Introduction: Is Language Learning in Anglophone Countries in Crisis?

Anglophone learners (English as an L1) in a variety of settings share similar underlying challenges when it comes to learning languages other than English (LOTEs). In this volume, we identify and analyse these challenges, and compare them to those of learners of English. The global success of English has led to language learning crises in Anglophone countries. Despite these underlying commonalities, the specifics of the crisis manifest both in the school context (Part I) and in Higher Education (Part II) and vary from one country to the next. Complex combinations of liberalisation, decentralisation and marketisation, and, in some Anglophone countries, rising nationalism, all contribute to a gradual but steady erosion of language learning. We furthermore describe how four linguistic ‘myopias’ commonly support the erosion of language learning, namely: ignoring existing plurilingual (community) competencies; essentialising English first language (English L1) language learners as (somehow inherently) incompetent in language learning; ignoring the disadvantageous conditions of English L1 learners; and laying the problem, and potential solutions, at the door of individual schools or institutions, rather than addressing policies and practices more widely. Our Ways Forward sections of this volume (Parts III, IV and V) describe innovative and promising ways out of the crisis, invariably by addressing one (or several) of the above-described myopias, for instance, by schools adopting language policies which include students’ community languages. The Introduction finishes by introducing each chapter briefly.