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Spooky Snigdha @snig.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Matt Goodwin cannot fathom a child being fluent in English if exposed to another language at home, or if English is not their first language. Is that because the poor guy struggled with his avoir and être and assumes no one else can manage to be bilingual?

A key criticism is Goodwin's use of the statistic about English as an additional language (EAL) to claim that "nearly one in four primary school children - and close to one in three no longer speak English as nursery children their main language".

A child is designated as EAL if they are exposed to a language other than English at home.

Steve Strand, professor of education at Oxford University and an expert in EAL, said that Goodwin is "just totally misunderstanding what this measure of EAL is. He keeps talking about English not being young people's first language. But you could be recorded as EAL and still be totally fluent in English. So he's not really understanding the question that's asked that underlies that data."

Goodwin cited Strand's own research in response, quoting a study that says EAL students have a 22 per cent variation in achievement. Strand said that Goodwin was "quoting correct figures, but he's misinterpreting them" and the research showed that "on average, levels of achievement of people's recorded as EAL are about the same or even slightly higher than those recorded by monolingual English".

Matt Goodwin tweet

@GoodwinMJ

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My critics are gaslighting you

They say I'm wrong to suggest English is no longer the main language in many schools

Really?

Look at how many primary school pupils no longer speak English as their main language

Blackburn, 46%

Luton, 53%

Leicester, 59%

Slough, 59%

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Chappers @chappers.org · 28/03/2026

He got his arse handed to him on a plate in the debate. Might as well pulp his new book.

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