House of Lords event celebrates success of Our Languages
A high profile event at the House of Lords will re-examine the link between language and identity and community languages and social cohesion. The event will celebrate the success of the Our Languages project and explore ways of continuing to raise the status of community languages in the UK.
Our Languages was launched in summer 2007 to support the teaching of community languages through partnerships between mainstream and complementary schools. At that time there were just nine schools involved in the project in London, Birmingham, Leicester and Manchester; now there are 90.
A recent evaluation of the Our Languages project written by Professor Angela Creese of the University of Birmingham highlighted the success of the Our Languages project. She concluded that it was ‘an excellently managed project resulting in all aims and deliverables achieved at consortium and local level.’
At Monday’s event at the House of Lords, the European Union’s Commissioner for Multilingualism Leonard Orban will update stakeholders and policymakers on the European perspective on community languages. There will also be a talk from Dr Charmian Kenner from Goldsmiths, University of London, and Professor Li Wei from Birkbeck, University of London highlighting research on bilingualism and complementary schooling.
Sarah Cartwright, Our Languages Consortium Programme Manager at CILT said: ‘We are delighted to have the chance to celebrate the success of the Our Languages project at this event. We have come a long way in raising the profile of community languages, although there is still much to be done. We would like to see even more schools celebrating their pupils’ languages and understanding the cognitive benefits of bilingualism and the potential of community languages to contribute to the economy.’
Funded by the government’s Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), the Our Languages project was run by a consortium made up of CILT, the National Centre for Languages, the National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education (NRC), the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT), and the School Development Support Agency (SDSA).
(09/07/09)
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