Language Lives: Introduction to the series
Find out more here: cultnetintercu......
Purpose and scope
Our purpose for this series is to make available for teachers and researchers the views, experiences and influences of a number of people in language education, particularly associated with language education in the United Kingdom.
We are Mike Byram, John Daniels and Alan Dobson. Mike is a Professor Emeritus of the School of Education, Durham University and worked on aspects of language education there and at the Council of Europe for several decades. John is a retired Headteacher and teacher of French at a Middle School in Northumberland, and a researcher on the history of language teaching. Alan was formerly the senior inspector for languages in Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (HMI) (England) and the UK representative on Council of Europe and European Union language policy groups. In recent years he has worked as an independent evaluator of bilingual education courses in Latin America.
We have interviewed people whose contribution to the development of language teaching has been significant and who can bear witness to the ups and downs of language teaching in the UK over the last few decades.
Structure
Each interview was carried out by two of us. The interviews took the form of informal conversations. Each interviewee had an outline of the structure and topics but was not notified of questions in advance.
The first part of each interview is biographical and we ask interviewees to talk about how they became language educationists, so that their views and specific language education experiences are contextualized.
In the second part, we ask them to identify and talk about some significant events - whether personal or more general - in language education during their professional life.
A third theme focuses on language education in the UK (or at least the aspects which are relevant to them) and we ask them to comment directly on “What has been successful in language teaching and what has not”.
In the fourth part, we ask about their international experience of language education. This sometimes leads to comparing and contrasting language education in other countries, or their experience of the work of the Council of Europe or other international bodies.
There is also a short introductory text to each person’s professional life in order to contextualize their observations, together with a few references, and a transcript of the interview with some explanatory notes.
We hope the interviews will also be of interest to colleagues beyond the UK, Although the focus is on the UK context, some of the issues explored are international ones. Some notes are also included for colleagues who may be unfamiliar with the educational systems of the UK and the associated terminology.
Transcripts
The transcripts are based on ‘closed captions’ generated by Zoom software during the live interviews. Some parts have been edited in order to make the text more accessible to readers. In order to retain the spontaneity of the conversations, editing has been limited to the removal of redundancies, repairing the text where voice recognition has been incomplete/inaccurate, and rationalising the punctuation.
Thanks
We are very grateful to Dr Amina Douidi for taking over the task of putting documents and videos online though the Cultnet website. Thank you, Amina.
Негізгі бет Language Lives: Conversations with Language Education Specialists (Overview)
Пікірлер