"As Chair of CIOL Council I am really delighted to see CIOL Voices coming to life."

As linguists we all have things to say and it is important that members can share their experiences in their own words. We won’t always agree on everything, but as a community I have generally found that we value and respect diversity of expression as part of our wider love for the diversity of languages and cultures.

Our qualifications, careers and the tough Global economic context were a central theme at the July CIOL Council meeting – alongside our work to grow a stronger pipeline of early career linguists and achieve wider recognition for the language profession. Followers of our social media and other communication channels will have seen our commitment to achieving this, with the launch of a new, degree-level qualification the Certificate in Translation (CertTrans) which we believe will significantly open-up exciting career options for language graduates and early career linguists of all ages, both in the UK and internationally.

Working closely with our CIOLQ Educational Trust Board (ETB) we have also launched the CIOL Language Level Frameworks which provide clear definitions of language proficiency at Professional, Working and Basic to Independent levels in order to help linguists at all stages to self-assess their language skills; and to explain more confidently to employers and clients the value of their languages. Hugh Morgan, Vice Chair of ETB, wrote an important Voices blog on this recently.

CEO, John Worne, presented the CertTrans and our Language Level Frameworks to the UK’s All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Modern Languages at the House of Lords; which is all part of explaining the importance and value of qualifications, professional standards and of all languages and all linguists.

Our community of CIOL linguists, partners and friends continues to grow, and is constantly amplified by wonderful new voices in many corners of the world. The CIOL Voices blog provides another route for members, friends and advocates to visibly champion our belief in the value of languages, linguists, culture and in Universal Understanding.

Please encourage you friends, colleagues and other linguists to join us and become CIOL Members and Affiliates and do read and share our excellent new Membership Brochure – every new member of our community helps us to better support and speak for languages and linguists!

Judith Gabler FCIL CL is Chair of CIOL Council