Introduction
Every year, the Language Trends England report provides the most comprehensive snapshot of the state of Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) in English schools. The 2026 edition paints a fascinating picture of a profession that is adapting rapidly to curriculum reform while continuing to battle what are, sadly, very familiar challenges. There is plenty to celebrate, but there are also some uncomfortable truths that policymakers can no longer afford to ignore, in my opinion. And buried within the report is one finding that, in my view, deserves far more attention than it has received.
International engagement is back on the rise
One of the report’s most encouraging messages is the continuing recovery in international engagement following the disruption caused by Covid-19 and Brexit. Increasing numbers of primary schools are once again developing links with partner schools overseas, taking part in international projects and engaging with organisations such as the British Council. This matters because authentic intercultural experiences provide a powerful motivational boost for language learning. The only disappointment is that around half of primary schools still report having no formal links with outside organisations, reminding us that access to these opportunities still remains highly uneven.
Languages are still fighting for curriculum time
If there is one finding that should concern every language teacher, it is this one; more than a quarter of primary schools now report that language lesson time has been squeezed to make room for literacy and numeracy, while around one in five secondary schools have also reduced Key Stage 3 curriculum time. We have known for years that exposure is the engine of language acquisition. Less curriculum time inevitably means fewer opportunities for meaningful processing, practice and retrieval. Teachers continue to perform miracles, but miracles are much easier when you are actually allowed to teach!
Transition remains the Achilles’ heel
For well over a decade, policymakers have insisted that improving transition between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 should be a priority. The idea is simple: pupils should arrive in secondary school able to build on what they learned in primary school, not start all over again.
Yet the report shows that this ambition remains largely unrealised. Only around 2% of secondary schools report that all pupils continue studying the language they learned in primary school. In practice, this means that many pupils who have spent four years learning French arrive at secondary school only to be placed in Spanish, while others who continue with French often find themselves revisiting content they mastered years earlier because their classmates have very different backgrounds.
The result is a classic lose-lose situation. Some pupils are bored because they spend months repeating what they already know; others become frustrated because they have to abandon several years of learning and begin a completely new language from scratch. Either way, precious curriculum time is wasted and motivation suffers.
The encouraging news is that virtually everyone now recognises this as one of the biggest structural weaknesses in English MFL education. The disappointing news is that we have been recognising it for years. Acknowledging the problem has proved much easier than fixing it.
Spanish overtakes French: an overnight revolution? Not quite.
One of the headline findings confirms what many of us have been noticing for several years: Spanish has now overtaken French as the most widely entered GCSE language. This is certainly a landmark moment, but it is less a revolution than the culmination of a long-term trend.
Why has this happened?
In my view, several factors have gradually converged. Spanish enjoys a reputation among pupils as being easier to pronounce, easier to spell and, in many respects, more transparent than French. Teachers often find it easier to establish early success with beginners, and pupils typically experience fewer difficulties decoding and producing the language. Add to this the growing cultural visibility of the Spanish-speaking world—through music, sport, travel and popular culture—and Spanish has become an increasingly attractive option for many schools.
At the same time, French has suffered from an image problem rather than a linguistic one. For years, many pupils have arrived at secondary school believing that French is “hard”, often before they have even had a chance to experience it properly. Unfortunately, that perception has sometimes become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Interestingly, French still dominates in primary schools, although its share continues to decline while Spanish expands. This creates an awkward situation. Many pupils spend four years learning French in primary school, only to encounter increasing numbers of secondary schools offering Spanish instead. Others continue with French, but within a system where its overall presence is gradually shrinking.
Whether this shift ultimately benefits language education remains an open question. The real challenge is not deciding which language wins the popularity contest. It is ensuring that whichever language pupils learn, they learn it well. Ultimately, the quality of teaching, the coherence of the curriculum and the amount of curriculum time available matter far more than whether the language happens to be French or Spanish.
Teachers are embracing multilingualism
Another genuinely positive development is the growing recognition of pupils’ home, heritage and community languages. More schools are celebrating multilingualism as part of whole-school culture, encouraging pupils to compare languages, explore similarities and value linguistic diversity. This represents a welcome move away from seeing English and the curriculum language as existing in separate worlds. Instead, schools increasingly recognise multilingualism as an asset rather than a complication.
AI is becoming part of everyday teaching
AI is becoming part of everyday teaching. Artificial Intelligence is no longer a curiosity: 82% of state secondary respondents now use it either regularly or occasionally, while pupil use is also becoming more accepted. Teachers report using AI for vocabulary learning, revision, translation, feedback, research and, particularly at Key Stage 5, speaking practice. However, relatively few schools are explicitly teaching pupils how to design prompts, evaluate outputs critically and use AI ethically. Concerns remain about over-reliance, academic integrity, pupils submitting language beyond their genuine proficiency, and the absence of clear school or national guidance.
The CPD offer is not always keeping pace. Too much AI training remains generic, tool-led and commercially driven, focusing on impressive prompts and instant worksheet generation rather than subject-specific pedagogy. It often neglects linguistic accuracy, curriculum sequencing, cognitive load, safeguarding, assessment validity and the need to preserve pupils’ independent thinking. It is also frequently delivered as a one-off session with little follow-up, classroom evaluation or departmental implementation support. AI can reduce workload and enrich learning, but without rigorous, MFL-specific CPD it may simply help teachers produce more mediocre materials—and pupils avoid more of the thinking—at greater speed.
The report also exposes a familiar and troubling divide: independent schools are further ahead, with higher levels of regular AI use and around half allowing pupils to use it to support language learning, compared with only around a quarter of state secondary schools. This risks creating yet another educational chasm, with privately educated pupils gaining earlier access to guided, sophisticated uses of AI while state-school practice remains more cautious, uneven and constrained.
Teachers are responding impressively to the new GCSE
The report highlights the enormous amount of work departments have undertaken to prepare for the new GCSE specifications. Schemes of work have been rewritten, assessments redesigned, and much greater emphasis has been placed on phonics, reading aloud, dictation and vocabulary progression. Whatever one’s views on the reforms themselves, there can be little doubt that language teachers have responded with remarkable professionalism. The challenge now is ensuring that schools have sufficient time and support to embed these changes successfully.
Schools are creating more of their own resources
One particularly interesting trend is the steady move away from commercially produced resources towards materials created by teachers themselves. Schools increasingly report producing their own resources, adapting existing ones or drawing on freely available materials. On the one hand, this reflects creativity and professional expertise. On the other, it also raises questions about teacher workload. If hundreds of departments are independently producing similar materials across the country, one has to ask whether the profession is making the best use of its collective time and expertise.
The elephant in the room: EPI has quietly become the profession’s preferred approach
Hidden among the findings is what I believe is the single most significant pedagogical development revealed by this year’s survey. Asked to identify the instructional approach that best describes their teaching, more respondents selected Extensive Processing Instruction (EPI) than any other named methodology.
Pause for a second and think about what that actually means.
Here we have an approach that has received no government funding, no official endorsement, no multimillion-pound dissemination programme and no institutional marketing machine. It has spread the old-fashioned way: one teacher tells another; one department shares with another; schools adopt it because they believe it helps pupils learn better. In an educational landscape often dominated by centrally funded initiatives, this is quite extraordinary.
And let’s be honest. For years we have been told that meaningful change in education has to come through government projects, national hubs, centrally funded programmes or university-led initiatives. Yet the largest survey of language teachers in England tells a rather different story. The profession has quietly voted with its feet.
Does this mean EPI has solved every problem in language education? Of course not. No methodology should ever become dogma, and no serious teacher should stop questioning their practice. But when more than half of respondents identify with the same broad pedagogical approach, surely that deserves serious discussion. Whether people approve of EPI or not is almost beside the point.
The profession has spoken, but will the powers that be listen? It is the third consecutive time that EPI and The Language Gym team does better in the Language Trends Survey than the current government-sponsored initiative.
The finding nobody seems particularly keen to publicise
Curiously, this landmark finding has received almost no attention. Most discussions of the report have focused on AI, Spanish overtaking French, curriculum reform and the future of the EBacc. All important topics, certainly. Yet arguably the biggest shift in classroom pedagogy barely features in the commentary surrounding the report.
Why? I honestly don’t know. It may simply reflect editorial priorities. It may be that pedagogical shifts generate fewer headlines than policy announcements. Or perhaps there is a degree of institutional discomfort when one of the report’s biggest findings points towards a grassroots movement rather than a centrally funded initiative. After all, it is rather awkward when a methodology that has grown without government funding, without a national strategy and without institutional sponsorship emerges as the profession’s most widely adopted approach.
I cannot say. What I can say, objectively, is that one of the report’s most significant findings has not been given anything like the prominence one might reasonably have expected.
What this means for English MFL education
Taken as a whole, the report suggests that English language education is entering a new phase. Teachers are increasingly embracing evidence-informed practice, redesigning curricula, integrating AI sensibly and seeking greater coherence across Key Stages. At the same time, they continue to battle shrinking curriculum time, fragile post-16 provision, recruitment difficulties and persistent transition problems.
This is precisely where I believe EPI can make a meaningful contribution. Rather than offering teachers another collection of disconnected activities, trendy labels or fashionable buzzwords, EPI provides a coherent curriculum framework built around structured input, extensive processing, retrieval, recycling and carefully sequenced progression. It is designed not only to improve learning, but also to make teachers’ lives easier by providing consistency across year groups and reducing unnecessary planning.
Over the past decade I have had the privilege of working with thousands of language teachers in the UK and overseas who have adapted these principles to their own contexts. The report suggests that many schools are already moving in this direction. The challenge now is not to convince teachers that structured, evidence-informed instruction matters. They have already reached that conclusion. The challenge is to help departments implement these principles thoughtfully, critically and sustainably.
Conclusions
If I had to summarise Language Trends England 2026 in one sentence, it would be this:the profession is moving FASTER than the system.
Teachers are redesigning curricula, experimenting intelligently with AI, building richer multilingual classrooms and, perhaps most significantly, converging around a shared set of pedagogical principles—not because anyone has told them to, but because they believe those principles improve learning.
The challenges remain substantial. Curriculum time continues to shrink, transition is still far from fit for purpose. recruitment remains difficult, and language uptake beyond Key Stage 4 is still fragile.
Yet the overall picture is far from gloomy. On the contrary, what emerges from this report is a profession that refuses to stand still. Teachers are thinking critically, collaborating generously and constantly refining their practice despite mounting pressures.
Educational change has often been imagined as something that starts in Whitehall, universities or national agencies before filtering down into classrooms. The 2026 Language Trends report suggests the opposite may now be true. Some of the most important innovations in language education are emerging from classrooms themselves.
Perhaps it is time for the powers that be to spend a little less time telling teachers what they should be doing and a little more time paying attention to what teachers have already decided works!
The Language Gym 
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