A high profile event at the House of Lords will re-examine the
link between language and identity and community languages and
social cohesion. The event will celebrate the success of the Our
Languages project and explore ways of continuing to raise the
status of community languages in the UK.
Our Languages was launched in summer
2007 to support the teaching of community languages through
partnerships between mainstream and complementary schools. At that
time there were just nine schools involved in the project in
London, Birmingham, Leicester and Manchester; now there are 90.
A recent evaluation of the Our
Languages project written by Professor Angela Creese of the
University of Birmingham highlighted the success of the Our
Languages project. She concluded that it was ‘an excellently
managed project resulting in all aims and deliverables achieved at
consortium and local level.’
At Monday’s event at the House of
Lords, the European Union’s Commissioner for Multilingualism
Leonard Orban will update stakeholders and policymakers on the
European perspective on community languages. There will also be a
talk from Dr Charmian Kenner from Goldsmiths, University of London,
and Professor Li Wei from Birkbeck, University of London
highlighting research on bilingualism and complementary
schooling.
Sarah Cartwright, Our Languages
Consortium Programme Manager at CILT said: ‘We are delighted to
have the chance to celebrate the success of the Our Languages
project at this event. We have come a long way in raising the
profile of community languages, although there is still much to be
done. We would like to see even more schools celebrating their
pupils’ languages and understanding the cognitive benefits of
bilingualism and the potential of community languages to contribute
to the economy.’
Funded by the government’s Department
for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), the Our Languages
project was run by a consortium made up of CILT, the National
Centre for Languages, the National Resource Centre for
Supplementary Education (NRC), the Specialist Schools and Academies
Trust (SSAT), and the School Development Support Agency
(SDSA).