Foreign Language Ability

English is widely used in many parts of the world and British people have the advantage of already being fluent in the language.

So are they motivated to learn other languages such as French, German or Spanish?

In this programme, secondary school teacher Lindsey gives us some ideas about how British students are introduced to foreign language learning.

Many British schoolchildren learn French

We also hear from headmaster Stephen Winkley, who tells us what he thinks of British people's foreign language ability.

As we shall hear, many British people are able to speak a few words of another foreign language, but not everyone is able to speak another language fluently. Stephen suggests one possible reason why this might be the case.