Project Journey
Since MFL Mentoring began in 2015, the project has come a long way by establishing various partnerships and innovating in new contexts. The project’s journey has shaped our approach and encouraged our team to find creative solutions to the problems in the international languages sector.
Post-16 Project
From 2020 to 2021, MFL Mentoring ran events tailored to post-16 learners with the aim to support their learning during lockdown and offer them an insight into language study at university. The project ran for three cycles, offering 22 weeks of events and two language festivals. During this time, the project saw over 700 instances of engagement from 50 colleges and sixth forms. Click here for more info.
Language Horizons
The success of MFL Mentoring led to a sister project Language Horizons from 2018 to 2020. Aimed at schools in England, Language Horizons secured funding from the Department for Education, England, to partner with The University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University, The University of Warwick, and Coventry University. The project saw huge success in its two years with over 50% of mentees opting to take languages at GCSE. Click here for more info.
Castilla y León
From 2018 to 2020, MFL Mentoring partnered with the regional government of Castilla y León to deliver online and face-to-face mentoring with primary and secondary school learners in Valladolid, Spain. Mentors from Wales supported learners to consider a bilingual Spanish-English education pathway. The project was a collaboration with students engaged in a final year undergraduate module on teaching and learning. Click here for more info.
Physics Mentoring
MFL Mentoring’s methodologies and approaches helped to establish Physics Mentoring in 2018. Physics Mentoring works with learners, aged 13-16, to increase the profile and uptake of physics at A-level, particularly among young women. The success of Physics Mentoring demonstrates how effective a mentoring approach, focused on motivation and inspiration rather than attainment, is across different disciplines and age groups. Click here for more info.
Digi-Languages
In 2017, MFL Mentoring began an online mentoring programme to reach schools further from a partner university. The external evaluation found online mentoring to be just as effective as face-to-face mentoring. This work helped to establish online mentoring as one way that schools can engage with the project, ensuring that no school in Wales is out of reach. Click here for more info.