Decolonising Language Teaching

This project aims to engage staff and students in active research, training and reflective practice that deconstructs the content and pedagogy of teaching languages and culture.
We will do this by:
- Organising staff development events on decolonising teacher training in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), including but not limited to deconstructing reading lists, resources, and teaching methodologies.
- Setting up a decolonising mentoring scheme, both at the King’s Language Centre (King’s LC) and at the School of Education, Communication and Society (ECS) in the partner school placements.
- Enabling students as co-researchers/co-creators to collect data, interview other students and work in partnership with teaching staff regarding content on the MFL curriculum across different languages.
- Providing training and support in research methodologies, including art-based methodologies, which are democratic and egalitarian in their aims, objectives and practices.
- Providing training in reflective practice to both students and staff, fostering a space to reflect upon one’s own positionality and one’s own lived experiences, guiding critical reflection that would lead to action, with the aim to change power dynamics.
Reports
Presentations
- Art-Based Methodologies & Inclusive Practices by Donata Puntil, November 2022 - (pdf) 3120 Kb
- Reading Group One, November 2022 - (pdf) 502 Kb
- Reading Group Two - (pdf) 395 Kb
- Attempting to Break the Chain: Reimaging inclusive pedagogy and decolonising the curriculum within the academy, November 2022 - (pdf) 1637 Kb
- Decolonising Arabic Language Teaching by Alessandro Columbu, November 2022 - (pdf) 1570 Kb
- Obtaining Student Feedback that is Meaningful by Dr Jane Jones, November 2022 - (pdf) 89 Kb
- National and International perspectives and approaches to teaching and learning - (pdf) 1157 Kb
- Decolonising the educational curriculum - (pdf) 2565 Kb
- Approaches to Researching Decolonising the MFL Curriculum - (pdf) 1843 Kb
- Decolonising the curriculum - a focus on Modern Foreign Languages - (pdf) 1608 Kb
Conferences
Tanya Linaker and Dr Christina Richardson presented the topic ‘Decolonising the curriculum - a focus on Modern Foreign Languages’ at the latest AULC conference in Edinburgh
Amira Mills, the Deputy Team Leader of Arabic and one of the project's collaborators, has presented a paper on Decolonising Arabic language teaching at the conference in Milan: Variations on the teaching of Arabic - Grammar and Lexicon.
Reports
Presentations
- Art-Based Methodologies & Inclusive Practices by Donata Puntil, November 2022 - (pdf) 3120 Kb
- Reading Group One, November 2022 - (pdf) 502 Kb
- Reading Group Two - (pdf) 395 Kb
- Attempting to Break the Chain: Reimaging inclusive pedagogy and decolonising the curriculum within the academy, November 2022 - (pdf) 1637 Kb
- Decolonising Arabic Language Teaching by Alessandro Columbu, November 2022 - (pdf) 1570 Kb
- Obtaining Student Feedback that is Meaningful by Dr Jane Jones, November 2022 - (pdf) 89 Kb
- National and International perspectives and approaches to teaching and learning - (pdf) 1157 Kb
- Decolonising the educational curriculum - (pdf) 2565 Kb
- Approaches to Researching Decolonising the MFL Curriculum - (pdf) 1843 Kb
- Decolonising the curriculum - a focus on Modern Foreign Languages - (pdf) 1608 Kb
Conferences
Tanya Linaker and Dr Christina Richardson presented the topic ‘Decolonising the curriculum - a focus on Modern Foreign Languages’ at the latest AULC conference in Edinburgh
Amira Mills, the Deputy Team Leader of Arabic and one of the project's collaborators, has presented a paper on Decolonising Arabic language teaching at the conference in Milan: Variations on the teaching of Arabic - Grammar and Lexicon.

Principal Investigators
Tanya Linaker
Team Leader for Slavic and Middle Eastern Languages
Jane Jones
Senior Lecturer in Education
Christina Richardson
Senior Lecturer in Language Education
Investigators
Jonas Langner
Team Leader for Germanic Languages and Modern Greek
Magali Allary
Team Leader for Romance Languages and Linguistics
Gennadii Miroshnikov
Senior Learning Designer
Funding
Funding Body: King's Race Equity & Inclusive Education Fund
Amount: £9,571
Period: October 2022 - July 2023