Following concern about how knowledgeable and how effective those teaching languages in British higher education may be, a descriptive, quantitative pilot survey was conducted of over three thousand learners of French, German, Spanish, English and Russian in British higher and further education. Proficiency levels were assessed by means of C-Tests, while associated questionnaires sought to explore biographical data, lan-guage learning background, residence abroad, attitudes, motivations, strategies, and grammatical knowledge. The present paper first describes a small-scale survey which showed widespread ignorance of theoretical constructs underpinning language testing among university staff. It then lists the divergent performances and rates of progress across different institutions, and examines features of learner motivation and of how it evolves during university studies. The paper goes on to show that there are both similarities and dissimilarities between learners of different lan-guages; that there is a shift of emphasis in motivations between students in different years of study, with significant changes following residence abroad; that there are major differences between UK students and their counterparts in Cermany and Austria; that motivation changes with age, but sex-based differences are marginal; and that there is a slight but meas-urable relationship between integrative and/ or resultative motivation and foreign language prof iciency. Factor analysis confirms expectations of the principal motivations underlying student responses.

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