Skip to main content

Linguistics in Modern Foreign Languages

  • Dates: 2017–ongoing
  • Funding body: Language Acts and Worldmaking (Arts and Humanities Research Council's Open World Research Initiative); Impact Accelerator Grant (University of Bristol) & Research Start-up Grant (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Newcastle University); etc.
  • Primary investigator: Michelle Sheehan (Newcastle University)
  • Co-investigators: Alice Corr (University of Birmingham); Anna Havinga (University of Bristol); Jonathan Kasstan (University of Westminster); Sascha Stollhans (Languages, Cultures and Societies; Linguistics and Phonetics; German Studies)
  • Language at Leeds satellites: Language and society; Language learning and teaching
  • Language at Leeds themes: Centre for Excellence in Language Teaching (CELT); Pedagogical Linguistics

      • The project makes the case for the inclusion of linguistics in school-based language teaching and learning. It engages students with linguistics, deepening their interests in language, including its historical, cultural and social dimensions. We are interested not only in how stimulating and relevant teachers and pupils find these topics, but also in what effect this exposure has on language attitudes and students’ confidence levels when using another language. We ran a successful scoping study in 2017-2019 involving over 300 A-level pupils in French, German and Spanish. In a follow-on study, linguistics materials that we co-created with experienced A-level teachers and which were designed to be integrated into current A-level syllabi, were tested in classrooms. You can read about the results in our recent article published in the British Educational Research Journal.

      We have also developed research-informed materials for teacher training and have run CPD for both experienced and trainee teachers.