Finding room for creativity and authenticity in the MFL classroom

Abstract

The pipeline of linguists at higher education is drying up fast. Despite a slight increase in 2025 (Collen and Duff, 2025), languages entries at A-level and higher education remain low (British Academy, 2024). The announced closures of the languages programmes at Cardiff (Ayres-Bennett et al., 2025) and Aberdeen universities reflect a national crisis in developing future linguists. Arguably, there are many reasons why students choose not to carry on with languages after GCSE, from the perceptions that languages are too hard, elitist or lacking in careers opportunities, to losing students to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects or to boredom (Bauckham, 2016). As languages teachers across the country continue to battle with their senior leadership teams to keep their A-level classes running, this article explores the place of creativity and authenticity in modern foreign languages and their role in supporting self-motivation and developing resilience, problem-solving skills, empathy and cultural capital within a squeezed curriculum. To understand the challenges and opportunities linked with creative methodologies in the MFL curriculum, our special interest group joined the School of Education at St Mary’s University, Twickenham and Queen’s College, Oxford in a small-scale research project on supporting creativity in the MFL classroo