The last decade has undoubtedly seen a greater, renewed importance given to language learning from ‘the top’, with the British Academy’s (2019) statement that monolingualism is “the illiteracy of the 21st Century” (Roberts et al, cited in The British Academy, 2019: 3) and the government’s inclusion of foreign languages as a requirement to pass the English Baccalaureate (EBacc).
Tag: teaching
Duolingo: How I put my findings into practice in MFL
To cite this article: Sturt-Schmidt, James (2021). Duolingo: How I put my findings into practice in MFL, The Millennial [Online], Available at: (this page URL). As part of my PGCE at the University of Exeter, in 2020 I carried out a research project at my placement school that focused on the issue of low student motivation…
Don’t Make the Owl Angry: Duolingo’s Potential for Improving Student Motivation in MFL
This research project aims to explore the potential of the language-learning platform, Duolingo, for improving student motivation in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) through the lens of expectancy-value theory. The research question it addresses is: Can Duolingo be used to increase student motivation in MFL?
I teach, therefore I am? Teacher identity, symbolic interactionism and other ramblings
Is there such a thing as ‘teacher identity’? Research suggests that there is, and that developing a ‘teacher identity’ is a social process as well as a personal one. According to Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop (2004), teachers continuously interpret and re-interpret their professional identity, which itself consists of multiple sub-identities and is highly context-dependent.
Welfare: Teacher Wellbeing
Teacher’s are reportedly some of the most stressed people of any occupational group, with the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) finding 20% of teachers feel tense about their job all or most of the time. But what are the causes of teachers’ stress and the subsequent mental health issues that arise?
How to survive working from home
Due to the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, millions of working people around the world find themselves confronted with a new reality: working from home. For parents, or others living with young children, this transition has undoubtedly been an uphill battle which brings its own challenges. For others, used to their usual work space, the greatest problems…
The Millennial 