Author: Lucy Jenkins
Published: 27th January 2019

Summary of research: An evaluation of Digi-Languages, an online experience which encourages its users, year 8 or 9 learners, to engage in questions which challenge mono-lingual and mono-cultural perceptions. This experience takes a blended approach to mentoring, as an online and face-to-face activity and was developed by MFL Mentoring in 2017.

Funder: AHRC Open World Research Initiative – Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies (MEITS) – January 2018

Summary of outcomes:

1. 3-minute film for OWRI pop-up museum which was launched at the end of 2019. Click here to view.
2. Policy report by Gorrara, Jenkins and Mosley: ‘Modern Languages and Mentoring: Supporting Digital Learning across Language Communities in Wales’. This was published on the MEITS website and offered to Welsh Government. Click here to view.
3. Policy paper by Gorrara, Jenkins and Mosley: ‘Modern languages and mentoring: Lessons from digital learning in Wales’, published in the Languages, Society & Policy Journal. Click here to view.
4. Stakeholder workshop on outcomes of first iteration of Digi-Languages in May 2018 with Welsh Government and Department for Education (England) in attendance. This began discussions about how the Department for Education may look to fund a similar project in England to support their ambition to have 75% of students studying an MFL at GCSE by 2022 and 90% by 2025. MFL Mentoring later won a contract of £100k to deliver the Language Horizons pilot in November 2018 and then went on to deliver a larger project 2019-2020. Click here to view.

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