A mentoring model for language learning and beyond
Cardiff-led research has influenced policy and practice and bolstered the uptake of modern languages in schools in Wales.
Turning the tide in a challenging context
The number of students studying a modern language at GCSE in Wales has fallen by 64% since 2002; in England, uptake has fallen by 48% over a similar period.
Collaborative research led by Professor Claire Gorrara increases understanding of why learners are deterred from learning languages and the difference a discovery mode of learning languages can make.
The Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) Mentoring Project
Professor Gorrara leads the MFL Mentoring Project, a collaboration between four Welsh universities, that places undergraduate and postgraduate students in local secondary schools to deliver a mentoring programme to pupils before they choose their GCSE subjects. Over 10,000 pupils engaged with the project in its first five years.
Professor Gorrara’s research, carried out in parallel to the project, showed that a mixture of face-to-face and blended mentoring can positively influence attitudes towards language learning in schools and motivate pupils to choose a modern language at GCSE.
University students acted as ‘near peer’ language mentors, connecting with mentees with an immediacy and relatability that inspired mutual learning and discovery. This was seen as key to the project’s success.
Key facts
- Independent evaluation confirmed that 57% of those mentored in 27 schools during 2015-16, and 50% of those mentored in 43 schools during 2016-17, chose a modern language for GCSE.
- These uptake rates are over double the national average for these years, where just over 20% of students chose a modern language for GCSE across Wales.
- The project expanded substantially to work with 87 schools in 2018-19, achieving an average uptake of 45% of mentees choosing a modern language for GCSE. In 2019-20, the project worked with 95 schools, almost half of all secondary schools in Wales.
Why is this work important?
The mentoring project and Professor Gorrara’s research addressed the challenges facing modern languages, including pupil demotivation; perceptions of difficulty; and undervaluing of the subject within the curriculum.
The research evidenced that the uplift in the number of pupils choosing modern languages can be attributed to the creative, curiosity-driven approach developed by the project. Younger mentored learners were less likely to adopt a functionalist approach to language learning and more likely to see languages as part of a valued set of life-long intercultural skills.
Partner schools reported a doubling (on average) in the number of pupils choosing a modern language for GCSE following their involvement in the mentoring programme.
What was achieved and who does it impact?
The project’s impacts are far wider than GCSE uptake. The MFL mentoring methodology has been extended to further projects, subjects and other countries and demonstrates how this model can lead to changes in student attitudes.
Data from the following projects fed back into Professor Gorrara’s research and her contribution to the development of language learning for the new Curriculum for Wales.
Digi-Languages e-mentoring
Digi-Languages was launched to reach students in remote areas of Wales via e-mentoring. Of the 18 schools involved in the pilot, 16 saw increased uptake of modern languages for GCSE in comparison to the previous year.
43% of pupils opted for a modern language at GCSE and 58% said it had changed the way they think about languages in relation to their futures.
Support for learners during the COVID-19 crisis
The MFL Mentoring team created a programme of interactive remote learning sessions during the pandemic. 400 post-16 learners took the opportunity to practice their languages, maintain their confidence and develop intercultural skills.
98% of pupils found the sessions useful and, in March 2020, Welsh Government confirmed funding to run a fully digital iteration of the MFL Mentoring project in 2020-21.
Policy and practice outside Wales
The Cardiff team was awarded a competitive grant from the Department for Education (DfE) to deliver Language Horizons, a hybrid face-to-face and digital mentoring programme, in Sheffield with the aim of improving uptake for modern languages at GCSE. 59% of pupils stated they would take a modern language for GCSE following the programme.
The DfE subsequently provided funding to roll out the project to an additional 40 schools and 1,000 pupils in South Yorkshire and the West Midlands in 2019-21.
Digi-Languages/Languages Horizon in Castilla y Leon
Professor Gorrara and her colleague Lucy Jenkins trained four Cardiff undergraduate mentors to adapt the MFL Mentoring model’s multilingual ethos for a Spanish context in Castilla y Leon, Spain.
This partnership worked with 48 pupils in a primary school, with the aim of increasing the choice of bilingual education (Spanish/English) as pupils transitioned to secondary school. The school reported a 9% increase in pupils choosing a bilingual education pathway.
Looking beyond languages
The MFL Mentoring model has been adapted to increase the number of female students studying physics, progressing from GCSE to A-level in Wales. Three cycles of mentoring have now taken place through the sister Physics Mentoring project.
External evaluators found a 38% increase in female mentees expressing positive attitudes towards taking physics A-level following the mentoring intervention.
Meet the team
Key contacts
Selected publications
- Gorrara, C. et al. 2020. Multilingual perspectives: preparing for language learning in the new curriculum for Wales. Curriculum Journal 31 (2), pp.244-257. (10.1002/curj.11)
- Gorrara, C. , Jenkins, L. and Mosley, N. 2019. Modern languages and mentoring: Lessons from digital learning in Wales.
- Blake, S. and Gorrara, C. 2019. Evaluating student mentoring as an intervention to support modern foreign language learning in secondary schools in Wales. Cylchgrawn Addysg Cymru / Wales Journal of Education 21 (1), pp.24-45. (10.16922/wje.21.1.3)
- Gorrara, C. 2018. Speaking from Wales: building a modern languages community in an era of Brexit. In: Kelly, M. ed. Languages after Brexit How the UK Speaks to the World. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. , pp.149-158. (10.1007/978-3-319-65169-9_13)