Language Futures at LVC

Language Futures is a new and innovative project offering a flexible, relevant and imaginative approach to language learning.

Following a two-year pilot programme, 12 year 8 mixed ability pupils have now been offered the chance to study a language of their choice using the latest software, digital media and technology. This creative, engaging and interactive approach personalises the curriculum, allowing pupils to select a language relevant to them, whilst also providing them with life-long applied learning skills enabling them to learn any language in the future. Our current cohort of students have decided to learn Spanish, Italian and Mandarin following the Language Futures programme.

Pupils learn to immerse themselves into the whole language and its culture both at home and in school, thus resolving the potential restraints of a traditional curriculum. To this end we are developing a community of experts to work alongside our pupils as mentors and have developed a partnership with Student Community Action at Cambridge University, who recruit student volunteers to help in the local community. By using university students we also hope to raise the aspirations of young people who previously may not have thought of going onto Further Education. In addition to these student mentors, we are now recruiting voluntary language mentors from our local community to take part in this exciting project. Part of this role involves taking part in Language Futures lessons and maintaining contact with pupils via e-mail in the student’s chosen language.

We are continually developing a pool of resources to help students with their language learning and have found the Cambridge University Language Programme - CULP4SC - to be particularly useful. Thanks to new emerging technologies and digital media, students can explore relevant resources available to them thus promoting independent, self-motivated and self-access learning.

Furthermore, Language Futures is creatively transforming the role of the teacher from language expert to facilitator in language learning. 'Learning to learn' is a wider goal of the project, teaching pupils learning skills and not just the language itself.

We are developing our own assessment strategies using the Key Stage 3 national curriculum levels and our accreditation will follow the Languages Ladder. We are very hopeful that this project will lead to a higher uptake of languages at Key Stage 4, by making languages more accessible and relevant. From September 2011, we are looking forward to working with two new field trial centres: Castle Manor, who will be developing Language Futures into KS2 and Swavesey Village College into KS4, which will help develop the programme further.

Language Futures is part of the wider Learning Futures project, backed by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. We have been asked to develop new pedagogies which can be used as prototypes for schools nationally and in so doing start to transform traditional language teaching methods and remodel the curriculum. With funding for the future we hope to embed and expand the project further, as we have the desire to share good practice with other schools and institutions, as well as designing and developing resources to be shared with schools nationally.