It is often said that “every teacher is a language teacher”. As long ago as 1975, following three years of work, a committee of educational experts appointed by the UK government, which was concerned about standards of literacy and language use in education, published a report called A Language for Life. The report contained various important recommendations, including the following:

• “Each school should have an organised policy for language across the curriculum, establishing every teacher’s involvement in language […] development throughout the years of schooling.” 
• “A substantial course on language in education […] should be part of every primary and secondary school teacher’s initial training, whatever the teacher’s subject or the age of the children with whom he or she will be working.” (The Bullock Report 1975:513-515).

These and the various other recommendations in the report were unfortunately not implemented in the UK at the time or later, but they highlight very important points about the close relationship between language and learning and about the role of teachers in helping their learners to develop their ability to use language effectively as they progress through schooling. Learners cannot reach their potential in any subject unless they are also able to use the language of schooling effectively.

Let’s look in more detail at some important aspects of language-sensitive education. One is the way in which teachers themselves use language in their interactions with learners: there are many ways of giving instructions, asking questions, giving feedback, and so on, and the ways in which teachers do this has an impact on learning as well as on learners’ motivation. 

Another main aspect is the ways in which language (including written language in textbooks) is used to mediate information, to get learners to think about new concepts and relate them to their experience, to learn from each other in group activities, etc. All of this often requires teachers’ guidance and support. For example, some learners, and not only those with other home languages, have more difficulty than others when expressing themselves orally and/or in writing. 

In addition, different subjects in the curriculum require learners to use language in different ways, whether they are answering questions in class orally or doing a written task for homework or as part of a test: think, for example, of the differences between the ways in which language is used in mathematics lessons and in history lessons. 

Also, children entering education and indeed later on may not consciously think much about the way we use language, but when they do, they often find new words, names, ways of expressing oneself, accents and words in other languages very interesting. Teachers of all subjects can deepen this interest and encourage ‘language exploration’ by getting learners to focus on new terms related to the subject, differences between informal and formal language, relations between words in different languages, cultural aspects of language, and much else. Noticing, experiencing and experimenting are all essential parts of learning, and there is great richness to be explored and exploited in languages. 

In summary, language plays a key role in learning any subject, even subjects like art and music. But for learners it is more important than that. Language plays a key role in every aspect of life. The more knowledge and understanding they have of the ways in which they learn to understand and to use spoken and written language while at school and across subject boundaries, the easier it will be for them to reach their educational potential and to use language – or, better, their languages – for life.