Routes into Languages is a nationwide initiative to encourage young people to study languages at university. In the North West they were keen to develop a programme of training for community languages teachers, many of whom had not had access to formal training or professional development opportunities. 

The project organisers worked with teachers in supplementary schools to collect feedback, giving teachers the opportunity to voice their own individual needs and interests about what the course should offer. Routes into Languages North West worked with their partner universities to design and run a course that teachers could attend around work and family commitments – and that included lesson observations, coursework and skills workshops given by trainers at the university.

This innovative project extended far beyond languages – it helped break down cultural barriers, aided community cohesion and created a network of teachers who could support one another in their work and help develop community language teaching across the region. The project has proved to be a huge success so far – and the teachers who attended the courses found that they really gained in confidence in the classroom. Of course, in turn, this had a very positive effect on language learners in across the region.

Language(s): Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Urdu

Routes into Languages is a government funded project designed to inspire pupils across the country to learn languages at school, college and university. The North West consortium is a project called COLT (Community and Lesser Taught Languages) and works to raise the status of the community languages of Arabic, Urdu, Mandarin Chinese and Italian across the North West as well as promoting all languages more generally. The consortium is made up of lead institution Manchester Metropolitan University, along with the universities of Manchester, Bolton, Salford and UCLAN.