Using Research for Outreach: MLOE Taster Courses

Calling learners and teachers of year 12 French and German

ULIP's Joanne Brueton was selected as one of the eight early-career researchers working on this project, alongside colleagues in Oxford, QMUL, Bristol, QUB, Aberystwyth and Exeter.

The MLOE network is reaching out to schools and policy-makers alike to reconfigure preconceptions of Modern Languages study at university. Their goal is to demonstrate how the study of languages changes our perception of global cultures and politics. Following a two-day virtual conference at Oxford in July, the launch of our ‘Text-a-Week’ programme that curated a repository of non-canonical literary extracts to diversify A Level study, and a Year 9 competition that has received over 130 global entries, they have now created a handful of university taster sessions aimed at Year 12 students in Modern Languages (French and German).

Each session is a stand-alone class consisting of a lesson plan, PowerPoint and additional resources. They are designed either to be delivered by a teacher or be followed by a student in their own time.

These sessions introduce students to texts and topics that they might study in a university course. They develop vocabulary, grammatical structures and cultural engagement, whilst also asking participants to rethink what it means to study Modern Languages.

The documents are available for download from the MLOE site.

Watch this space for the next strand of the project mid-February: a virtual session on how to decolonise the French and German curriculum, or how to talk back to Shakespeare.