In a new series of monthly blogs highlighting key research areas of activity at the IoE, Professor Suzanne Graham, Director of Research for the Institution, looks at two large collaborative projects that will promote the importance of Modern Foreign Languages as well as researching learners’ development and motivation in language learning.
The first, The Language Magician, is an EU-funded project led by the Goethe Institute in which Dr Louise Courtney and Suzanne Graham are building on their earlier research into primary modern languages.
Their expertise is contributing to the creation of a computer game to assess language learning for young learners, which will be rolled out across several countries in 2018. They are also exploring the development of learners’ motivation for language learning. Louise and Suzanne have just returned from Leipzig where they worked with project partners on the game. Louise also presented at the mid-project conference on January 27, giving two papers on the value of the game for primary school teachers across Europe and beyond and what piloting of the game reveals about learners’ motivation in different European countries.
Suzanne is Strand Lead for the second project, Linguistic Creativity in Language Learning, which is part of a large AHRC funded project led by Katrin Kohl at the University of Oxford, Creative Multilingualism. The strand is exploring the impact of literary and non-literary texts on the linguistic and motivational development of learners of French and German at secondary school. Suzanne was part of the project’s launch event, Linguamania, at the Ashmolean Museum on January 27, and gave a presentation at the launch conference.