Online Language Learning for All (OLLA): developing a catalogue of accessible online resources to support students’ foreign language learning beyond the classroom in times of COVID-19

Secondary school closures due to COVID-19 have severely disrupted students’ learning in school. This is true in all subjects, but particularly in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), a subject that in England has persistently struggled with low student motivation, uptake and attainment. These problems are being sharply exacerbated by lockdown: MFL learning is difficult to sustain unless students engage and interact with a sufficient amount of high quality foreign language input. This input, usually provided face-to-face by the teacher, is currently much reduced – even beyond the weekly 2 hours’ lesson time typically available in schools. Further, a broad survey of our trainee teachers tells us that schools’ ability to provide high quality language teaching during lockdown has been extremely limited. Yet, the internet offers unprecedented access to a wealth of foreign language material, offering rich opportunities for language learning which remain largely untapped by UK school MFL students.

In this project, we will work closely with teachers and students themselves to develop ways of unlocking this language learning potential. We will create a catalogue of publicly-available, online foreign language resources (e.g. blogs, web pages, video blogs, music videos, short films) which match the interests of UK school students and which are linguistically accessible to them. We will trial the resources with students and teachers, in order to gain feedback on their accessibility, levels of interest and usability, and thus refine the catalogue further.