Well there’s another UK Lingua event (hosted by Durham University) over! I am proud to have been part of its organising committee for 4 years now; what a privilege it is.
This year’s theme was “Learning gains” – and what an inspiring theme it turned out to be for our 1st online event!
I was sorry I could only join at lunchtime, but I had to teach my lovely class at the Petite Ecole. Luckily, recordings of all the sessions are available to those who registered (over 200 of you, thank you!).
I then chaired Helena Butterfield’s discussion group; she had chosen the topic of “retention at A level”, and below are the ideas that the group shared, in no particular order:
- don’t make assumptions about which ones of your GCSE pupils may want to carry on with a language at A level
- make sure they know that you can for instance do medicine with an A level in a language, you don’t have to do science A levels only
- make sure they know what A level learning entails – and how different and much better than GCSE it is
- make them aware of job opportunities throughout
- don’t just focus on job opportunities, exploit the cultural aspects of learning a language for increased motivation
- look into an alternative to A levels, more vocational qualifications as an alternative
- 6th formers to go into GCSE lessons
- develop links with local universities that can support
- develop links with local employers who value language skills
- share opportunities that current or previous learners have taken up, to raise the profile of languages in school and in the school community
- run masterclasses
- interesting website and project: https://www.wamcam.org/
- allow time for it all when planning the year ahead (though time can be an issue)
- International Newcastle is here to help too https://internationalnewcastle.org.uk/
- more joined up thinking to be developed from KS2 through to university
We finished off with a quiz (click here to see how you would have done): the winner got a £35 voucher, 2 runner ups got a £20 voucher each and 3 joint third will be able to attend next year’s conference for free!
Click here for links to articles about previous UK Lingua events: 2019, 2018 and 2017.