Home > News > June 2005 > 07-Jun-2005

Adult learners relish new languages

There is strong demand for adult language classes, and the English are learning a wider range of languages than ever before, according to a new survey of LEA provision.

The survey found that adults in England are learning 36 different languages in LEA classes, and that 75% of them are at beginners or at Level 1.

The findings showed that a third of all language learners were studying Spanish (32,659) and over a quarter were learning French (25,588).This was followed by about 1 in 10 learning Italian (10,500), with British Sign Language as the fourth most popular language.

Isabella Moore, Director of CILT, the National Centre for Languages, which co-ordinated the survey, said "The figures show that there is a will among the English people to overturn the monolingual stereotype.

"There is a mixture of motivations which have to do with what we want to get out of life in both work and leisure. But there is no doubt that we are starting to become more open to the idea of being global citizens and needing to communicate in a range of languages other than English."

Further evidence for the popularity of language learning among adults comes in findings published last week by NIACE, which show languages as the fourth most popular subject for adults to learn, and that 6% of adults are currently learning one, or have done so very recently.

External link

The report, Languages Trends 2005, can be found at:
http://www.cilt.org.uk/key/trends2005.htm

Training Reference is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites.

Training and development books

Discover books on a variety of training and development topics at the Training Reference Bookshop

Source suppliers

Visit the Training Reference Directory to view supplier details for a wide range of courses, products and services.

Sponsored links

Back to top