Learning Mandarin Chinese

This January I was given the opportunity to take up Mandarin Chinese for 10 weeks, with the University of Cumbria, in conjunction with the Confucius Institute at UCLan. I began the course with a colleague in my department – both of us speak Spanish and French. The course is designed for MFL teachers, so we [...]

The Digital Languages Lab

You remember the old languages lab don’t you? The big room, with the individual booths where pupils put on their headsets and listen to the audio recorded to the cassette in the booth? Really? You still remember them? Gosh, your memory is good. The department of which I am head embraces using technology in the [...]

Why reinstate the compulsory teaching of modern foreign languages up to the age of 16?

I recently re-tweeted a link from a twitter contact urging people to sign the petition to reinstate the compulsary teaching of modern foreign languages up to the age of 16 and withing moments I received a message from another contact asking me why I believe this, which  has led to this blog post. Firstly, let [...]