Did you know that…
“A flourishing voluntary “complementary” sector provides opportunities for children to learn languages spoken in their communities. This serves both primary and secondary school children (and earlier). A 2005 survey (Community Language Learning in England, Wales and Scotland, CILT, 2005) found provision in after school and Saturday classes for at least 61 languages. An innovative national programme, Our Languages, ran from 2008-2010 to promote and strengthen this provision and to draw it into contact with mainstream schools. Under this scheme any language may be offered in primary schools, and some languages of the wider world are taught, usually in areas with large minority populations and/or as part of “language taster” and intercultural awareness programmes.”
The UK launch of Language Rich Europe will take place on 28 June 2012 at the London School of Economics.
Take part in the discussion via our Twitter hashtag for this launch: #LREUK. More details coming up soon on this blog and on Twitter.
The programme is as follows:
9.15 Registration & coffee
Venue: Lower Ground Floor, New Academic Building, LSE
10.00 – 10.45 Welcome
Dr Lid King, Director, The Languages Company
The importance of multilingualism
With short inputs from:
Nick Byrne, Director, London School of Economics Language Centre
Michael Carrier, Head of English Language Innovation, British Council
Baroness Jean Coussins, Chair, All Party Parliamentary Group Modern Languages
The Speak to the Future Campaign
10.45 – 11.45 Language Rich Europe
The project
Martin Hope, Director, British Council Benelux and Project Director, Language Rich Europe
European data
Guus Extra, Chair of Language and Minorities, Tilburg University, Netherlands
England and the UK context
Dr Lid King, Director, The Languages Company
11.45 – 12.55 Response from key stakeholders
Panel discussion
Chaired by: Bernardette Holmes, Director, Languages First, University of Cambridge Language Centre, & President, Association for Language Learning
Panellists:
• Richard Hardie, Chair, UBS & Vice President, Institute of Linguists
• Lizze Fane, Founder, Third Year Abroad
• Rosie Goldsmith, Independent Broadcaster
• Joe Brown, Deputy Headteacher, Old Oak Primary School, London
• Tony Travers, Director, LSE
• Humair Naqvi, Head of Government and Education EMEA, Rosetta Stone
12.55 – 13.00 Summing up
Dr Lid King, Director, The Languages Company
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch
Served at the Lower Ground Floor (outside the Wolfson Theatre)
Language Rich Europe, UK workshop (London):
“The question of English: what are the particularities of an English-speaking country?”
14.00 – 14.05 Introduction to the Workshop
Venue: Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building
Lid King, Director, The Languages Company
14.05 – 16.00 Workshop discussions:
Workshop 1
Venue: Room U101, First Floor, Tower 1 Building
Workshop 2
Venue: Room U103, First Floor, Tower 1 Building
Workshop 3
Venue: Room U108, First Floor, Tower 1 Building
16.00 – 16.30 Discussion of findings with interactive voting
Venue: Lecture Theatre U8, Ground Floor, Tower 1 Building
Lid King, Director, The Languages Company
16.30 – 18.00 Drinks reception
Venue: Café Bar, 4th Floor, Old Building
18.00 Close
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I just want to share with you this success story from west London in 1980′s as a result of the teaching of mother tongue languages wchi support the over all child education
My name then was Mrs Malika Tuzani
In 1980s Ken Livinstone during his time at the GLC, he set up a Mother Tongue teaching department in response to the ever increasing education need of migrant children in London schools. There were many Asian languages covered in most london areas plus the Turkish, Greek in North London and the Arabic in West London for the recently arrived Morrocan communities. I was the first Arabic teacher appointed to teach both O’ and A’level at Holland Park school in Novemeber 1984. When I first started the students were hiding away from me claiming they dont understand what I was talking about. I later discovered that they only did that because they did not want to be different from their peers. There was also lack of awarnes of the importance of identity. it took me a long time and hard work in supporting them first to over come this problem. By 1988 I had a success story of 9 O’level and 2 A’level pass exam results
Head teacher then was Dr Rushworth.
Dear Mrs Malika Hamiddou,
Thank you very much for this inspiring story. It’s wonderful to hear about how things were back then. It might be interesting for you to know that one the aspects of Language Rich Europe is to highlight community and immigrant languages and to encourage people and policymakers to realise the value of this resource. Do you feel that things have improved since then? Is there anything you would like to see happen to improve the situation? You may also get in touch with us by emailing info@language-rich.eu. Our new website is now available at http://www.language-rich.eu/home/welcome.html. There is more information on the research methodology and key findings for specific countries, and more detailed results are coming up soon. Please follow us also on Twitter if you’re interested in finding out more: http://twitter.com/languagerich.
Thanks again for your interest and feedback!
Best wishes, Kirsi Suutarinen, Language Rich Europe Communications Consultant
Dear Mrs Malika Hamiddou,
Thank you very much for this inspiring story. It\’s wonderful to hear about how things were back then. It might be interesting for you to know that one the aspects of Language Rich Europe is to highlight community and immigrant languages and to encourage people and policymakers to realise the value of this resource. Do you feel that things have improved since then? Is there anything you would like to see happen to improve the situation? You may also get in touch with us by emailing info@language-rich.eu. Our new website is now available at http://www.language-rich.eu/home/welcome.html. There is more information on the research methodology and key findings for specific countries, and more detailed results are coming up soon. Please follow us also on Twitter if you\’re interested in finding out more: http://twitter.com/languagerich.
Thanks again for your interest and feedback!
Best wishes, Kirsi Suutarinen, Language Rich Europe Communications Consultant
Dear Kirsi
Thank you for responding to my input and happy to add: in London there hundreds of community organisations running their own supplementary classes in the community to support the success ache vied in the main stream system: for Example here are some of the languages successfully taught in West London, not only not receiving financial support from the local authorities but the main schools are benefiting from the generated income they receive from renting their facilities to the communities: Arabic, Polish, Armenian, Kurdish Bengali and many others.
We would like the Authority to acknowledge this wealth and put resources in place to ensure continuation of these initiatives and considering standardising the qualifications for teaching community languages.
Regards
Malika
Reblogged this on languagesupportuk.