The new national curriculum in England includes for the first time foreign languages (FL) as part of the statutory requirements at Key Stage 2 (7–11 years). From September 2014 all state schools are legally required to provide FL to learners from the age of 7 to 14. Extending statutory learning by four years offers the potential for enhanced linguistic proficiency and deeper levels of cultural understanding. The strong cultural statement quoted above, taken from the FL programme of study in the national curriculum, highlights the importance of culture and its role in language teaching. Cultural learning, however, is rarely given prominence in primary language lessons in England (Cable et al., 2010), a scenario reflected in primary and secondary schools across Europe. The recent Council of Europe's guide on plurilingual and intercultural education (Beacco et al., 2015), indicates that intercultural learning and cultural enrichment have been chiefly disregarded as a central objective of language learning in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) (Council of Europe, 2001) across member states. Beacco et al. (2015) argue that despite the success of the CEFR for language teaching and assessment in all sectors of education across Europe, the cultural dimension is generally marginalised in schools.

This chapter focuses on cultural learning associated with primary foreign languages. Informed by a range of evidence, the chapter explores the mismatch between the clearly articulated cultural purpose of language teaching in policy documents and curriculum guidance materials and actual practice in schools (Driscoll et al., 2013). I argue that given the rise in migration across Europe and the rapidly increasing multicultural dimension of primary schools, it is timely to review cultural development in languages education and reconceptualise it within a whole-school interconnected approach.