Early language lessons

Learning a foreign language at primary school has been compulsory since 2014, largely thanks to research conducted here at Southampton. But professional development to support teachers in this field has been lacking. This is where an ongoing research project led by Dr Alison Porter is stepping in.

Teachers teaching teachers has been central to a Southampton-led research project designed to empower primary school teachers across the country in their teaching of foreign languages in the classroom.

Ever since the change in the National Curriculum, making it compulsory for children to learn a foreign language from the age of seven, there has been limited professional development support for teachers to develop primary languages lesson plans and resources.

Dr Alison Porter, Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, is leading a project to address this.

She explained: “There is a real need for professional development in foreign language teaching. We know from survey research that foreign language professional development is either non-existent or very difficult to access. Teachers actively support one another on social media and through their own networks, but there is very limited access to researchinformed professional development.

“My research aims to support teachers in making pedagogic decisions. What is a helpful and useful way to teach things? But also to explain the complexity of what it is to teach and learn foreign languages in primary school classrooms.

“At the heart of this is finding engaging ways to teach foreign languages in schools so that we’re supporting progression, motivation and engagement, because we know that all these things go hand in hand. Even young children need to feel like they are learning something and making progress to want to carry on doing it.”

With the support of funding through the University’s ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) Impact Acceleration Account, Alison and her former colleague Professor Rosamond Mitchell set up SUPL (Southampton University Primary Languages) to provide teachers with research-informed professional development.

“SUPL started off with a handful of teachers from across the South,” said Alison. “With a second instalment of ESRC IAA funding, the group grew to 22 members the following year. We held a one-day event at the University, which 45 teachers from across the country attended, sharing things they are doing in the classroom.

“Following this, we felt we had a good model for introducing teachers to research-informed practice, and for teachers to learn from other teachers, so we decided to design a MOOC.”

MOOC success

A MOOC – a Massive Open Online Course – was designed with the help of Kate Borthwick, Director of Programme Development, and Charlotte Everitt, Learning Designer, from the Digital Learning team. The project was co-funded by the University of Essex, with a contribution from the University of Reading. The first MOOC ran for three weeks in July 2020.

“We had planned to go into schools and film, but COVID prevented that,” said Alison. “We decided to go ahead with the MOOC, though, as we thought teachers were probably feeling quite isolated so it was a good time for them to do some professional development. So we filmed in our own houses, and three teachers we’ve worked with for several years produced videos showing techniques they use in the classroom.”

The MOOC had three key messages. The first was around motivation and engagement – children undergo huge emotional and cognitive change at primary school. The second was around children needing a sense of progression because that leads to motivation. And the third was around opportunities and ideas to be creative with foreign language literacy.

The first MOOC was a huge success, with more than 4,500 attendees from 140 countries. The MOOC continues to run three times a year.

“Our next endeavour is to really promote the MOOC internationally,” added Alison.

‘Liberation from insularity’

The change in the National Curriculum back in 2014 was influenced by research conducted by Professor Mitchell, who has now retired.

“The collaborative research that Professor Mitchell did found that children can and do make progress in the four years of primary language learning,” said Alison. “When the curriculum was reviewed, partly on the basis of the findings of Professor Mitchell and others, it was decided for the first time in UK history that learning foreign languages would be compulsory in primary schools, for children aged seven and above.

“We know that primary school children in particular are a very receptive audience to language learning. The idea is to try to capitalise on that so we support a positivity around language learning.”

One of the over-arching aims of this change in curriculum was a ‘liberation from insularity’.

Alison outlined: “In the UK that’s especially important because we don’t necessarily have the well-established educational or social drivers that other countries have to learn English. We have this argument that everybody speaks English, but in the global picture it’s important. If other countries are multi-lingual and we’re not, we’re doing ourselves a disservice. It’s also about tolerance, understanding others, and global citizenship – these are values that educators around the world are looking to promote.”

For further information, visit: www.southampton.ac.uk/ml