The Linguist

12 The Linguist Vol/64 No/2 ciol.org.uk/thelinguist FEATURES (CAR). There are also fantastic opportunities to get out and engage with frontline teachers, educators and researchers, for example as a keynote speaker at the Association for Language Learning's annual conference. You are a member of the Education Select Committee. Is that useful for your APPG ML work? Absolutely. The main focus of the Education Select Committee is to scrutinise the DfE and make sure any government plans – for example the CAR – are as good as they can be. More widely, we're looking at better opportunities for young people. I've been able to bring both those worlds together, drawing on my own experience: I was the first of my family to go to university and languages were my route to that. We've got to make sure that our education policy is functioning properly and we don't focus on too few subjects. We need to ensure that those who are more of an artistic leaning – including kids for whom languages might be their spark – get those opportunities as well, because that could be the thing that really opens doors for them. What would you see as a successful term as Chair of the APPG ML? My main priority is to showcase the need for languages in Britain in the 21st century, particularly post-Brexit. Some people think we need other languages less. That's nonsense. Various things have become problems since Brexit, including the mechanics of children taking part in overseas trips, and recruiting overseas teachers and support workers. Basically, I want to go some way to sweeping up the mess of Brexit! We need to change how we think about languages; to move on from seeing them as a problem or a difficulty or something that you need a specific gene to be good at. It's about saying, "Let's make sure that languages are an opportunity for all children in all schools." That means getting the excitement and capacity for languages as early as possible. What we have at the moment is a focus on Year 7 [ages 11-12] and then within two to three years, we're asking young people if they want to do one of their first high-stakes public exams, the GCSEs, in that subject. We would want some well-resourced, planned, statutory language provision from Key Stage 1 [ages 5-7]. It can be done. It's done in a lot of other countries. Do you have advice for readers about how to engage politicians on this topic? Don't stay quiet. Do contact your MP – let them know that this is an important issue to you as a constituent. Please follow the work of the APPG, suggest things to us that we might be missing. Make your voices heard. Use all the professional and research bodies – invite them to look at the context where you are. Could you tell us a bit about your early experiences with languages? When I was growing up in the '80s, there was no primary languages initiative. I owe an awful lot to Mr Garwood, my first French teacher at secondary school, who enabled me to discover this is something I really enjoy. Then I did German in Year 9 and decided to learn Italian outside school too. We went on trips to Normandy and Spain. I found it really exhilarating to be able to engage with people who were 1000% as human as anyone I'd ever grown up with but just came from a different The new Chair of the UK Parliament's languages group on how judgements over his Geordie roots, a year abroad in post-Pinochet Chile and a love of language learning contributed to his political awakening and dedication to sociolinguistics DARREN PAFFEY PHILIP HARDING-ESCH MEETS So, Darren, what made you want to join the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages (APPG ML)? I was first elected as an MP in 2024 and as part of the induction into Westminster, we heard about APPGs. Having been a university lecturer for 20 years and a researcher in languages, and being married to an MFL teacher, I knew that I wanted to join the APPG ML. There's so much that's new as an MP, it's nice to have things you already know about and hit the ground running on those issues. I began as Vice Chair with Tonia Antoniazzi as Chair and Baroness Coussins as Co-Chair, and took over as Chair this year. What has the work entailed so far? One of the things that strikes me about the way this APPG works is that there's a lot of external speakers; you're never just talking to yourselves as parliamentarians. I was really interested to hear an array of speakers, and to learn how Baroness Coussins asked questions in the Lords, and Tonia in the Commons, and about written parliamentary questions. There is also planning and being involved in events. Since taking over as Chair, I've been asking: what are our priorities for the coming year? One was to get a meeting with Department for Education (DfE) officials, representatives of Ofqual and Ofsted [the qualifications and schools regulators] and senior civil servants to examine the regulatory framework around the teaching of languages in schools. In politics, as in business, lots of things take place in piecemeal ways; this was an opportunity to get everyone around the table at once. Another part of the work is to feed into some big changes in education, which include the Curriculum and Assessment Review

• Cover