Abstract
This chapter suggests that the UK has the potential to jump-start its capacity for language skills if it supports the language knowledge held by its community groups. Community-based language teaching and learning is widespread across the UK but relies heavily on volunteers and charitable work to survive. The chapter includes a case study of community languages in Southampton, which is typical of the situation across much of the UK. The creativity, innovation and collaborative nature of community-based classes and supplementary schools offers a vision of how language skills and cultural knowledge could be built up and embedded across society. It concludes that learning lessons from community-based language classes can help the UK to meet the challenges and realise the opportunities of an interconnected and globalised future.
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Borthwick, K. (2018). Support Unsung Heroes: Community-Based Language Learning and Teaching. In: Kelly, M. (eds) Languages after Brexit. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65169-9_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65169-9_16
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