On 9 June, Education Minister Catherine Ashton announced Dr Lid King's appointment as National Director for Languages. He will play a key role in the implementation of the government's National Languages Strategy published last December, giving strategic direction and stimulating and co-ordinating action across all sectors.
Dr King said: "To say that I am delighted to have been offered the post of National Director for Languages would be to understate both the opportunity and the challenge. The publication of the National Languages Strategy provides us with the opportunity - perhaps unprecedented in recent history - of promoting real language capability in this country. The challenge will be to make it work.
Significantly, it is a strategy for all people, beginning from the cornerstone of a new primary entitlement but including learners and users of languages of all ages and in all walks of life. If I have learned anything in the past eleven years at CILT it is that the key to real change is effective partnership. We are therefore fortunate that there are so many potential partners - organisations and individuals, teachers and employers, users and learners - who support the drive for greater language capability."

Catherine Ashton also gave details of the primary Pathfinders, setting out how schools in nineteen local education authorities will be at the forefront of supporting and developing primary language learning. The areas are: Barking & Dagenham; Birmingham; Brighton & Hove; Bury; Coventry; East Riding; Enfield; Hammersmith & Fulham; Hampshire; Kent; Knowsley; Liverpool; Norfolk; North Tyneside; Nottinghamshire; Oldham; Richmond upon Thames, Sheffield and Lancashire. Some of them will be working together.

They will take part in pilot projects and develop strategies that will introduce language learning for seven to eleven year olds, share good practice both within and outside their LEA, share resources such as experienced staff and specialist equipment, foster professional development and develop local, regional, national and international partnerships. It is hoped that the lessons learnt from them will provide the essential information needed to effectively introduce primary language learning throughout the country by the end of this decade.