When we talk about the UK’s language challenges, we often focus on what is most visible: GCSE and A level entries, university department closures, and formal ‘educational’ learning. These matter greatly. But they are only part of the picture. If we want to arrest linguistic decline and build a more capable and outward‑facing UK, we also need to pay much closer attention to the spoken language skills of adults – and to the millions of people in the UK who already use other languages alongside English in their daily lives.
Speaking is what brings languages to life. Spoken language is the bridge between passively ‘knowing’ a language and actively ‘using’ it: between recognizing ‘words on a page’ and navigating travel, a workplace encounter, a hospital visit, a negotiation, or a moment of crisis. For individuals, use of spoken language builds confidence, employability, and cultural capital. For society, it underpins inclusion, mutual trust, and more effective communication. Yet in UK policy and practice, adults’ spoken languages and ‘communicative competence’ remain undervalued, under‑measured, and under‑recognized.
This matters because the UK is already profoundly multilingual. Speaking English is essential to life in the UK, but millions of people also grow up speaking other languages—Polish, Panjabi, Urdu, Arabic, Romanian, Somali, Portuguese and many, many more—at home and in their communities. These Home, Heritage and Community Languages (HHCLs) should be seen as a living national asset. What’s more, HHCLs represent an opportunity for the UK in trade, diplomacy, and national security. Too often, however, they are treated as being disconnected from the UK’s economic and civic life. The result is a paradox: The UK worries about declining formal language capacity, but at the same time, we are routinely failing to value, accredit, and use the spoken language skills already widely present across the country.
The crucial missing links are practical assessment, validation, and accreditation of communicative competence. Many adult speakers of HHCLs are fluent communicators, but lack a recognized and trusted way to evidence their skills to employers, educators, or public services. Without formal recognition, this linguistic talent remains untapped; with it, individuals could gain confidence and routes into using their languages in work, while organizations would gain access to verified and validated language capability.
Spoken language assessment for adults that is flexible, affordable, and focused on real‑world communication is an essential part of the solution. Fortunately, frameworks already exist to support this. For example, CIOL's Language Level Assessments are designed precisely to evaluate adults’ real-world spoken competence across a very wide range of languages.
Better recognition of spoken languages could also strengthen social mobility. Young adults who speak another language at home are often discouraged, implicitly or explicitly, from using it outside the home environment. Accrediting spoken competence would send a clear message that these skills are valuable, transferable, and worth being proud of. Assessment and accreditation could enable the UK’s deep multilingualism to be seen as an asset in the labour market, rather than being hidden or wasted.
Technology and AI can help too. Digital language‑learning platforms like Duolingo have transformed the way people of all ages engage with languages. Generative AI increasingly enables spoken interaction in other languages, to further practice and develop spoken skills. Digital tools lower the threshold for day-to-day practice and participation, reward small daily habits, and help language speakers build confidence in using their languages. For many people, including adults returning to their languages later in life, these tools provide regular exposure and practice with spoken language that is vital to developing and maintaining communicative competence.
The result is a paradox: The UK worries about declining formal language capacity, but at the same time, we are routinely failing to value, accredit, and use the spoken language skills already widely present across the country.
The call to action is clear. If we want a more linguistically capable UK, we must broaden our understanding of where language skills come from, and how they are demonstrated. That means valuing the languages spoken by adults in our communities alongside those taught in formal language study, and finding ways to assess and accredit a wider range of spoken languages to integrate these capabilities into the UK’s workforce.
The UK does not start from zero. It starts from remarkable strength. By recognizing and activating the spoken languages already woven into everyday life in the UK, we can turn a perceived deficit into a strategic advantage for individuals, for communities, for the economy, and for UK society as a whole.
