ABSTRACT
The notion of developing plans and policies, with a degree of consensus and co-ordination that had mostly been lacking in the past, was to inform much of the thinking about foreign language teaching throughout the 1980s. In 1983 the first of a series of important DES policy documents was issued, the consultative paper Foreign Languages in the School Curriculum. The development of a national policy for modern languages, despite the government’s failure to provide proper extra resources to implement it, was in the main at least welcomed as an indication of seriousness of intent. The Education Reform Act includes a modern foreign language for all pupils aged eleven to sixteen among the ‘foundation’ subjects of the National Curriculum. The issue of diversification had achieved a secure place in the discussions, and had at last become a cornerstone of government policy.
