Spring Series
Welcome to our Spring series Saturday sessions!
March – May 2021
The National Association of Languages Advisers invites you to join a Saturday morning series of one-hour online Zoom briefings, with opportunity for questions and discussion.
Overall theme: Social Justice and Modern Languages
This follows on from the recently published results of the NALA survey on Social Justice
- How can we ensure that language learning is accessible and appeals to students from all backgrounds?
- What impact may this have on teaching, learning and our examination system?
The full list of sessions with speakers, times and dates with booking links is outlined below.
Please note
- Places are limited to 100 per session and you must book for each session separately.
- NALA members have priority booking but non-members are invited to book any remaining places.
- Recent events have had waiting lists so please do not book if you are not participating. Please notify NALA if you wish to cancel so that your place can be allocated to someone else.
- There is no booking fee, but non-members are asked to consider membership.
Session 1 Saturday 20 March 10.30-11.30am
Professor Sally Tomlinson
University of Oxford Department of Education
Sally has worked in education for 35 years, having started her career as a Social Worker and Infant School teacher.
“Is the ‘m’ word still okay: discourse on multiculturalism, multiracism, ethnicity and diversity”
The word ‘multiculturalism’ first appeared in the Oxford English dictionary in 1935 and was first used in The Times newspaper in 1941. By the 1980s it was superseded by multiracial, then ethnicity and diversity. Those of us serving on a Commission on The Future of Multi-ethnic Britain in 2000 were vilified, in 2011 David Cameron declared multiculturalism a failure and a Swiss Professor wrote a book in 2017 asking “Is Multiculturalism dead? This paper comments on the history and currency of language used to describe humanity in the UK.
Session 2 Saturday 27 March 10.30-11.30am
Lesley Welsh
Principal of George Pindar School in Scarborough and teacher of French and German
Turning the Tide for Languages
Lesley will share how languages are an integral part of the school curriculum and offer insight
from her own experience.
Session 3 Saturday 17 April 10.30-11.30am
Olly Hopwood
Teacher of French, German and Arabic
Olly is an ardent advocate for radical reform in Modern Languages.
“Everyone speaks English though, Sir. What’s the point?’’
This talk – with lots of discussion – will cover the context in which we teach languages – e.g.
global English; the different rationales for language teaching and their implications for
curriculum; how those rationales have shifted over time; what the learning goals in MFL for the
future might be; how this makes languages fairer and might be a platform for growth.
Session 4 Saturday 24 April 10.30-11.30am
Dr Chris Martin
Lecturer in the Institute for Foundation Studies at Arden University and an Honorary Research
Fellow at the University of Wolverhampton.
The role of parents in shaping children’s language learning
Session 5 Saturday 8 May 10.30-11.30am
Led by Yvonne Kennedy, in conversation with three experts in the field.
Teaching and Learning Adviser for Languages for Herts for Learning
Decolonising the curriculum: what does it mean for Modern Languages?
A conversation with:
- Joseph Ford (Lecturer in French Studies and Director for the Study of Cultural Memory at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London). Joseph specialises in contemporary French and Francophone Literature and Culture.
- Emanuele Santos (ML Lecturer at Birmingham University). Emmanuele co-organises the Decolonising Modern Languages Network with Dr Joseph Ford and her first book ‘Late Postcoloniality: State, Violence and Wealth in the Literatures of early 21st Century Portuguese-speaking Africa’ will be published this year.
- Gitanjali Patel is a translator and social researcher as well as co-founder of Shadow Heroes, an organisation that explores translation as a social justice practice through schools workshops and training for translators.
