The Scottish Council of Deans of Education Languages Group is delighted to announce the launch of their newly created MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) called “Plurilingual Classrooms in Action”. This MOOC consists of four separate sessions, each corresponding to a week of the course, which align with the key principles identified in the National Framework for Languages: Plurlingualism, diversity, policy & legislation, and transformative practices.
Today’s classrooms are increasingly diverse, with many different cultures and languages represented. This can pose a challenge, but also provide some great learning opportunities for the children to learn about different languages and cultures and reflect on what it means to be use a language for different purposes and in different contexts. This MOOC aims to support all teachers, regardless of the stage of their careers, but especially pre-service teachers across Initial Teacher Education programmes, in developing an understanding of the role of languages in and for education. Different members of the Scottish Council of Deans of Education Languages Group, Professor Do Coyle (Edinburgh University), Dr Inge Birnie (University of Strathclyde), Dr Fran Valdera-Gal (University of Glasgow) and Dr Colin Christie (University of Aberdeen) will take you through each of the four weeks.
The course consists of tasks, readings, videos, and opportunities to reflect on the role of languages in and for education and how languages are situated in our everyday lives. Each of the activities will take no longer than 5 or 10 minutes to complete and aim to provide a clear overview of language learning and teaching in the 21st century and the different pedagogical approaches that can be used in (primary) classrooms to create effective and engaging lessons which support inclusive practices in the classrooms. Throughout the course you will be asked to reflect on your own practices, develop your own ideas and resources and (if you wish) share these with others.
You can access the course here.
We very much hope that you will enjoy this course and that it will help you in your classroom practice in leading on the learning and teaching of languages – we would love to hear your feedback – you can contact us through Twitter @NFfL_Scotland or by contacting the SCDE Languages Group co-chair – Dr Inge Birnie on Ingeborg.birnie[@]strath.ac.uk