London

Up to £2,000 is available for London secondary schools to deliver after-school clubs in world languages.

This project aims at either supporting heritage learners develop their linguistic ability, or at providing pupils with the opportunity to learn a world language. The language chosen must be one not currently taught at the school. Pupils must be able to work towards obtaining a qualification such as GCSE or Asset Languages.

The After-school club should run in 2010-11 and weekly sessions should last 50 minutes.

Schools will have responsibility for recruiting and managing world language teachers; providing rooms and facilities; applying evaluation questionnaires and reporting back to Capital L.

Capital L will fund teachers' rates and make training available for unqualified World language teachers and/or teachers of others subjects who would like to teach a language they are fluent in. This opportunity may also be suitable for a classroom assistant or other school staff.

Deadline for submitting applications: 15 July 2010

One application per school only.
 

For more information or to apply, please contact us on routes@soas.ac.uk.

Westminster’s Language immersion Saturdays have been designed to help GCSE and A Level students develop their language ability and gain more practical expertise in the language they are studying.

Languages covered are French, german or Spanish (at gCSE, AS and A2 level) and italian (at gCSE level).

The events are part of the routes into Languages initiative and are hosted by the department of Modern and Applied Languages.

● Each level will be offered over two half days (Saturdays, 9.45am – 2.15pm, 27th Feb+13th March and 6th March+20th March)
● For each level, the first Saturday will focus on listening and speaking, the second Saturday will focus on reading and writing
● Each session will look at common grammar points, vocabulary expansion and practical language use, such as role plays, debates, comprehension tasks or writing in context
● These events are hands on sessions, giving you an opportunity to work with languages in real life situations and practise key skills
●Bookings will be taken strictly on a ‘first come, first served’ basis, and numbers per group/level are strictly limited to 15 students
●Please note that if you are interested in booking a place on one of these two day events, you will need to commit yourself to the two days.

Please note: This year, we will also be running our popular four day A Level language workshops from 6 – 9 April 2010.
Our new Saturday events are not replacing these, but aim to give students extra language exposure.

For informal queries, contact Dr Manuela von papen by email ONLY:  m.von.papen@westminster.ac.uk

or check the website at:  westminster.ac.uk/sshl
 

Capital L is launching a scheme to provide university student ambassadors to act as tutors, supporting language teachers during class. The aim is to support students to raise their achievements and further develop their study skills.

Schools will nominate a coordinator to liaise with Capital L and supervise tutors.

Secondary schools can apply to receive up to a maximum of 4 tutors.

The scheme will run until May 2010 or until university students need to prepare for their exams.
 

 If you are interested in this opportunity, please email us at:  languagetutors@soas.ac.uk

We will be holding 4 Bring your Mum/Dad/Carer to university this academic year and perhaps a fifth for those not able to attend previous sessions.

The sessions will consist of the following:

• Information about courses available at our partner institution
• Ambassadors presentations about their experiences and Q&A session
• Language related activity – parents and pupils separately
• Tour of HEIs facilities

They aill aim to raise parents’ awareness about the opportunities to study languages at universities, break down negative perceptions about access to university and provide parents with an opportunity to visit Higher Education Institutions with their son/daughter(s) and ask questions. Furthermore, they will also raise awareness of the value of home languages in today’s economy.
 

Please note that in the case of late cancellations or no-shows, we reserve the right to request that you cover some of the costs incurred. 

Email routes@soas.ac.uk to book a session.

Don’t struggle – sign up for the AS level language revision programme to revise and prepare for your exams. You will have the opportunity to review and revise core topics with language academics from the University. During the three days you will develop your reading, writing, listening and oral skills as well as enhance your cultural awareness of your chosen language.

These sessions will take place at London Metropolitan University, Holloway Road.

For further details email: p.blagburn@londonmet.ac.uk.

4-day A Level Language Workshops for students of French, German, Russian, Spanish and Italian aiming to raise language awareness / confidence: focus on language skills, practical language use and language learning strategies.

 These sessions will be taking place at the University of Westminster, Regent Campus.
 

Programme of activities attached.

For more information, please email: vonpapm@wmin.ac.uk

Please note that in the case of no-shows or cancellations, we reserve the right to invoice your school to contribute to costs incurred.

The dates above are currently provisional.

State secondary schools and supplementary schools in London will be invited to participate in a competition to create a class wall display or an individual's set of 3 still photos + commentary in the target language to give an idea of "Our Area", or "Postcards from London" (in the target language). Details from terry.king@ucl.ac.uk.

Take a look at the competition poster.

This activity is aimed at Years 8 and 9 at state secondary schools and supplementary schools

Now in its second year, our on-line mentoring scheme is aimed at:

• Promoting language learning alongside IT communication skills and E-learning.
• Promoting self-confidence among secondary school students
• Raising secondary school students’ awareness of opportunities to study languages (and other subjects) at universities
• Provide an innovative scheme to support language acquisition and collaboration between schools and universities

In 2009-2010, the scheme will be available to students of:

• French
• Spanish

and we are recruiting lecturers and mentors in:

• Arabic
• Chinese
• Swahili
• Yoruba

Other languages may be added upon request.

For more information, please contact Renata Albuquerque, project manager at: ra40@soas.ac.uk

Please note that in the case of non-show or late cancellation, we reserve the right to invoice your school to contribute to costs incurred.

This proposal is to enhance teachers’ professional learning through the process of practitioner research by teachers.

Teachers will investigate school student motivation for languages learning at key transition points to find out why languages take-up in KS4 and post 16 is so low – providing evidence in the form of student voices.

Process

1. Identifying sample of schools/teachers and students: 6 teachers (3 from different primary schools and 3 from different secondary schools) Primary teachers would work with one class of 25, secondary teachers with one KS3 and one KS4 class
    
2. CPD input for teachers to support

• development of design for teacher research (eg questionnaires, focus group etc) – to include ethical considerations.
• implementing research process
• Presentation of findings, interpretation and analysis.

       3.  Teachers writing overview report recommendations

       4. Final report and dissemination to schools

Aims and Objectives

This activity will add information that is local to the linguistically diverse London context and focussed on key transition points, to existing research on motivation for language learning (such as studies summarised in Dornyei and Ushioda 2009 and the Routes into Languages 2007 survey at the point of transition to University).

The use of teachers as action researchers to obtain data in the form of student voices is also new and will enable teachers to be closely engaged with the issues and future actions.
 

Target Group and Beneficiaries

• Six schools
• Sample of 75 students at each transition point = 225 students overall.
• 6 teachers as researchers to research student perceptions of languages study

Please note that in the case of non-show or late cancellation, we reserve the right to invoice your school to contribute to costs incurred.