Universities, schools and businesses took part in a national language festival to celebrate their passion for language learning.
The 2013 British Academy Language Festival flew the flag for languages throughout November. Schools, universities, policymakers and businesses came together to debate, discuss and celebrate language learning. Here is a selection of activities that took place during the festival.
Britons came joint-bottom in the European Commission's 2011 rankings showing the number of languages learned in each member country – proof that the UK lags miserably behind its European neighbours when it comes to language learning.
But encouraging an interest in languages isn't just the responsibility of schools – higher education institutions also have a key role to play. "Students often arrive with very little foreign-language education," says Dr Terry Lamb, of the University of Sheffield. "A lot of the time it's not because they didn't want to study languages – it's just they wanted to do something else more. It's very important for them to have the opportunity to learn a language when they are at university, alongside their degree."
A recent event at the university marked the launch of Lamb's new campaign to promote language learning, Why Languages Matter!
"We collected short stories from people about how languages have affected their lives, and incidents where knowing a language has helped them," says Lamb. "It was lovely because we had all sorts of people stopping by – elderly people, families, children and students.
"We got students who only speak English to stop and think about why it matters to learn a language. I want to get people to collect these stories from all around the world."
The event, which was originally organised as part of a social sciences festival and coincided with the language festival organised by the British Academy and the Guardian, aimed to get students who only speak English to consider the value of other languages.
"When people say they don't know any other languages, they're often just comparing their ability in another language to their ability in English," says Lamb. "Because they can't use it like English, to the same level, they just think they can't use it at all. Obviously, being bilingual is good for employability, but it also helps people to open their minds and understand other cultures. It's about personal and cultural enhancements."