Research-informed principles for developing cohesive school language policies Language and education are intrinsically connected, as it is through language that content knowledge is both accessed and assessed, and communication occurs. Yet, in England, research has shown tha...

I'm very happy to share the latest paper led by the wonderful @nic-morea.bsky.social from our project on school language policies which has just been published in Language and Education @languageeducation.bsky.social. It's available open access here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I really enjoyed giving a workshop today on multilingual identity as part of the Transforming Research into Practice series at @manmetuni.bsky.social. Huge thanks to Mai Nguyen & the team for the invite and to all of the in-person and online participants for their enthusiasm and contributions! 😃

Susie Dent: Foreign languages help children decode English The Countdown wordsmith cautions against the decline in the study of French and German, saying it gives you a ‘huge perspective on human life’

I couldn't agree more @susiedentwords.bsky.social ! Resonates with findings from my own research in schools in England @camedfac.bsky.social suggesting the strategies students learn in the languages classroom (e.g. French and German lessons) can positively influence their writing skills in English.

It was a privilege to give the opening keynote at the Language and Education conference at FPT University in Hanoi. Great to connect with and learn from colleagues from across Vietnam and beyond! 😃

Wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas and New Year!

I had a fantastic few days learning from the MULTIWRITE team at the University of Oslo @uio.no ! A pleasure to be on the advisory board for such an important project. Congrats to Hildegunn Dirdal and team!

<em>The Modern Language Journal</em> | NFMLTA Journal | Wiley Online Library The dynamic property and developmental trajectory of language learners’ multilingual identity (MI), which concerns one's self-perception as a multilingual learner and user, have attracted increasing ...

Delighted to have been a part of this project with my former PhD student Xinran Wu, now Assistant Professor at Xiamen University 🌟 A fantastic analysis of the role of time and space in multilingual identity development in the Modern Language Journal: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Absolutely, there are always challenges and competing priorities. But we can keep making the case for languages 🙂🇫🇷🇪🇸🇩🇪🇮🇹🇨🇳

Thanks so much for your message @kedisimpson.bsky.social ! I very much hope the findings are of interest and use to your school.

Language Education in the Curriculum Explore the article collection: Language Education in the Curriculum. Published in The Language Learning Journal.

What effect do school policies have on uptake and achievement in languages at Key Stage 4?

If you are interested to learn more, read @karenforbes.bsky.social article as well as Zhu Hua, Elin Arfon and Ann-Marie Hunter’s article

www.tandfonline.com/journals/rll...

Looking forward to contributing to this seminar on 'Professional agency & language policy in the context of the Curriculum and Assessment Review' @camedfac.bsky.social on 30th Oct with Norbert Pachler, @wendya-b.bsky.social @zhu-hua.bsky.social @cforsdick.bsky.social and others. In-person & online ⬇️

Poorer students more likely to miss out on studying a language at GCSE Students from less wealthy backgrounds are more likely to attend schools where learning a language to GCSE is treated as optional – and not necessarily strongly encouraged – new research shows.

Students from less wealthy backgrounds are more likely to attend schools where learning a foreign language to GCSE is considered optional – and not necessarily even encouraged – new research by @karenforbes.bsky.social shows.

Read more: content.educ.cam.ac.uk/content/poor...

Huge thanks to guest editors Norbert Pachler, Wendy Ayres-Bennett, @zhu-hua.bsky.social and @cforsdick.bsky.social for the invitation to contribute to this special issue of The Language Learning Journal on language education in the school curriculum in England. (6/6)

-> Overall, this paper provides evidence to suggest that prioritising and promoting languages at the level of school curriculum policy significantly increases uptake without dramatically lowering average grades. (5/6)

-> Offering a greater number of languages at GCSE was associated with higher attainment, suggesting that broadening language provision may help support attainment outcomes; (4/6)

-> However, schools where languages are positioned as core subjects tend to have students with significantly higher levels of prior attainment and lower levels of disadvantage, suggesting there is still work to be done in widening access for ALL learners; (3/6)

Key findings suggest that:

-> School-level curriculum policy is the strongest predictor of GCSE language uptake highlighting the importance of institutional commitment to language learning in shaping students’ opportunities; (2/6)

Very happy to share this article exploring the influence of school-level curriculum policies on both uptake and attainment in GCSE modern languages in England @camedfac.bsky.social Freely available to download - key points below ⬇️ (1/6)

www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

And it’s down to the other end of the country for #BERA2025 at the University of Sussex! Looking forward to presenting tomorrow morning in session P3.23 (Leadership for Linguistic and Cultural Diversity).

Had an amazing time at #BAAL2025 in Glasgow! Great to (re)connect with colleagues and attend so many brilliant talks. Huge congrats to the organising committee for being such fab hosts 😃

Our model highlights the crucial role played by home and particularly school contexts in providing students with language experiences which are key for developing their language knowledge and also the mediating role of students’ evaluations of their language proficiency.

We define this as an experiential and evaluative state which represents an individual’s readiness to fully claim a multilingual identity.

Through analysis of questionnaire data from 1280 secondary school students in England, here we propose a preliminary model for the construct of 'willingness to identify' as multilingual.

Willingness to identify: an exploration of the factors that influence secondary school students’ willingness to identify as multilingual For decades researchers have debated the criteria for identifying someone as multilingual; however, little is known about how individuals, and particularly school-aged students, subjectively identi...

Very happy to see this paper come out which builds on our work on multilingual identity @camedfac.bsky.social 😊 It's open access so free to download - brief overview in thread below ⬇️

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Really enjoyed my first experience of Swedish PhD examination yesterday @linneuni.bsky.social Huge congratulations to Dr Legutko and her supervisors 🎉

Always lovely to be back @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social 😊

Congratulations!! Looking forward to reading it 😀

Excited to see this come out - it extends the application of our work on participative multilingual identity construction to higher education contexts @camedfac.bsky.social. Free to download here: www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/15...

Sign the Petition Save MLANG at Cardiff University!

Gutted to see Modern Languages under threat at Cardiff - please consider signing and sharing!

chng.it/wpFjbhydsX via @UKChange

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Delighted to see this paper come out from Zehui Yang's doctoral research. Such an important and timely topic! It focuses on an identity-based approach to enhancing the agency of non-native English speaking teachers (of English). Freely available here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....