Research

This paper is an account of how the German Department at Oundle School (Peterborough), has taken risks and changed its approach towards methodology and recruitment in order to boost the numbers opting for German in the final two years of school.

This article uses data from a small scale research which explored modern language learning in a mainstream school in England. The focus is on the position accorded to modern languages in school in comparison to other school subjects. The research was carried out at the time when plans were being put in place for modern languages to be part of the primary curriculum in England. Drawing on qualitative data from fieldnotes, this article discusses differences, in terms of status, that exist among school subjects at the school in question. The author demonstrates the ways in which modern languages are put at a disadvantage in a number of contexts arising in the main, from pre-conceived beliefs and expectations by parents and senior managers.

This paper provides an overview of the MEITS (Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies) project, led by the University of Cambridge and its partner institutions: University of Edinburgh, University of Nottingham, and Queen’s University Belfast. It is funded under the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Open World Research Initiative (OWRI). The project commenced on July 1st, 2016, and is due to run until 30th June, 2020: at this early stage, the MEITS team is seeking to make relevant stakeholders aware of the rationale and need for the project, the varied array of methodological approaches, and the planned real-world impact. Of particular interest to this readership is that the project is a response to the decline of foreign language learning in the United Kingdom (and other Anglophone countries), attitudes towards and beliefs about multilingualism generally, and wider questions of language policy in the United Kingdom and beyond.

In this article, we discuss the context, key features and vision of Utah’s dual language immersion (DLI) programme. Students in this programme spend half of the school day learning subject matter in English, and the other half learning in a target language. Utah’s DLI programme started in 2009 with 25 elementary schools and three target languages (Chinese, French and Spanish) and is supported by legislative funding. In the autumn of 2017, 200 schools in 22 districts across the state will offer dual language immersion in Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and for the first time Russian. Schools and districts that participate in dual language immersion commit to implementation that complies with the state model. We explain the model’s key features and discuss the central role of collaboration between public and higher education to realise the vision of articulated language education.

Last summer twenty students from the University of Edinburgh travelled to Germany for a project to help the integration of refugees. Recognising the importance of language in order to integrate, we led a summer school for children in order to maintain and develop their German whilst they were not at school over the summer holidays. We also attended a local refugee café where refugees came to meet others in a similar situation to them and locals who were offering advice. Here several languages could be heard, using any means to communicate and interact with each other. During our time there we experienced ourselves some of the challenges of integration. Whilst living in a German village we had to support each other with our range of language abilities just as we had seen happening in the summer school and at the refugee café.

Abstracts from and weblinks to some of the most recent publications relating to language learning.

Free-to-download articles from other language journals.

Summary reminder of upcoming seminars and conferences.