Towards a History of Modern Foreign Language Teaching and Learning (MFLTL)

（亮点：现代外语教育是培养英国在最高水平的国际合作中的笔译和口译能力的基础，在过去的世纪里，它从来没有满足英国在欧洲和全球交流中代表其利益的需要。16岁时学习德语的学生人数现在比1985年要少，学习法语的学生人数和1965年一样少。自1918年Leathes报告以来，西班牙语就因其经济重要性而被预测会腾飞，但直到最近十年才实现。俄语--在冷战期间被更广泛地引入学校--一直是一门小众学科，尽管它有1. 5亿人说俄语。汉语--超过十亿人--在GCSE统计数据中仍然仅仅被列为“其他现代语言”。外语教育工作者，谁承担着沉重的责任，在发展能力，有一种危机感，在面对这种战略需求和外语的提供和接收之间的不匹配。然而，无论是政策，还是课程，还是在课堂上提供课程的方法，都不能在没有对MFL历史的认识的情况下制定，它告诉我们已经尝试了哪些措施，以及取得了哪些成功，以促进特定的语言，或特定的语言学习方法（包括翻译），在小学，中学，大学或终身教育环境中。对现代语言的教学和学习方式以及原因的历史认识，应该成为任何语言教师培训和政策制定的一部分。然而，在英国，现代语言教学的历史研究严重不足，尽管霍金斯的《课程中的现代语言》（1987年）只有三章，但这一说法在今天和斯特恩在他为实习教师编写的权威教科书《语言教学的基本概念》（1983年）中观察到的一样真实。这种情况与欧洲其他地方的情况形成鲜明对比。例如，在德国，语言教学史是一个实质性的领域，有自己的主题书目。在其他地方，有专门的国家教学史协会（葡萄牙和西班牙的APHELLE和SEHEL，意大利的CIRSIL，荷兰的PHG）和个别语言教学史协会（如法语的SIHFLES）。这一切都是英国所缺乏的。为了解决这一问题，我们的研究网络将汇集英国研究人员对现代外语教育的历史感兴趣-历史学家，语言学家和MFL专家-与欧洲已经活跃在该领域的同事一起，有两个目标，以满足未来MFL政策和能力发展的总体目标：1。分享方法和研究成果，长期目标是撰写英国现代语言学习的历史; 2.致力于超越国家和学科界限的欧洲现代外语教育史。资金将用于举办两个讲习班和一次会议。这些研讨会分别在诺丁汉和沃里克举行，将使英国研究人员能够从四种不同语言传统的领先研究人员的工作中学习（法语、德语、西班牙语、英语作为外语）和八个民族传统（法国、德国、比利时、荷兰、西班牙、葡萄牙、意大利、联合王国）。这将是英国第一次专门讨论MFL教育历史的会议。它将包括在讲习班期间和之后开发的主题小组，并将向公众以及研究人员和教学人员开放。这两个讲习班的论文将作为特刊提交给两个同行评审期刊。一卷从会议上选出的论文将在同行评审后提交给领先的出版商Multilingual Matters。

(Highlight: Translating Cultures)Modern foreign language (MFL) education - the basis for building the UK's capacity in translation and interpreting at the highest levels of international cooperation - has, over the last century, never matched the UK's need to represent its interests in European and global communication. The number of pupils taking German at 16 is now lower than in 1985, and for French as low as in 1965. Spanish, predicted since the 1918 Leathes Report to take off because of its economic importance, has done so only in the last decade. Russian - introduced in schools more widely in the Cold War - has remained a niche subject, despite the fact that it has 150 million speakers. Chinese - with over a billion speakers - is still merely listed under "other modern languages" in GCSE statistics. MFL educators, who bear a heavy responsibility in developing capacity, have a sense of crisis in the face of this mismatch between strategic needs and MFL provision and take-up. Yet neither policy, nor curricula, nor the methods to deliver curricula in the classroom, can be developed without an awareness of the history of MFL, which tells us what measures have been tried, and with what success, to promote particular languages, or particular approaches to language learning (including translation), in primary, secondary, tertiary, or lifelong education settings. Some historical awareness of how and why modern languages have been taught and learnt should be part of the training of any language teacher and of policy development. Yet in the UK, the history of the teaching of modern languages is badly under-researched, a statement that despite the lone three-chapter survey of Hawkins' Modern Languages in the Curriculum (1987) - is as true today as when Stern observed it in his authoritative textbook for trainee teachers, Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching (1983). The situation contrasts with the situation elsewhere in Europe. In Germany, for example, the history of language teaching is a substantive field, complete with its own subject bibliographies. Elsewhere, there are separate associations for the history of teaching in specific countries (APHELLE and SEHEL for Portugal and Spain, CIRSIL for Italy, PHG for the Netherlands) and for the history of teaching individual languages (such as SIHFLES for French). All of this is lacking in the UK. In order to address this lack, our research network will bring together researchers in the UK with an interest in the history of Modern Foreign Language education - historians, linguists, and MFL specialists - with colleagues already active in the field in Europe, with two objectives to meet the overall aim of informing future MFL policy and capacity development: 1. sharing methodologies and findings, with the long-term goal of writing the history of modern language learning in the UK, and 2. working towards a history of European modern foreign language education that transcends national and subject boundaries. Funding will be used to run two workshops and a conference. The workshops, one each in Nottingham and Warwick, will allow British researchers to learn from the work of leading researchers from each of four separate language traditions (French, German, Spanish, English as a Foreign Language) and eight national traditions (France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy, UK).The international conference, to be held in Nottingham, will be the first ever conference in the UK devoted to the history of MFL education. It will include themed panels developed during and after the workshops, and will be open to the public as well as to researchers and teaching practitioners. Papers from the two workshops will be submitted as special issues to two peer-reviewed journals. A volume of selected papers from the conference will be submitted after peer review to the leading publisher Multilingual Matters.