1. This morning I’m going to tell you about Language Futures
This morning I’m going to tell you about Language Futures. Language Futures is quite a new project. It started a few years ago at Linton Village College, as an experimental project into language learning.

2. Language Futures was originally developed by Linton Village College in Cambridgeshire as part of a Paul Hamlyn Foundation initiative.  Management of the initiative passed to the Association for Language Learning in summer 2015. 
“It is great to learn a language at your own speed and not feel that you are trying to catch up all the time.”
“We aren’t getting spoon-fed information, we have to find it and learn it for ourselves. We have to keep ourselves on track”
“LF lessons are quite relaxed, but you still learn a lot. You control your learning, which i like. You also control your learning at home.”
“You are more independent in LF, which has made me more independent in my other lessons as well.”
Some of the students doing it there at the moment had this to say about it:

3. إن شاء الله 未来 未来 Przyszłość l’avenir futuro gelecek Какой кошмар!
This year schools across the country are offering the Language Futures approach with a total of 20 different languages (Afrikaans, Arabic, British Sign Language, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Latvian, Mandarin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish) being studied.
futuro
todhchaí 未来 未来
This year several schools across the country are offering the project – these are some of the languages that students are learning.
gelecek
Какой кошмар!

4. What if… …you could choose the language you wanted to learn?
…you decided the pace at which to learn?
So, what if… you could choose the language you wanted to learn and you decided the pace at which to learn. (Here I thought I would mention briefly that we have very good reasons for choosing the languages we have in our curriculum – i.e. our proximity to those countries.. But also mention that there are nearly 7000 languages spoken in the world and so it stands to reason that there will be individuals that would like to learn specific languages that are not part of the curriculum for everyone).

5. How does it work? You choose the language
The teacher designs and supports
You also work with a native speaker mentor volunteer
Your learning is enquiry and project-based
You have one Language Futures session after school each week (on Mondays)
You learn how to learn a language (so that you could learn any language at any stage in your life)
You build your language into your daily life (FB, online activity, music, films, books)
In the Language Futures approach, pupils choose the language they want to learn, so there are multiple languages being learnt all in one room. The teacher in the room is not an expert in every one of these languages, but s/he is an expert linguist who knows how languages work and the sorts of questions you need to ask to find out how they work. There are also adult volunteers who are speakers of all the languages who come to sessions to help and act as mentors. There is a lot of independence, as you have to find things out yourself using a whole range of resources, including ICT – computers, ipads or tablets, textbooks, dictionaries etc… You have one session after school each week but you to two very important things: you learn how to learn a language and also, you integrate language learning into your daily life so that you are a bit immersed in it – e.g. you listen to music, you read on the internet, you put your FB or phone into your language, etc…

6. Here are some examples of the sorts of things students do during this programme, things that are easy to do outside of session time.

7. Why do you like it?
We enjoy having many different languages in one classroom
We like learning more independently
We feel more relaxed in our learning
We do more group work
We feel valued and trusted as learners
We control our own learning
We learn from each other
Why do students say they like this approach?

8. Which language?
A language you speak and understand but do not read or write
A language someone in your family speaks
A language you think might be useful to you in the future because of your career aspirations
A language you just like the sound of
A language that at least one other student in the group is also learning
How would you choose the language you want to do?
Here are some different motivations that have inspired students in the past few years.

9. I would suggest you google Language Futures and have a quick look at a 7 minute video about the project.
Language Futures website includes interviews with teachers, mentors and pupils.

10. What next?
Take a letter and application form from your language teacher
Talk about it at home (your parents are also receiving a letter this week)
Attend the parents’ information evening on XXX
Complete the form and hand it in to XXX by XXX
We will let you know by the end of June if your application is successful.
Language Futures starts in September.
Then, these are the steps to follow. Thank you very much for listening. Come and see me if you have any questions.