern cabin crew far less glitzy. But at City of Glasgow College, which has received 353 applications for up to 23 places on its unique airline cabin crew training course, it seems that working at 35,000ft is as attractive as ever.
Languages, essential on international flights, are part of the course, with students required to study German, Spanish and French.
Read more...
18 March 2014 (SCILT)
More profiles of people who have found languages useful in their work have been uploaded onto the SCILT website. Read about successful people in the business and sporting worlds and see why they consider that learning a language is really important.
Recent additions include:
- Melville Petrie, Director of PAI Ltd, on the challenges of learning and working with Mandarin and Arabic
- Euan Johnston, Marketing Manager at Bellcom Worldwide, on his love of German and how this has helped his career
- Ian Fyfe, Human Resources Director and SFA Referee on languages as an important skill for SFA coaches
This is a useful resource to inspire pupils to study languages and highlight how doing so may benefit their future career.
Visit our Job Profiles and Careers webpage for more information.
Read more...
3 March 2014 (Education and Employers)
(Applies to England) A national campaign is being launched to encourage young people to learn languages at school and understand how language skills impact on their job prospects. Inspiring the Future Languages Focus Week is taking place 22-26 September 2014 and seeks to get 100s of schools and employers involved across England.
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14 February 2014 (Oxford Mail)
An Oxfordshire businessman has told the Government that schools must teach more foreign languages for British businesses to thrive.
Gary Muddyman, chief executive of translation agency Conversis, based in Chesterton near Bicester, spoke in the House of Lords to highlight the issue. He warned that the deepening language skills shortage is affecting UK competitiveness abroad.
Read more...
30 January 2014 (The Guardian)
A dearth of foreign language skills accounts for nearly a fifth of hard-to-fill vacancies in the UK, a survey has found.
The UK Commission for Employment and Skills' (UKCES) report on the UK's employer skills found that of reasons employers gave for struggling to fill vacancies, 17% attributed a languages skills shortage.
The survey asked employers which skills they found to be lacking among applicants for its vacancies. Language skills came in at 17%, second to last after IT skills. The highest portion of skills employers found lacking in applicants were technical, job-specific skills, which accounted for 63%.
Genna Kik, senior research manager on the report, said that while the language skills may be low overall compared to the categories, for the businesses experiencing these shortfalls, the impact is significant.
Read more...
17 January 2014 (The Guardian)
Aldo Liguori couldn't do his job without languages. Liguori is global head of PR at Fast Retailing, the Japanese company behind international clothing giants Uniqlo and French label Comptoir des Cotonniers. He is fluent in five languages, including Japanese, which he says gives him "a complete advantage" when liaising with the media and his senior colleagues around the world.
Read more...
17 January 2014 (The Guardian)
Iona Lunan outlines her work as a language trainer, sharing advice on the key skills you'll need and what challenges you'll face.
A linguist at heart knowing that she wanted to travel and learn more languages led her to Tefl.
Read more...
18 December 2013 (Newsbeat)
There has been a rise in the number of British people going to study in China over the past five years. The number of British students going to study in the country has risen from 3,174 to 4,250.
A charity has told Newsbeat even more young people should consider it in an effort to boost their job chances. China is already the world's second biggest economy and is expected to overtake the US in the future.
The British Council says the the UK still lags behind countries like France when it comes to sending students east.
Read more...
10 December 2013 (The Guardian)
Deficient language skills and the assumption that "everyone speaks English" are costing the UK economy around £48bn a year, or 3.5% of GDP, according to research by Professor James Foreman-Peck for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).
Poor language skills act like a "tax on growth", hampering small to medium-size exporters, who are unable to employ the language specialists brought in by global companies, says Foreman-Peck, professor of economics at Cardiff Business School. It also deters non-exporters from trading internationally, he adds.
Read more...
10 December 2013 (The Guardian)
The Arsenal manager talks to Molly Pierce about his dedication to language learning and how football can make learning them more exciting.
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10 December 2013 (The Guardian)
A good diplomat needs to have the language skills to communicate and interact with locals on the street. It is not sufficient to be able to speak to the country's leaders. It is, of course, an important part of a diplomat's job to report, accurately, exchanges with the host government; but to anticipate trends and to detect straws in the wind you need diplomats who can mingle with those outside of government who may yet influence public opinion.
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6 December 2013 (SCILT)
Our new ‘Beyond School’ section on the SCILT website offers help and advice to young people about the many ways they can continue to develop their language skills, whether by making the transition from school to a course at university or by studying, working or volunteering overseas. As well as general help and advice on making the move to university and courses available, there are links to potential career paths and opportunities and what support is available to schools to help promote languages as a subject choice at university.
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5 December 2013 (The Guardian)
Safeguarding Britain's interests abroad requires diplomats who can speak languages. In a recent live chat on the Guardian, a panel of experts debated the importance of languages for diplomacy and national security. Five key themes emerged from that conversation.
- Diplomacy and national security
- The scale of the threats
- Fluency vs functionality
- The cost of language training
- The American perspective
Read more...
5 December 2013 (Education Scotland )
SCILT, Scotland’s National Centre for Languages, is working with businesses and schools in Scotland to promote languages as a key skill for employment.
Operating effectively in a global economy relies on many skills and includes the right language skills. People who can communicate, at least conversationally, can make all the difference in the conduct of business, consolidating relationships with existing suppliers and customers and opening the way to new overseas contacts. When combined with STEM skills, the career opportunities in a vast array of sectors widens.
Read more...
26 November 2013 (The Guardian)
Britain's language skills deficit is threatening its diplomatic influence and national security, a report by the British Academy has found.
The British Academy, the national body for the humanities and social sciences, calls for government to address the lack of language skills across all its departments and to prioritise the development of these skills among current staff and future generations. The report warns that if more is not done to bridge the languages gap that exists within government, Britain's diplomatic influence will be damaged.
"Languages are a critical tool through which UK diplomats and government staff can deepen their knowledge and build the trust that is necessary to promote and protect British values and interests internationally," Robin Niblett, chair of the British Academy inquiry steering group, said.
"If steps are not taken to reverse the current declining trend in language skills, Britain may indeed be in danger of becoming 'lost for words'."
Read more...
25 November 2013 (The Information Daily)
Learning different languages is vital, not just for the growth of trade and business, but for Britain's political, cultural and education development. In many European countries, it's the norm for people to speak a second or even a third language - so why is Britain so stubbornly monolingual?
The recent European Survey on Language Competences found that just one in ten British teenagers progress past the most fundamental level in a second language, compared with an average of 42 per cent across all countries surveyed.
Clearly, this is a problem - although part of the problem may be how easy it is for Brits not to learn a second language.
Read more...
21 November 2013 (Education Scotland/British Council)
Education Scotland and British Council Scotland are currently looking for a Development Officer on a secondment basis. Candidates should possess a degree-level qualification in teaching (or equivalent), experience of working in an international education context (including school-based programmes such as e-twinning), partnership working and delivering Curriculum for Excellence in a classroom setting. Please visit the Education Scotland vacancy webpage for further information and application details.
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03 November 2013 (The Journal)
“Xiang jiao! Banana!” says Fu Huijuan, beaming as she waves the fruit in front of her three-year-old pupil, Leon, at a Madrid nursery school.
He and his four classmates have barely learned to speak even in their native Spanish, but already they are absorbing Mandarin Chinese – as are many adult Spaniards concerned for their job prospects.
Read more...
18 October 2013 (The Telegraph)
This former soldier once hated learning languages – but ended up working as a translator in Brazil.
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18 October 2013 (The Independent)
Britons can no longer rely on the rest of the world speaking English to get by in the world of business or work, the European Education Commissioner warns.
Androulla Vassiliou cited figures which showed the UK languishing at the foot of a European languages league table - the EU had set a target of 50 per cent of people speaking two foreign languages fluently - yet in the UK only nine per cent of 15-year-olds spoke one foreign language. That compared with more than 80 per cent of 15-year-olds in the Netherlands and Sweden, who topped the table.
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16 October 2013 (The Guardian)
From international aid to banking, social media and teaching, language graduates end up across all career sectors.
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15 October 2013 (European Commission/ThirdYearAbroad)
The European Commission has teamed up with ThirdYearAbroad.com to interview UK language graduates and discover how their language skills have benefited their careers.
The graduates featured in the clips have found work in business, finance, the media, the police, international development, education, sport, diplomacy and translation thanks to their language abilities and the skills developed on the year abroad.
There are fourteen two-minute video interviews, each featuring a different graduate, and one longer five-minute video summarising the key message that languages boost your career.
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3 October 2013 (Teachit Languages)
Unless you’ve been living on the moon recently, you surely can’t have escaped the media furore around Channel 4’s Educating Yorkshire. The students and staff of Dewsbury’s Thornhill Academy are keeping us entertained every Thursday…in the journalistic scoop of the century, Teachit Languages editor Heike Bruton managed to secure an interview with Thornhill Academy’s headteacher, Jonny Mitchell!
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1 October 2013 (Inside Higher Ed)
The organizers of Monday's daylong "Languages For All?" conference at the University of Maryland said more than once that the event, in the words of the university's Director of Language Policy Initiatives Richard Brecht, "is not about advocacy, this is about inquiry." But it was clear that the 150 or so professors, researchers, policy makers and government employees in attendance vehemently promote at least one stance: that languages are critical, and that Americans' unwillingness and/or disinterest in learning them is holding the country back.
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26 September 2013 (TES)
He is better known for his views on football, but former England striker and TV personality Gary Lineker has claimed foreign languages are not taken seriously enough on the national curriculum.
The host of Match of the Day was speaking to TES about the importance of learning languages for young people today, adding that it was more relevant to their every day lives than other subjects such as the sciences.
Himself a fluent Spanish speaker after a successful three-year career playing for Barcelona, Mr Lineker believes students should learn a foreign tongue because it will always be useful in later life.
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23 September 2013 (British Academy)
Today the British Academy launched a new policy research project, ‘Born Global’, investigating the nature and extent of language needs in the labour market and the implications for languages education from school to higher education.
As a key project in the British Academy’s language programme, the research aims to develop a deeper understanding of how language is used in the workplace for different purposes, by employees of different levels of skill and accountability. It will explore employers’ expectations of language competence and investigate the reasons for their dissatisfaction with the current language capabilities of school and college leavers and university graduates.
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23 September 2013 (Cambridge News)
A call for action to reverse the “severe decline” in young people learning foreign languages has been made by Cambridgeshire’s representative in Brussels.
Richard Howitt MEP said knowledge of at least one other European language is important given that so much of the UK’s trade is done with the rest of Europe, despite English being recognised as the world language.
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16 September 2013 (WiredGov)
More needs to be done to encourage British students to study languages at A Level and university, according to the European Commission. The importance of foreign language skills is self-evident in all EU countries, given that businesses increasingly operate internationally: more than half of the UK's trade is with the rest of Europe - and its businesses need staff who can speak the language of their customers. The Commission will underline this at a conference during the London Language Show next month (18 October).
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12 September 2013 (The Guardian)
The BBC defence correspondent's language skills have taken her around the world on assignment.
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2 September 2013 (ESPN)
New Real Madrid signing Gareth Bale showed how he had spent his summer months by speaking in Spanish during the Bernabeu unveiling to mark his world record £86 million transfer.
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Related Links
Gareth Bale must put heart and soul into Real move - Gary Lineker (BBC Sport, 1 September 2013) Lineker, who played for Barca between 1986-1989, feels that learning the language and immersing himself in the culture will be key to Bale's chances of succeeding in La Liga.
31 August 2013 (Irish Independent)
Every year, the Government's Expert Group on Future Skills Needs publishes a snapshot of the supply and demand of skills in Ireland.
Multilingual skills are a key aspect of some of the skill shortages.
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19 July 2013 (The Guardian)
English may be a world language, but is it really enough to compete in the global job race?
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10 June 2013 (British Chambers of Commerce)
A survey of more than 4,500 businesses released today (Monday) by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that the share of Chamber members which export continues to increase. However, the findings also suggest that gaps surrounding the general know-how of how to take a product or service overseas are holding back firms from taking the initial step towards exporting. In addition to this, there is a major shortfall in foreign language skills within the business community. Rebalancing the economy towards net exports is vital for the success of the UK economy, so the British Chambers of Commerce is calling for more support for firms looking to trade overseas, while encouraging the take-up of foreign languages – both in school and in the workplace.
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Related Links
Addressing knowledge gaps and the deficit in foreign language skills will boost exports (BCC, 10 June 2013) The results of the BCC's 2013 international trade survey show that companies continue to be held back from exporting by lack of knowledge and poor foreign language skills.
Poor language skills are deal-breaker for economy, says BCC (The Times, 10 June 2013)
31 May 2013 (The Telegraph)
Only six of the 16 British Ambassadors in the Arab world speak enough Arabic to be able to conduct official business in the language, the Foreign Office has disclosed.
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14 May 2013 (The Guardian)
UK universities are setting up campuses overseas to meet international demand, but studying on a foreign campus also has many benefits for UK students.
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6 May 2013 (The Herald)
That the sous-chef currently being sought by Buckingham Palace should have a "good understanding of kitchen French" might prompt some cynics to wonder why the royal request should sound quite so disparaging. It's as though "kitchen French" is somehow less posh than classic, quite suitable for the lowly position of household cook, and therefore the only form that would be acceptable in the Queen's cuisine. The reality could not be more different.
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11 April 2013 (Routes into Languages)
Routes into Languages West Midlands in conjunction with Stone’s Throw Media have produced a new DVD entitled “The Only Way is Languages!” The aim of this DVD is to inspire young people to study languages at school, college and university and to get them thinking of the different kind of careers they could go into with their language skills. They may think that teaching and interpreting are the only options but we can show them many different careers! We have six case studies of real life examples of people using their language skills in the workplace.
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2 April 2013 (The Economist)
Translation and interpretation in matters of diplomacy is tricky. Language enthusiasts particularly enjoy the story of the Treaty of Wuchale, signed between Ethiopia and Italy in 1889. The text didn’t read the same in Amharic and Italian. The former guaranteed Ethiopia’s king Menelik II a good measure of autonomy in conducting foreign affairs. The latter established an Italian protectorate with no flexibility. The culprit: one verb, forming a permissive clause in Amharic and a mandatory one in Italian. Six years later, the differing interpretations led to war. Ethiopia won.
If only the Ethiopians and Italians had modern translators at their side. Treaty translation is big business today.
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13 March 2013 (Financial Times)
A few years ago, when Antonella Sorace visited the European Central Bank in Frankfurt to talk about her research into bilingualism, she was astonished to find the bank’s multinational staff worrying about what should have been one of their families’ principal assets. “They had all kinds of doubts about the benefits of multilingualism for their children; they worried that their children weren’t learning to read or write properly – in any language,” she says. “I found it very instructive.”
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12 March 2013 (British Influence)
(Relates to England) There was much embarrassment recently for Michael Gove when the cabinet's golden boy announced that he would not, after all, be replacing GCSEs with a new English Baccalaureate Certificate (EBC). Part of the reasoning for Gove's EBC had been to increase the take-up of modern European (as well as other) languages – where research shows that there are clear advantages in terms of cognitive skills and understanding.
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4 March 2013 (Lexiophiles)
After spending countless hours on trying to understand grammar structures, memorizing long vocabulary lists, learning idioms and struggling with pronunciation, you have finally reached your goal: fluency! It’s been a long way and you’ve worked hard to get here. The question is, now that you've mastered a new language, what are you going to do with it?
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26 February 2013 (EurActiv)
A new translation engine that can cut faster through the rarefied vocabulary of Brussels technocrats in 23 European languages will be rolled out by the European Commission in July in an effort to cut costs.
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22 February 2013 (TESS)
Modern languages - British Airways has adapted its language test for customer-facing staff, to encourage more young people to continue with language learning.
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20 February 2013 (The Guardian)
We need to find new ways to express the importance of learning languages, writes Professor Nigel Vincent. At the British Academy last week we released a report called Languages: State of the Nation. It analyses the worrying state of the current demand and supply of language skills in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and is the latest in a series of reports and position papers we have dedicated in recent years to the declining status of languages in our schools and universities. The aim of all our work is to drive home the message that languages are vital for the health and wellbeing of the education and research base, for UK business competitiveness and political standing, and for individuals and society at large.
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28 January 2013 (European Commission)
The names of the 27 winners of the European Commission’s annual EU Young Translator Juvenes Translatores contest for secondary school pupils are published today (28 January, list of winning pupils/schools below). More than 3 000 pupils from 750 schools sat the contest in November 2012. The winners – one per EU country – will be invited to an award ceremony in Brussels on 11 April to receive their prizes from Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou and will also have the chance to see the Commission's translators at work.
“The contest is an excellent way to promote language learning and translation as a possible career. Language skills are a fantastic asset: they broaden the mind and can boost employability, something which is especially important in the current economic environment," said Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth.
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18 January 2013 (SCILT)
Due to recent staffing changes, a vacancy for a Professional Development Officer at SCILT/CISS has arisen.
This is an exciting opportunity to work at national level and support the planning and implementation of the new “1+2” Languages Policy. The turnaround time for applications is tight – the deadline is the 28th January – and we hope to interview on the 4th or 5th February.
This post is available on secondment or as a fixed-term contract to 31st March 2015, with strong possibility of extension beyond that date.
For further details and an application pack, please visit the HR website.
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17 January 2013 (Goethe-Institut)
In today's professional world, knowledge of foreign languages is an indispensable skill and a must-have on any resume. Still, studies show that while good foreign language skills play an increasingly important role in the workplace, every situation is different.
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15 January 2013 (The Independent)
It seems as if languages are not a popular choice of course at university nowadays. Once upon a time, learning a language and studying its literature was considered a solid choice of degree, but now there's a perception that they might be a bit of a waste of time.
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6 January 2013 (Daily Record)
Football has become global. And Scotland’s managers are about to follow suit.
The latest candidates for the SFA’s UEFA Pro Licence will gather at Hampden today to kick off the two-year course they now need to boss at the elite level of European football.
But for the first time since the course began in 1999, candidates must learn a second language as part of their studies.
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7 December 2012 (TESS)
The ability to speak foreign languages is not only important in finding work abroad - it is becoming ever more crucial for getting a job in Scotland. That was one of the most compelling messages from businesswoman Rebecca Trengove, guest speaker at a languages conference in Stirling.
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5 December 2012 (The Telegraph)
We English speakers have a bad reputation in the world of language. According to a European Commission survey in 2012, 61 per cent of British respondents could not speak a second language. However, with growing foreign economies and more global communication than ever before, languages are becoming a crucial skill for professionals.
The related article below outlines the languages rated most useful to business by UK firm managers. Ironically, whilst not listed as one of the easiest to learn, German language skills are the most highly sought after by UK businesses.
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30 November 2012 (TESS)
An 'international mobility experience' served cookery and hospitality students well.
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27 November 2012 (BBC News)
A widespread lack of language skills could be damaging Scotland's ability to trade abroad, a report has suggested. The British Council study warned there was a tendency among Scottish firms to limit their export markets to English-speaking countries.
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Related Links
Fears raised for overseas trade as young Scots shy away from studying foreign languages (The Scotsman, 27 November 2012)
A crisis in foreign language teaching across Scottish education is damaging overseas trade, the British Council warns today.
Analysis: Speaking the lingo goes to prove that it’s not only travel that broadens the mind (The Scotsman, 27 November 2012)
Leaders: Greater language skills key to breaking trade barriers (The Scotsman, 27 November 2012)
Crisis in study of languages a risk to trade (The Herald, 27 November 2012)
A lack of foreign language skills is limiting the ability of Scottish companies to tap into lucrative overseas export markets, according to a new report.
Kaye asks why Scots are so bad at learning foreign languages (Call Kaye, BBC Radio Scotland, 27 November 2012) - programme available until 3 December 2012.
Trade danger of language teaching cuts (Scottish Daily Express, 27 November 2012)
Language cuts 'will hit Scottish economy' (Morning Star, 27 November 2012)
Language Rich Europe - Scotland (British Council, 2012)
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21 November 2012 (Higher Education Academy)
The time spent studying, working or volunteering abroad during a degree programme is an excellent opportunity to identify and start up a new business. However, too few students are aware of entrepreneurship before or during their international placement.
This report shows that students who speak foreign languages, travel and understand other cultures have a unique entrepreneurial opportunity. It encourages students to look at placements abroad in a more critical and innovative way, to be aware of business opportunities and to make use of the start-up support, networks and services available when starting a business.
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16 November 2012 (CILT Cymru)
On Friday the 9th of November, the profile of Modern Foreign Languages was raised at the Institute of Welsh Affairs / Western Mail Business Awards.
The newly created Award, The Best Use of Foreign Languages in Business Award recognised those Welsh companies who actively use foreign languages to develop strong markets abroad.
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9 November 2012 (European Commission)
More than 100 European personalities from the worlds of education, art, literature, economics, philosophy and sport have signed an open letter to EU Heads of State and Government in support of the threatened Erasmus student exchange programme. The signatories come from every Member State of the EU and include the Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar, the president of FC Barcelona Sandro Rosell, Nobel Prize winner Professor Christopher Pissarides and several Olympic champions.
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7 November 2012 (Business Insider)
Looking for another way to stand out in a tough job market, plus increase your competitiveness and versatility down the road in your career? If you can commit to adding one or more languages to your resume, you’ll instantly stand out from the crowd.
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