Welcome to the blog of the Language Teaching Community of Practice!
We are a cross-institutional Community of Practice open to all staff involved or interested in foreign language teaching. One of our defining aims is to deepen knowledge, promote reflection and stimulate in-depth discussion around themes that are relevant to our professional practice at the UoR.
The Beginnings …
The idea of creating a Language Teaching Community of Practice (LT CoP) took shape and developed as part of the University strategy to support and promote language learning and expertise in foreign languages teaching. A number of colleagues involved in language teaching or teacher education from the Department of Modern Languages and European Studies, the International Study and Language Institute, the Institute of Education and the Department of Classics agreed to meet informally and contribute, from their different perspectives, to the implementation of the project.
In 2016-2017, as a core group, we began our work with a critical discussion of the idea of CoP itself, its evolution and its adoption as an organisational tool. We discussed the range of functions that, as a cross-institutional LT CoP, we aimed to have (sharing practices, responding to needs, mentoring, influencing policies, bidding for funds etc.) and key issues that we considered relevant to our interests and needs as language practitioners working in different contexts. We agreed that one of our defining aims would be to deepen knowledge, promote reflection and stimulate in-depth discussion around themes relating to our professional practice at the UoR. Therefore, we decided to focus on one main theme in each academic year.
As is the nature of a CoP, our structure and plans are flexible and we intend to respond to the needs and interests of our members.