Dr Jonathan Kasstan, Senior Lecturer in French and Linguistics at the University of Westminster, and other university partners launched their manifesto at the House of Lords at an event on 17 July 2023 attended by parliamentarians, civil servants and teachers.
The meeting entitled What's New in the Field of Languages, which was hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Modern Languages - chaired by Baroness Coussins - featured a series of invited presentations by academics and organisations such as the British Council and the University Council for Languages on recent developments in the languages sector.
Dr Kasstan, along with Susana Lopes from Thetford Academy in Norfolk, Dr Norma Schifano from the University of Birmingham, Dr Sascha Stollhans from the University of Leeds, and Professor Michelle Sheehan from the University of Newcastle attended the event to launch their Manifesto for Linguistics in Language Teaching in the UK Context. It sets out the opportunities and challenges for Linguistics in Language teaching and proposes concrete actions and policy recommendations which could be taken in this domain. It also highlights the potential for Linguistics to help with employability, pupil motivation and inclusivity in schools.
The manifesto, which has emerged following several years of research as part of the Linguistics in MFL Project, was drafted in collaboration with teachers, academics and professional linguists. It has already been endorsed by a large number of learned societies and professional organisations, including the Chartered Institute of Linguists.
Project members gave a ten-minute talk at the manifesto launch in which they reported on the work that they have been doing with schools and stakeholders since 2017. They presented evidence to illustrate that students and teachers stand to benefit from a reimagining of the languages teaching curriculum in the UK. In particular, they have argued that introducing linguistics into the curriculum would bring greater interest from a wider range of pupils, including those who would not normally choose a language at A-Level.
The group also engaged in a Q&A session with the stakeholders present, and their approach was notably supported by representatives from GCHQ, who have also been focusing on introducing linguistics into their own training programmes.
Speaking about the importance of the manifesto and the event launch, Dr Kasstan said: “This manifesto offers an exciting opportunity to rethink the way that languages are taught in UK schools. Language does not exist in a vacuum: promoting a more linguistically informed curriculum would mean training students to hone their critical and analytical competencies - which would benefit their studies on other programmes - and to draw on the rich linguistic diversity that the UK has to offer. In so doing they will become better communicators. These are exactly the sorts of outcomes that employers have been calling for.”
Find out more about Languages courses at the University of Westminster.
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