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Colleagues from the School of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics have praised a recent keynote speech delivered by Baroness Coussins, Honorary President of the Chartered Institute of Linguists at the University of Glasgow. 

Her address underlines the crucial role of language learning and an international mindset for economic and social prosperity in the 21st century. She debunks the widely accepted myths that English is spoken by everyone, and that AI and machine translation make language learning redundant. In fact, the demand for language skills across almost all economic sectors has never been greater and research shows that teaching languages could add significantly to the economy. She also rightly points out that language skills and intercultural literacy are highly valued by employers and play a key role in humanitarian work, public services, business, security, diplomacy and trade.  

Her message that ‘the social, economic, and soft power advantage in the 21st century belongs to multilingual citizens and nations’ is vital in terms of language education policy and practice necessary to ensure Ireland’s prosperity into the future.