Quantifying bilingual experience (Q-BEx): optimising tools for educators, clinicians and researchers
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: Sch of Languages, Cultures and Societies
Abstract
At least a fifth of primary school children in the UK are bilingual: they grow up with two or more languages. Bilingualism is a linguistic, cultural and economic asset, but it also poses practical challenges for professionals having to deal with an extremely diverse group of children. For instance, it is difficult to evaluate whether a bilingual child's progress in the school language is due to limited language experience (e.g. at home) compared with monolingual peers, or whether it indicates a disorder. Teachers need to know when they can expect bilingual children to have "caught up" with monolinguals in order to inform their assessment of their progress.
One of the strongest determinants of children's language development is the amount of time they spend hearing and speaking the language. Measuring this language experience is therefore essential to inform the expectations of teachers and speech and language therapists (SLTs) regarding children's knowledge of the school language. For example, a child who is only exposed to English at school is likely to be less proficient than a child who also hears English from a parent or siblings. This can profoundly affect many aspects of that child's educational development.
Researchers have recently started to address the need to quantify the bilingual language experience through the creation of parental questionnaires about the languages spoken to and by the child with different people (parents, siblings, etc.), in different settings (home, school, etc.), and during different activities (reading, watching TV, etc.). Because the questionnaires have been developed by independent teams of researchers, the information they elicit varies - sometimes substantially, resulting in a lack of comparability across studies. Some questionnaires have been used exclusively for research purposes and their length and complexity make them difficult to use by teachers and SLTs, who are often pressed for time and may deal with parents with low levels of proficiency in the community language. Another major challenge is the typically low completion rates of parental questionnaires.
Q-BEx will bring a step-change in the measurement of bilingual language experience.
* It is the first, multidisciplinary endeavour to establish an optimal metric of bilingual language experience based on a consensus among researchers, SLTs and educators on what aspects of language experience to index, as well as an in-depth review of existing tools.
* It will for the first time deliver user-friendly, online questionnaires (and their associated back-end calculators) to return measures of current and cumulative language experience in real time. The questionnaires will be available in 13 languages, and vary in length and level of detail: the shortest version will be useful when parental consultation is challenging; the longest version will yield more fine-grained measures to enable SLTs and researchers to carry out in-depth enquiries.
* Q-BEx will be the first to exploit advanced quantitative methods to identify the right level of questionnaire detail (to meet the needs of end-users) and to assess the reliability of the resulting measures as predictors of language proficiency. Reliability and cross-language validity will be assessed using new data from 300 children in 3 different countries. Based on this assessment, Q-BEx will provide evidence-based guidance to inform users' choice on the level of questionnaire detail most appropriate to their needs.
* Q-BEx will develop an objective method to identify early those bilingual children in need of support with their school language, thereby addressing the "catch up" question.
* Q-BEx will contribute to advancing bilingualism research by exploiting cutting-edge statistical techniques, and making all scripts available to facilitate replication.
One of the strongest determinants of children's language development is the amount of time they spend hearing and speaking the language. Measuring this language experience is therefore essential to inform the expectations of teachers and speech and language therapists (SLTs) regarding children's knowledge of the school language. For example, a child who is only exposed to English at school is likely to be less proficient than a child who also hears English from a parent or siblings. This can profoundly affect many aspects of that child's educational development.
Researchers have recently started to address the need to quantify the bilingual language experience through the creation of parental questionnaires about the languages spoken to and by the child with different people (parents, siblings, etc.), in different settings (home, school, etc.), and during different activities (reading, watching TV, etc.). Because the questionnaires have been developed by independent teams of researchers, the information they elicit varies - sometimes substantially, resulting in a lack of comparability across studies. Some questionnaires have been used exclusively for research purposes and their length and complexity make them difficult to use by teachers and SLTs, who are often pressed for time and may deal with parents with low levels of proficiency in the community language. Another major challenge is the typically low completion rates of parental questionnaires.
Q-BEx will bring a step-change in the measurement of bilingual language experience.
* It is the first, multidisciplinary endeavour to establish an optimal metric of bilingual language experience based on a consensus among researchers, SLTs and educators on what aspects of language experience to index, as well as an in-depth review of existing tools.
* It will for the first time deliver user-friendly, online questionnaires (and their associated back-end calculators) to return measures of current and cumulative language experience in real time. The questionnaires will be available in 13 languages, and vary in length and level of detail: the shortest version will be useful when parental consultation is challenging; the longest version will yield more fine-grained measures to enable SLTs and researchers to carry out in-depth enquiries.
* Q-BEx will be the first to exploit advanced quantitative methods to identify the right level of questionnaire detail (to meet the needs of end-users) and to assess the reliability of the resulting measures as predictors of language proficiency. Reliability and cross-language validity will be assessed using new data from 300 children in 3 different countries. Based on this assessment, Q-BEx will provide evidence-based guidance to inform users' choice on the level of questionnaire detail most appropriate to their needs.
* Q-BEx will develop an objective method to identify early those bilingual children in need of support with their school language, thereby addressing the "catch up" question.
* Q-BEx will contribute to advancing bilingualism research by exploiting cutting-edge statistical techniques, and making all scripts available to facilitate replication.
Planned Impact
*IMPACT DELIVERABLES:
Q-BEx will
1. develop user-friendly online calculators to measure bilingual children's current and cumulative experience in each language, for teachers and speech and language therapists (SLTs) to use when creating a language profile of the children in their care;
2. create questionnaires to collect data on bilingual children's exposure and use of each language, to be used in conjunction with the online calculators. The questionnaires will be graded in detail and translated in twelve of the most frequent additional languages in Western Europe and North America;
3. provide reliability assessment of the calculators' output as predictor of language proficiency based on new data from 300 children;
4. develop an objective method that uses the relationship between language exposure and proficiency to identify early those bilingual children in need of support with their school language, thereby addressing the "catch up" question.
*IMPACT BENEFICIARIES:
The principal beneficiaries of the impact goals are teachers and SLTs in the UK, the Netherlands, and France. Representatives from the two non-academic stakeholder groups (teachers and SLTs) have been consulted on the appropriateness and relevance of the objectives and deliverables. An initial online survey between March and December 2017 (https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/D7Y8JSJ) targeting practitioners who routinely need to assess bilingual children has revealed that only 2% (out of 131) are satisfied with the tools and guidance at their disposal to assess bilingual children. Their concerns about the language assessment of bilingual children have fed directly into this proposal. Continued engagement with these groups will be essential to the success of Q-BEx.
Teachers will directly benefit from a tool to better understand the linguistic background of the bilingual children in their classroom. In England and Wales teachers have to comply with a newly introduced assessment scheme introduced by the Department for Education in 2016: Stages of Proficiency. The aim is to gather a better picture of the linguistic strengths of children with English as an Additional Language and to monitor their progress. Conducting the assessment in conjunction with information on children's cumulative and current language exposure will provide a more holistic picture of the child's bilingual profile, and will allow teachers to make predictions about children's longitudinal linguistic trajectories.
In the first instance teachers will be contacted through their national professional associations (NALDIC in the UK: https://naldic.org.uk) for the purpose of stakeholder involvement and for taking part in knowledge transfer activities. Serratrice (Co-I) has established links with a number of NALDIC Regional Interest Groups across England through the Institute of Education at the University of Reading and through Bilingualism Matters@Reading.
SLTs need help with the holistic assessment of bilingual children in two languages as recommended by the RCSLT. There is currently no approved protocol to take a case history including details on the child's exposure to their two (or more) languages. Data from our scoping survey suggest that SLTs would welcome more practical guidance on what to include in the parental interview that would allow them to build a more comprehensive picture of how children are exposed and use their two languages.
SLTs will be contacted via the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT). Serratrice (Co-I) has strong connections with the RCLST through previous collaborations (e.g. reviewing the RCLST's guidance for Gaelic speakers in 2015; reviewing the RCSLT's guidance on assessment and intervention with bilingual speakers), and through the SLT programme at the University of Reading where she currently teaches.
Q-BEx will
1. develop user-friendly online calculators to measure bilingual children's current and cumulative experience in each language, for teachers and speech and language therapists (SLTs) to use when creating a language profile of the children in their care;
2. create questionnaires to collect data on bilingual children's exposure and use of each language, to be used in conjunction with the online calculators. The questionnaires will be graded in detail and translated in twelve of the most frequent additional languages in Western Europe and North America;
3. provide reliability assessment of the calculators' output as predictor of language proficiency based on new data from 300 children;
4. develop an objective method that uses the relationship between language exposure and proficiency to identify early those bilingual children in need of support with their school language, thereby addressing the "catch up" question.
*IMPACT BENEFICIARIES:
The principal beneficiaries of the impact goals are teachers and SLTs in the UK, the Netherlands, and France. Representatives from the two non-academic stakeholder groups (teachers and SLTs) have been consulted on the appropriateness and relevance of the objectives and deliverables. An initial online survey between March and December 2017 (https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/D7Y8JSJ) targeting practitioners who routinely need to assess bilingual children has revealed that only 2% (out of 131) are satisfied with the tools and guidance at their disposal to assess bilingual children. Their concerns about the language assessment of bilingual children have fed directly into this proposal. Continued engagement with these groups will be essential to the success of Q-BEx.
Teachers will directly benefit from a tool to better understand the linguistic background of the bilingual children in their classroom. In England and Wales teachers have to comply with a newly introduced assessment scheme introduced by the Department for Education in 2016: Stages of Proficiency. The aim is to gather a better picture of the linguistic strengths of children with English as an Additional Language and to monitor their progress. Conducting the assessment in conjunction with information on children's cumulative and current language exposure will provide a more holistic picture of the child's bilingual profile, and will allow teachers to make predictions about children's longitudinal linguistic trajectories.
In the first instance teachers will be contacted through their national professional associations (NALDIC in the UK: https://naldic.org.uk) for the purpose of stakeholder involvement and for taking part in knowledge transfer activities. Serratrice (Co-I) has established links with a number of NALDIC Regional Interest Groups across England through the Institute of Education at the University of Reading and through Bilingualism Matters@Reading.
SLTs need help with the holistic assessment of bilingual children in two languages as recommended by the RCSLT. There is currently no approved protocol to take a case history including details on the child's exposure to their two (or more) languages. Data from our scoping survey suggest that SLTs would welcome more practical guidance on what to include in the parental interview that would allow them to build a more comprehensive picture of how children are exposed and use their two languages.
SLTs will be contacted via the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT). Serratrice (Co-I) has strong connections with the RCLST through previous collaborations (e.g. reviewing the RCLST's guidance for Gaelic speakers in 2015; reviewing the RCSLT's guidance on assessment and intervention with bilingual speakers), and through the SLT programme at the University of Reading where she currently teaches.
Publications
Kašcelan D
(2022)
A constellation of continua Reconceptualising bilingualism, autism and language research
in Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Kašcelan D
(2021)
A review of questionnaires quantifying bilingual experience in children: Do they document the same constructs?
in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
De Cat C
(2022)
How to quantify bilingual experience? Findings from a Delphi consensus survey
in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
De Cat C
(2022)
Manual and design documentation for the Q-BEx questionnaire
DE CAT C
(2023)
So many variables, but what causes what?
in Journal of Child Language
| Description | * We have created a customisable online tool which researchers, speech & language therapists and teachers can use to better understand the language experiences and language background of bi/trilingual children, and to inform the professional evaluation of their language support needs. The tool's design was informed by an international, cross-sector Delphi consensus survey (including representatives from 29 countries), the comprehensive review of existing tools, best practice identified in the psychometric literature, and consultation with bilingualism experts (research and practice). The tool consists of an online questionnaire and back-end calculator. The questionnaire can be customised according to professional users' needs in terms of level of detail, type of respondent and language of administration, and is available in 23 languages, with 5 more to be added shortly (far exceeding our original target of 13). * The tool was validated using newly collected data from 299 children from 3 countries (France, the Netherlands, and UK), between the ages of 5 and 9. This includes data from the full questionnaire, as well as direct measures of proficiency in the societal language (French, Dutch, or English) and of relevant cognitive skills. * Exploiting advanced quantitative methods, we identified complex associations among the Individual Difference variables provided by the Q-BEx questionnaire, when considered as predictors of language proficiency. These associations indicate different types of profiles practitioners might encounter when assessing multilingual children. * We demonstrated the practical benefit of composite indices of Richness of Experience as predictors of language proficiency, and demonstrated how these indices share common and specific information among multilingual children's societal vs home languages. * Using an information-theoretic approach, we identified the optimal level of questionnaire detail required to predict language outcomes in multilingual children (as represented in our validation sample). This evidence will guide professional users to choose the level of detail to implement in the questionnaire, given their needs and constraints. * Risk for language impairment is incorporated into Q-BEx via a few simple questions about early language development and current oral skills in each language. A Concern Score is derived to identify children likely to be at risk for language impairment. By recruiting some of the children in the validation sample from speech and language therapy clinics, we were able to demonstrate the usefulness of this Concern Score by how well it flagged independently-known-to-be-at-risk children, and by how well the Concern Score predicted language performance in the societal language in all the children flagged by that score. * The Concern Score is incorporated in the individual child reports automatically generated by the Q-BEx platform. These reports also include information about the child's amount of experience in each language (current and cumulative), parental estimates of the child's proficiency in each language, and indices of Richness of the child's experience of each language. Evidence-informed guidance is provided for the interpretation of the reports. * The validation of the questionnaire also included a qualitative assessment, analysing the validation study data loss, inconsistencies in data, and identifying unlikely scenarios reported by respondents. We offer recommendations to optimise data accuracy and highlight challenges inherent to the collection of data via questionnaires. |
| Exploitation Route | * The quantitative methods we have developed for the validation of the questionnaire can be used to assess the validity of other questionnaires within and beyond our discipline. * The insights from the qualitative evaluation of the questionnaire can be used to inform protocols for the administration of this (and other) questionnaire(s), e.g. interview protocols or preliminary guidance. * The Q-BEx tool itself will allow greater comparability of bi/trilingual children's language experience data collected across studies, in different languages, and across disciplines. This is an essential step to achieve replicability and the comparability of scientific findings based on these data. * The R scripts we have made and will continue to make available to the research community will allow other researchers to extend the investigations we have initiated to more diverse populations. This will reveal the domain of applicability of our findings, and will contribute to a better understanding of bi/trilingualism in children. * The use of Q-BEx as a triage tool for directing children toward dedicated language services, explicitly laid out in Q-BEx individual output reports, can be taken up in clinical studies in specific cultural/national settings in view of incorporating any needed adaptations. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Education Healthcare |
| URL | https://osf.io/gb9m7/ |
| Description | **Emerging impact:** • Over the course of the project the team has been developing a public engagement strategy to create impact through: 1) raising awareness of the existence of the Q-BEx questionnaire (henceforth Q-BEx) as a tool to document the language experience of multilingual children, and 2) promoting its use beyond the academic community by teachers and speech and language therapists (SLTs) across the UK, The Netherlands, France and beyond (e.g. Italy, Denmark, Lebanon). • The PI, the Co-Is, and the PDRA have been delivering information sessions on the creation and use of the questionnaire - and more recently on the automatic Q-BEx reports - to teachers in primary schools and in complementary schools, qualified and trainee SLTs working for the NHS and in independent practice nationally and internationally both in person and online through national professional associations (e.g. Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum), school visits, study days, workshops, training of undergraduate and postgraduate speech and language therapy students in two UK universities (Reading and Essex), a French University (Tours), and a Lebanese University (Beirut), as well as an online Futurelearn course. • The emerging impact we are documenting beyond academia is in raising awareness of the need to systematically document the language experience of multilingual children and of Q-BEx as an ideal tool to do so. We have already reached hundreds of practitioners in person and online and more than 3350 participants on the Futurelearn course have accessed the content on Q-BEx so far. In 2023 we secured independent funding from the Habilnet Foundation to continue our impact work until 2026. • An important development has been the adoption of Q-BEx by the Bradford-based ELSEC (Early Language Screening for Every Child) pathfinder programme, a joint initiative of the NHS and the Department for Education in England. Q-BEx was chosen a triage tool to identify children who would benefit from referral for specialist language assessment. This is a significant impact in terms of policy whose results we plan to leverage to scale up the adoption of Q-BEx to other regions in the UK. In 2024 the PI was awarded an UKRI Impact Acceleration to evaluate the informativity of Q-BEx as triage tool and to co-create guidelines for the use of Q-BEx as a triage tool across education settings in collaboration with the ELSEC team. ** Challenges:** • One of the challenges in terms of uptake with practitioners has been the length of the questionnaire. To address this issue we reduced the number of questions in the longest module (language exposure and use) and we now have implemented the option of a shorter version of this key module to decrease completion time and increase completion rates. In addition, the automatic report now includes a red-flag system to triage children that may be at risk for speech, language and communication difficulties. • Another challenge has been to accommodate caregivers who do not have easy access to the internet, have lower literacy skills, or are not very computer savvy. A low-tech pen & paper version of the Q-BEx would lose much of the functionality of the tool (e.g. the use of visual sliders to answer some of the questions and the automatically generated report) and therefore we have opted not to provide this option. Instead, we are working with colleagues in Canada (Prof. Johanne Paradis) on an interview protocol that would allow practitioners to work with caregivers to collect the information and circumvent the technical and literacy issues. ** Significant impact within academia:** Q-BEx is starting to make an impact internationally. Over the last four years it has been gaining a lot of attention; up to March 2025 the Q-BEx online tool has been used to collect data from 4086 children residing in 70 countries (spanning Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania). The modularity of the tool, the availability in 28 languages, and the fact that is the output of a Delphi consensus in the field is putting Q-BEx on the academic maps for a growing number of researchers. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
| Sector | Education,Healthcare |
| Impact Types | Societal Policy & public services |
| Description | FutureLearn online course on Understanding Multilingual Children's Language Development |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The course has 2000 registered participants as of 12/3/2024 and 4.7/5 reviews. Participants found the course highly informative and very useful in their workplace. |
| URL | https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/understanding-multilingual-childrens-language-development |
| Description | Postgraduate training on the MSc Speech and Language Therapy at the University of Essex |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The students who received the training go on placement throughout East England and in parts of London which are highly linguistically diverse and where students have the opportunity to use the questionnaire. After the MSc qualification they can apply for band 5 jobs in the NHS. |
| Description | Postgraduate training on the MSc Speech and Language Therapy at the University of Reading |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The students who received the training go on placement throughout Berkshire and Hampshire and in parts of London which are highly linguistically diverse and where students have the opportunity to use the questionnaire. After the MSc qualification they can apply for band 5 jobs in the NHS. |
| Description | Talk at studiedag PIM (Partners in Meertaligheid / Partners in Multilingualism) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or improved professional practice |
| Impact | Most important impact: The organization Foyer are investigating whether they can integrate Q-BEx into their work with multilingual youth and/or parents when assessing children's heritage language abilities. Members of the Flemish community of practice on multilingualism and speech language therapy are going to try out Q-BEx and exchange experiences. They will furthermore see whether Q-BEx can be featured as part of the program in their forthcoming conference/study-day. Members of Foyer will write an article for a professional publication (Caleidoscoop) where they will compare Q-BEx with other questionnaires currently used to explain when each can best be used. |
| URL | https://www.foyer.be/news/studiedag-pim/ |
| Description | The Q-BEx as part of the Linguistic Assessment Clinic at the University of Reading |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Speech and language therapy students at the University of Reading enter the workforce equipped with a new tool for the initial triaging of multilingual clients. |
| Description | The Q-BEx questionnaire as a triage tool |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Qualified speech and language therapy practicing in the NHS have enhanced awareness of ways in which using the Q-BEx can flag early concerns for speech and language communication needs in the child multilingual population |
| Description | Training of qualified speech and language therapists to use the Q-BEx questionnaire |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Awareness raising of the utility of the Q-BEx questionnaire as part of the case history with bilingual children with speech, language and communication needs in clinical practice. |
| Description | Using Q-BEx as triage tool for speech & language therapy assessment needs |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or improved professional practice |
| Description | ESRC Impact Acceleration grant via the Leeds Social Sciences Institute at the University of Leeds |
| Amount | £14,975 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | RGMODL 129797.016 ESRC IAA |
| Organisation | University of Leeds |
| Department | Leeds Social Sciences Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2024 |
| End | 08/2025 |
| Title | Q-BEx online questionnaire |
| Description | * Q-BEx is a customisable online tool which teachers, speech & language therapists (SLTs) and researchers can use to better understand the language experiences and language background of bi/trilingual children. The design of this tool was informed by an in-depth review of existing questionnaires and a consensus among researchers, teachers and SLTs on what aspects of language experience should be measured. We have developed a user-friendly, online questionnaire (and back-end calculator) to return measures of current and cumulative language experience in real time, as well as a number of other measures relevant for developing language profiles of bi/trilingual children. The questionnaire can be customised in many ways to facilitate administration and provide the required level of detail. * The reliability and cross-language validity of this new tool has been assessed using new data from 300 children in 3 different countries. Based on this assessment, we provide evidence-based guidance to inform professional users' choice on the level of questionnaire detail most appropriate to their needs. ** Customisability: (i) The online questionnaire is available in 23 languages (with an additional 5 to be added shortly), in an adult-respondent version (for parents or caregivers to fill in) and a child-respondent version (for children to fill in about themselves, if they are above 12 years of age). (ii) Professional users can decide on the level of detail to be implemented in the questionnaire, by choosing from 5 modules (in addition to two compulsory modules). These modules include: Language exposure and use, Language proficiency, Richness of linguistic experience, Attitudes and satisfaction with child's language, Language mixing. Within each module, various sub-modules can be selected, depending on the professional's goals and the time constraints within which they operate to collect data with the questionnaire. An easy option is available to select the shortest recommended version of the questionnaire, if required. A detailed manual and short explanatory videos and infographics are available on our website (https://www.q-bex.org) for guidance. * The online tool automatically produces individual child reports (in English or Dutch), which can be downloaded in pdf format. These reports summarise the information collected by the questionnaire (depending on the implemented level of detail) using tables and figures. If the required submodules have been selected, the report also includes an assessment of the risk that the child may be experiencing language difficulties, requiring specialist assessment. Finally, there is a section explaining how to interpret the information contained in the report. * The online tool also includes a back-end calculator which generates composite measures frequently used in bilingualism research, several of which are included in the individual child report. Depending on the level of detail implemented in the questionnaire, this can include: various measures of current experience in each language, estimates of cumulative experience in each language, indicators of the richness of experience in each language, and a risk index for language development concerns. * The data can be downloaded as spreadsheets with different levels of detail and different levels of data wrangling. This includes: a spreadsheet including the raw data (except for timetable information), a spreadsheet including the timetable data (detailing the amount of time spent by the child with different interlocutors, in different contexts), a spreadsheet with tidy column names and including the composite scores derived by the back-end calculator. * The tool is fully GDPR-compliant. The data is pseudonymised upon collection. A key linking pseudonyms and children's names can be downloaded from the administration interface, separately from the data. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | To date (12th of March 2024), the Q-BEx online tool has been used to create 233 implementations of the questionnaires, with which data has been collected about 3229 children residing in 62 countries (spanning Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania). |
| URL | https://www.q-bex.org/ |
| Title | Quantifying language experience in bilingual and trilingual children. [Dataset] |
| Description | The data in this repository were collected in France, the Netherlands and the UK between 2020 and 2022 to inform the validation of the Q-BEx questionnaire (www.q-bex.org). Children between the ages of 5 and 9 were tested individually to assess their proficiency in the societal language (i.e., French, Dutch or English), as well as their non-verbal intelligence and working memory. One of their parents or caregivers also filled in the full version of the Q-BEx questionnaire. The repository includes data from 299 children (FR: n=78, NL: n=117, UK: n=104), although some measures are not available for all children. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Access to the database is currently embargoed while the publications arising from its analysis are under review. |
| URL | https://doi.org/10.5518/1496 |
| Description | Validating the Q-BEx Red flag index for language impairment |
| Organisation | Utrecht University |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Our research team will contribute the data from the Q-BEx validation study, as well as R scripts already created for the validation of the Language Concern score (referred to here as Red Flag index). We will also contribute expertise for the analysis of the data and will co-author any publication arising from this project. |
| Collaborator Contribution | There are 2 partner Universities involved: KU Leuven as well as Utrecht University. The partners at the University of Utrecht will contribute Q-BEx data, language assessment data, and clinical diagnostic status for 87 children, which were collected as part as project "Children and Language Mixing" (CALM; NOW Vici project awarded to prof. dr. Elma Blom). The partners at the KU Leuven will contribute Q-BEx data, language assessment data, and clinical diagnostic status for 136 children, which were collected as part as project "Optimalization of the differential diagnosis in bilingual children with and without a developmental language disorder", led by Prof Inge Zink. Both partners will also contribute their expertise for the analysis of the data and will co-author any publication arising from this project. |
| Impact | The partnership is in its initial stages. Anticipated outputs include a scientific publication as well as guidelines for Q-BEx professional users regarding the interpretation of the Red Flag index for language impairment. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | A training course for postgraduate trainee SLTs |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | A training course on the use of assessments for multilingual children with speech, language and communication difficulties at the University of Padua, Italy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | An online presentation to teachers of the deaf working with multilingual children |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | An online presentation to teachers of the Deaf who are members of the Danish Association Decibel and who work with multilingual children. The Q-BEx was introduced as a tool to document the bilingual and trilingual language experience of multilingual children. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | An online round table |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | As part of the re-launch of the Language, Society, and Policy journal, a panel of contributors discussed the following questions: what are the key areas of policymaking in which research in languages can have an impact? What obstacles do we need to overcome to impact on policy? How do we build a coordinated strategy as academics across disciplines for policy impact? The panel discussion was followed by a Q&A when the audience contributed with comments and questions. The importance of documenting the heritage language of multilingual pupils in schools using the Q-BEx was highlighted. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRegLPS7Xnk |
| Description | Autism and Bilingualism: Practitioner Webinar, University of Edinburgh |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In this talk, Drasko Kascelan presented the creation of the Q-BEx questionnaire as a collaborative project with researchers, teachers and speech % language therapists (SLTs). The presentation discussed the usability of the questionnaire in the SLT practice, particularly in relation to the risk assessment questions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://patrickwildcentre.com/autism-bilingualism-practitioner-webinar/ |
| Description | Bilingualism Matters Research Symposium - Invited Keynote |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The keynote was focused on raising awareness about the importance of research on language diversity and on the documentation of the multilingual language experience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.bilingualism-matters.org/events |
| Description | Growing Up Bilingual - British Psychological Society - Researchers-Practitioners workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Researcher-practitioner workshop on different aspects of Children Growing up Bilingual - This was a hybrid event with 40 people in attendance in person and another 30-40 attendees online. A part of her presentation, Prof. Serratrice - one of the Co-Is - introduced the Q-BEx questionnaire as the new tool to measure the bilingual language experience. Plans are in progress for a meeting in June-July with academics and practitioners with a view to discussing grant applications including Q-BEx. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/growing-up-bilingual-researcher-and-practitioner-synergies-tickets-24... |
| Description | Information article |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | An article for qualified SLTs and members of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapy on assessment tools for multilingual children with speech, language and communication difficulties explaining the use of the Q-BEx questionnaire. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Interview for Italian-speaking parents raising their children multilingually |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | An interview with Dr Karin Martin on language maintenance during the pandemic and the role of questionnaires in tracking the language experience of multilingual families. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gFJ3JbLZbQ |
| Description | Introduction of the Q-BEx at Polish complementary schools in London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Introduction of the Q-BEx as a tool to document Polish-English bilingual children's multilingual language experience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Introduction of the Q-BEx questionnaire to a primary school in St Pierre (France) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | The Q-BEx was introduced to teachers in a primary school in France (St Pierre) with a large intake of multilingual children. The session was well received by teachers who clearly understood the value of documenting their pupils' languages in a more systematic way. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Introduction of the Q-BEx questionnaire to a primary school in Tours (France) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | The Q-BEx was introduced to teachers in a primary school in France (Tours) with a large intake of multilingual children. The session was well received by teachers who clearly understood the value of documenting their pupils' languages in a more systematic way. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Introduction of the Q-BEx to SLTs in independent practice in Tours (France) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Q-BEx was introduced to SLTs in independent clinical practice in France (Tours) with a large intake of multilingual children. The session was well received by SLTs who clearly understood the value of documenting their pupils' languages in a more systematic way. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Introduction of the Q-BEx to trainee SLTs at St Joseph University in Lebanon |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | For the last 3 years trainee SLTs at St Joseph University in Lebanon has been attending a workshop delivered by the team on the development and use of the Q-BEx in clinical practice. The sessions are always well received and students use the Q-BEx on clinical placements. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Introduction of the Q-BEx to trainee SLTs at the University of Tours (France) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | For the last 3 years trainee SLTs at Tours University in France have been attending a workshop delivered by the team on the development and use of the Q-BEx in clinical practice. The sessions are always well received and students use the Q-BEx on clinical placements. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Introduction to the Q-BEx to the Union Nationale pour le Développement de la Recherche et de l'Evaluation en Orthophonie (France) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A workshop on the use of the Q-BEx to the national association of SLTs in France. The session was well received and we received follow-up requests for information. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Invited talk at the "Talk To Your Baby" conference organised by the National Literacy Trust. The talk was entitled "Supporting bilingual children". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Cecile De Cat (PI) was invited to address the TTYB conference audience to present the state-of-the-art in supporting multilingual children in Early Years settings. The aim of the presentation was to convince Early Years professionals that to support multilingual children, it is necessary to understand the diversity of their language experience. The first part of the talk presented research evidence in support of this view, and the second part introduced the Q-BEx tool and showed how it can inform the work of Early Years practitioners working with multilingual children. There were 150 attendees, including: - Speech and language therapists - Early years/nursery practitioners - Local authority children's services senior managers - Literacy specialists - Primary teachers - Academics (in education and early development) - senior managers in third sector organisations Feedback from the organisers and audience was very positive. A number of professionals got in touch afterwards by email to take things further. For example, a Family Support Manager from a charity supporting deaf children across the country is now considering using Q-BEx as a tool to collect information on home languages spoken and family heritage from the large percentage of multilingual families they work with. As another example, a Speech and Language Therapist working on the Welsh Government's "Talk with Me campaign" got in touch to discuss how improve the support for 2-year-olds from lower SES backgrounds who are from (often) English speaking homes (many without language rich environments) and who attend Welsh language immersion Flying Start childcare settings. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://literacytrust.org.uk/news/hosting-talk-to-your-baby-2023-in-birmingham/ |
| Description | Keynote at the AG Bell Foundation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A keynote to the AG Bell Association annual symposium on bilingual language development and on the importance of documenting language exposure in children with hearing impairment using the Q-BEx questionnaire. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://m.facebook.com/AGBellAssociation/videos/keynote-speaker-ludovica-serratrice/1057223484803334... |
| Description | Keynote presentation - Researcher and Practitioner Synergies Growing Up Bilingual |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | A workshop bringing together teachers, charities and academics working on bilingualism and the quantification of language experience |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/beginnings-bilingual-bridges |
| Description | Keynote presentation at the annual conference of Italian Speech and Language Therapy Association |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A presentation to the Italian Association of SLT on the importance of documenting the language background of multilingual children with speech, language and communication needs using the Q-BEx questionnaire. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Online meeting with Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust Speech and Language Therapist Service Manager |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Meeting with the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) Service Manager to involve the SLTs working with multilingual children in the piloting of the Q-BEx questionnaire. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Online practitioner training _ Study Day for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists Centre for Excellence Network on Bilingualism |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A dedicated study day on the use of the Q-BEx in clinical practice |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Online presentation on heritage language maintenance to Croatian parents |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | An online presentation as part of the Languages Matter project in Croatia. This was aimed at parents of multilingual children interested in heritage language maintenance. The Q-BEx was introduced as a tool to document and track use of two or more languages in multilingual families. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Presentation at the BeCurious festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This talk was delivered by Drasko Kascelan, as part of a series of presentations about research conducted at the University of Leeds. The theme of the session was Inclusion and Identity. Project's work was presented by discussing the diversity of bilingual profiles when quantifying language experience in children, and how our questionnaire can help in tapping into various linguistic backgrounds. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ff0tyaJ6tg&list=PLjEqI4wfi6ycaRkZ2E4fZFuNtFmEu3VDz&index=3 |
| Description | Presentation of the Q-BEx questionnaire - Princethorpe Junior School Birmingham |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of the rationale for the Q-BEx questionnaire to teachers and parents of bilingual children and hands on demonstration of how to use the questionnaire and generate reports. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Presentation of the Q-BEx questionnaire - Szkola Polska przy ambasadzie RP w Londynie |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of the rationale for the Q-BEx questionnaire to teachers and parents of bilingual children and hands on demonstration of how to use the questionnaire and generate reports. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Presentation of the Q-BEx questionnaire St Raphael's RC Primary - London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of the rationale for the Q-BEx questionnaire to teachers and parents of bilingual children and hands on demonstration of how to use the questionnaire and generate reports. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Presentation of the Q-BEx questionnaire to teachers and parents at Oldfield Primary - London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of the rationale for the Q-BEx questionnaire to teachers and parents of bilingual children and hands on demonstration of how to use the questionnaire and generate reports. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Presentation to the Solent NHS Trust Multilingualism SLT lead |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A demonstration to the multilingual SLT lead in the speech and language therapy team in the Solent NHS. They are currently considering adopting the tool as part of a set of measures to assist in the identification of SLT needs in multilingual learners - particularly new arrivals. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Presentation to the Special Interest Group for SLTs in Ireland interested in Linguistic & Cultural Diversity |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This is an event in which the PI - Prof. De Cat, the UK-based co-I Prof. Serratrice and the UK-based Research Assistant Mr Peter Gillam presented Q-BEx to the Special Interest Group in Linguistic and Cultural Diversity - a professional group of speech and language therapists working with multilingual children. The intention is to form a partnership in which the SLTs will pilot the questionnaire as part of their clinical practice and feed back to the research team to further adjust the questionnaire for accessibility. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://twitter.com/LCDSIG_IASLT/status/1493610029957722116 |
| Description | Questionnaire trial and feedback from 6 primary and secondary schools |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | The Q-BEx questionnaire was introduced to six primary and secondary schools with a view to adopting it as part of their school's EAL policy |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | School visit and training on Q-BEx at the Tapscott Learning Trust (Newham - London) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | The senior leadership team of the Tapscott Learning Trust attended the workshop to learn about the Q-BEx as a potential tool for triaging multilingual children at risk of speech, language and communication needs. The trust considered Q-BEx as part of the initial parental interview for new arrivals. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | School-Centred Initial Teacher Training session (Bradford) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We delivered a 2-hour training session via the Bradford Birth-to-19 SCITT (school-centred initial teacher training) on 17/01/2022, entitled "Diversity among EAL pupils: challenges and opportunities". The aim was to increase trainees' awareness of the need to know the language background of their bi/multilingual pupils, in order to be able to identify their support needs. We demonstration how to use the Q-BEx tool and how to use the output. Participant feedback showed that the session was perceived as interesting, informative and relevant. They also indicated that what they had learned would influence their practice. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Study Day for the London Bilingualism Centre of Excellence Network |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A study day in September 2023 for qualified SLTs on updates on the Q-BEx following a previous study day delivered by the research project team in July 2022. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Training to speech and language therapists in the Lewisham NHS Trust |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The speech and language therapy team in the Lewisham NHS Trust took part in a half day training on the use of Q-BEx as a triage tool for multilingual new arrivals at risk for speech, language and communication difficulties. They considered adopting the tool as part of a set of measures to assist in the identification of SLT needs in multilingual learners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Training to the Portsmouth City Council Ethnic Minority Achievement and Travellers Team |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The senior leadership team took part in a half day training on the use of Q-BEx as a triage tool for multilingual new arrivals at risk for speech, language and communication difficulties. They considered adopting the tool as part of a set of measures to assist in the identification of SLT needs in multilingual learners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Visit to the Polish Language Complementary School in Slough |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Visit to the Polish Language Complementary School in Slough as part of local community outreach - presentation of the Q-BEx questionnaire to teachers and parents. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Webinar - Do kids get confused when you talk to them in several languages? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A webinar to raise awareness about the role of children's language experience in code-switching - 438 views on 6/3/2023 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__6Qh-b502U |
| Description | Webinar - The Multilingual Garden - Bilingualism and the pandemic: unexpected linguistic advantages |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A talk on the relationship between language exposure and language development in bilingual children during the Covid-19 pandemic. Raising awareness of the importance of maintaining the heritage language in multilingual families |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gFJ3JbLZbQ&t=508s |
| Description | Workshop for Royal College of Speech and Language Therapy members |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Training workshop on the use of the Q-BEx questionnaire for qualified SLTs and trainee SLTs. 154 participants attended the online session, the recording has been viewed more than 100 times and more than 60 requests for a copy of the presentation were sent to Prof. Serratrice. A follow-up article was commissioned for the RCSLT Bulletin. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Workshop for teachers, delivered at the annual meeting of the NALDIC (the national subject association for teachers of English as an Additional Language) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The workshop included: "Reflection on practice - how do you assess EAL pupils' language proficiency and experience"? Interactive online activities for live participation Hands-on experience of a new tool to profile EAL pupils Opportunity for co-creation of the school-optimised version of the tool Discussion of teachers' current practice (10 minutes) | (Based around interactive online poll) - What language assessment of EAL students do you routinely use in your context? - What are the issues with assessing language proficiency and experience of EAL students in your context? - What background information are you given about your EAL students and how do you use this? - Why is it important to understand experience as well as proficiency? Introduction of Q-BEx project (5 minutes) - Aims of the project - Why is there a need for this? - How can this be useful for you in your school? What solutions might it provide? A closer look at the Q-BEx questionnaire (10 minutes) - Discussion over meaning of the 7 modules: What information can we elicit from the different modules? Which parts would be interesting and useful for you and your school? - Demonstration of key features of the questionnaire (online) Interactive use of the questionnaire (15-20 minutes) - Use of case study so that teachers can engage with the tool using their own device (mobile, tablet, computer)- different tasks/activities to try Group discussion: (5 minutes) | (Based around interactive online poll) - Having looked at the tool, which children would you find this most useful for? E.g. all children, new arrivals, start of primary/secondary school? Co-creation of school-optimised version - group discussion: (5 minutes) - Opportunity to contribute to the streamlined version for schools - Which aspects are most relevant for your practice? - What format do you think would work best for you? - What format of output reporting would be best for you? Questions (5 minutes) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://naldic.org.uk/professional-learning-cpd/annual-conference/naldic-29-conference-2021/#worksho... |
| Description | Workshop for the North Yorkshire Clinical Excellence Network |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Attendees were speech & language therapists working in different clinics and schools across Yorkshire (West and North) as well as the North East. Five participants (out of 21) decided to start using Q-BEx in their practice as a direct result of this workshop. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Workshop for the West Yorkshire Bilingualism Clinical Excellence Network |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The PI was invited to explain the benefit of Q-BEx to inform speech and language therapy. The session included an introduction to Q-BEx summarising the research evidence that informed its design, a brief demo of how to customise the Q-BEx questionnaire and download the results and individual child reports, and a question-and-answer session. As a direct result of this workshop, several practitioners decided to adopt Q-BEx in their practice. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |