Language awareness for KS3 (LAwKS-3)

The benefits of learning a second language are numerous and extremely well-documented. They range from cognitive benefits that relate to memory and mental agility, to economic benefits such as access to foreign markets, to societal benefits, a second language enhancing one's ability to see the world from another point of view. Having a second language can also delay the effects of degenerative diseases among the elderly, in a way that is more effective than any medicine currently available. In addition to this, research reveals significant educational benefits from learning a second language that relate to literacy of the children's native language and also maths. Despite all this, modern language teaching in the UK in general and Northern Ireland (NI) in particular is in a deep crisis. British Council's 2019 Language Trends report reveals a number of bleak trends for the region, in light of the fact that in NI, unlike the rest of the UK, there is no compulsory modern languages teaching in primary schools. In post-primary education there is a drop of modern languages A-levels, although school officials would welcome action to improve status and teaching of languages.
LAwKS-3 aims to address exactly this crisis by creating a linguistically-informed resource for modern language teaching. This project will be creating a complete language awareness module for Key stage 3 that will introduce pupils to key grammatical concepts, using examples from frequently taught modern languages (e.g. French, Spanish, German and Irish), classical and medieval languages (Latin, Ancient Greek, Old English) but also heritage languages that are frequently spoken in NI. In this way, LAwKS-3 will utilise the comparative and the diachronic methods that have been used for decades in theoretical linguistics and transport them into language teaching. This course will include (a) lesson plans for the teachers, (b) classroom resources such as PowerPoint presentations, (c) worksheets with exercises for the pupils, and (d) videos of the teacher training sessions for use by other schools. The resources will be designed by the project team but they will be receiving continuous feedback and guidance from a steering group panel as well as teachers. This project is a collaboration between theoretical and historical linguists and our project partner school, St. Patrick's Academy in Dungannon. The partner school will not only assist in the design of the resource but it also will pilot it throughout the academic year 2020 - 2021 with a cohort from their Year eight students. They will also provide us with feedback both from staff and students in crucial stages of the project development. At the end of the academic year, the LAwKS-3 resource will be finalized, taking into account all the feedback provided and all the materials along with the teacher training session will be put online on the project website and other key outlets, to be used by any school that wishes to do so.
This project is interdisciplinary by design since it seeks to apply long-standing linguistic insights into language teaching. In doing so it aims to assist native language literacy and also battle misconceptions about language variation. It also intends to put heritage speakers into the forefront by bringing into the school their native linguistic ability, something that will empower and further incentivise these students. The long-standing goal of LAwKS-3 is threefold:
- To assist teachers in delivering a varied, linguistically-informed curriculum that substantially enhances language teaching
- To empower students from all backgrounds to access modern and classical languages and acquire the tools necessary for any kind of language learning
- Ultimately, to reverse the trends for language choices at A-level.