In my previous blog post about curriculum reform in England, I referenced the idea of decolonising the curriculum. Like me, you've probably seen many references to decolonisation. But also like me, you may not have been entirely clear what this means in practice. What is it beyond working on a text about slavery? In this post I'll try to explain what it might mean. I'll also address the question of whether this is about fundamental long-term reform or just a temporary bandwagon, the type of which we've seen many times in the past.
The decolonising the curriculum movement starts from the idea that what we teach and how we teach it are never neutral — they reflect certain values and worldviews. It recognises that education today is still shaped by long-standing influences such as racism, colonial history, and unequal power structures. Because of this, teachers and schools are being encouraged to think carefully about the ideas, values, and assumptions that guide the way curricula are created and delivered, and to make sure these reflect a wider range of voices and perspectives.”
So, in recent years, the concept of “decolonising the curriculum” has become increasingly prominent in educational discussions. While this movement has often been most closely associated with subjects such as history, literature, and citizenship, it has grown more relevant for the teaching of modern foreign languages (MFL) in schools. In England, where the MFL curriculum remains largely structured around traditional European languages and cultural content, the case for decolonisation may be particularly compelling.
Fundamentally, decolonising the curriculum means challenging and rethinking traditional assumptions about whose knowledge, language, and culture matters. In the context of MFL, this involves acknowledging that the languages we teach — typically French, Spanish, and German — are not limited to their European contexts. French is spoken in over 30 countries, including in much of North and West Africa, Canada, the Caribbean, and parts of the Pacific. Spanish is the official language in most of Latin America, with complex colonial and postcolonial histories that shape how the language is spoken and understood today. Even German has a more diverse legacy than often assumed, through historical migration, literature, and global media.
Yet in practice, the cultural content of MFL courses in England remains heavily weighted towards middle-class European experiences. GCSE textbooks are filled with role-play scenarios in cafés, ski resorts, markets, and restaurants — settings that often reflect a narrow slice of cultural life and which can alienate pupils who do not identify with such experiences. Students learn to write about holidays in Paris or family trips to Barcelona but learn much less about life in Dakar, Bogotá, or Port-au-Prince. The voices they encounter are often white, metropolitan, and middle-class. The result is that the curriculum replicates a colonial hierarchy of cultural value, in which certain forms of knowledge, language and experience are prioritised over others.
Let’s be clear, however. The content of textbooks, other materials and exam papers has improved a great deal in this regard, but there is further to go.
Decolonising the MFL curriculum, therefore, is about broadening the cultural scope of what we teach and inviting students to engage critically with social, historical and political dimensions of language. It's not about ignoring the cultural riches of France, Spain or Germany, but about situating them in a wider global and historical context. For example, a unit on French-speaking countries might include texts from Senegalese writers such as Léopold Sédar Senghor or Mariama Bâ, whose work explores themes of identity, colonial legacy, and cultural hybridity. A unit on Spanish could involve exploring the Afro-Latino experience in countries like Colombia or Cuba, or studying the work of Indigenous poets in Quechua-Spanish bilingual contexts. German might include the voices of Turkish-German youth, migrant writers, or Afro-German artists and musicians. This implies, I think, a greater use of authentic or (more realistically) adapted authentic materials.
In addition to diversifying content, a decolonised curriculum can also encourage students to consider how languages have travelled and changed. Why is French spoken in Algeria? Why is Spanish the dominant language in Peru despite the rich Indigenous linguistic heritage of that region? How did colonialism shape language hierarchies in Africa, the Caribbean and South America and what is the impact of those legacies today? These are not only historical questions but contemporary ones, tied to migration, globalisation, and identity. Even at a basic level in Key Stage 3, students can be guided to explore how language is connected to power and identity, through age-appropriate texts, videos, and class discussions.
As an example, look at this lesson idea for Key Stage 3 (Level A1/2).
Focus on Senegal
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Listening/reading task (Comprehension)
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Pupils read/listen to a short paragraph from “Awa, une élève sénégalaise” who introduces herself:
« Je m’appelle Awa. J’ai 13 ans. J’habite à Dakar, la capitale du Sénégal. Au Sénégal, on parle français et wolof. Moi, je parle les deux langues. » -
Questions in French or English:
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Where does Awa live?
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What languages does she speak?
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Why do you think people speak French in Senegal?
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Mini-history discussion (5 minutes, in English):
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Teacher explains simply: Senegal was a French colony. That’s why French is used in schools, government, and the media. But most people also speak other languages, like Wolof.
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Show an image of a street sign in French and Wolof in Dakar.
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Identity Question (Class discussion or Think-Pair-Share):
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Do you think Awa feels more Senegalese, more French, or both? Why?
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What languages do people speak in your family? Do you feel like one language is more important than another? Why?
A further important aspect of decolonisation is the need to challenge the idea that there is one correct, standard version of each language. A decolonised approach embraces linguistic variation: regional dialects, accents, and hybrid forms of language such as Creole, Spanglish, or Franco-Arabic are not “incorrect” but reflections of how real people use language in context. In doing so, this approach values the lived linguistic experiences of many students, particularly those who already speak more than one language at home. A curriculum that reflects and celebrates multilingualism can be particularly powerful in classrooms, where linguistic diversity is often rich but under-recognised. This presents an obvious challenge in as far as we need input language to be slow and clear enough to allow acquisition to happen, but there can still be a case for occasional exposure to "non-standard" forms. Indeed, the idea of "standard" and what that implies can be explained to students. It should go without saying that students need to know that there is nothing socially inferior about dialectal variation. Basic sociolinguistics!
Implementing changes, of course, is not without challenges. Many MFL teachers would feel underprepared to teach about postcolonial histories or non-European cultures. There may be a lack of high-quality, classroom-ready resources that support a decolonised approach. Additionally, the constraints of national assessment frameworks (particularly the GCSE and A-level specifications) can make it difficult to innovate beyond prescribed themes. Nevertheless, small steps can make a big difference. Including one poem from a Congolese author in a unit on French literature, replacing a holiday scenario in Spain with one set in Peru, or using a German music video by a second-generation migrant artist are all examples of low-stakes changes that can have a high impact. This change is underway, as you know.
Perhaps most importantly, decolonising the MFL curriculum can shift how we think about language learning itself. Rather than viewing languages as neutral tools for transactional communication, we can start to see them as deeply cultural, political, and historical systems. Students learn not only how to speak a language but why it matters, where it comes from, and who it belongs to. This is all part of the "language awareness" strand I referred to in the previous post.
In this sense, decolonising MFL is not about rejecting Europe or its cultures. Rather, it is about abandoning the idea that Europe is the only — or even the primary — locus of linguistic and cultural value. It is about creating a more honest, inclusive, and meaningful curriculum that reflects the diverse world our students live in and the complex histories that shape it. In doing so, we give all students—not just the privileged few—a voice and a place in the language classroom.
In my introduction I asked whether this would be a fundamental change to the curriculum or a bandwagon to which we might pay lip service. I really hope it is the first. And if anyone feels that materials featuring non-European, non middle-class content is somehow tokenistic, I suggest that this feeling will disappear and a decolonises curriuculum will become just the norm.
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