Welcome to the blog pages of the SCDE Languages Group. The Group is a collaborative academic and professional network representing all Schools of Education across Scotland where there are ITE programmes. The group has been meeting for several years as an independent, supportive group of language teacher educators and researchers. Our focus has always been on sharing aspects of our core work including: how to grow, support and sustain high quality language learning and using in schools and in teacher education; using our European and international networks to carry out and be informed by research and academic/professional outputs; to address challenges of a declining take-up of languages in schools; developing strategies for changing mindsets inherent in commonly held views about language teaching and learning including the role of languages for learning; making more visible the underlying values and beliefs which drive our work; and more recently our contribution to transforming the 1 + 2 Language Policy in Scotland from an ambitious policy into purposeful classroom pedagogies. Our current emphasis is to provide relevant experiences for new entrants to the profession as well as experienced teachers in schools, so that they are better equipped to enable learners in primary school to enjoy and progress their language skills in at least two other languages. We are tasked with researching principles and practices to understand better the challenges of the rapidly changing landscape in our schools This is aspirational. The Languages Group connects and collaborates with other national government agencies and networks, providers, associations and institutes. Growing concerns about the language competence and pedagogic demands on future primary school teachers prompted the group to be seek funding from Local Authorities who wish to support our endeavours to help teachers and ultimately learners. Hence the development of this website. We not only wanted to provide guidance via a National Framework (drawing on the processes used by the group responsible for the Inclusion Framework) but we wanted to help make some of the key principles and theories about language learning, using and teaching accessible to busy teachers and student teachers in our endeavour to contribute practically to national and international contexts. Our blog will be regularly updated and will enable individual members of the group, educators and student teachers to contribute ‘think pieces’ for discussion. We hope that this will lead to meaningful and engaging discussion about the complexities and challenges of languages within and across the curriculum and beyond.
