We are one of the leading universities in the development of ab initio language teaching, keeping in mind the individual differences, existing knowledge, skills and needs that our learners bring to the classroom.
As they progress from beginners, learners want to use the language as much as possible. Communication in the target language is at the heart of our teaching, through active engagement with peers, teachers, and written and spoken texts. We use our state-of-the-art language labs to develop comprehension, pronunciation and fluency, amongst other skills. In addition, we offer extra-curricular activities such as coffee mornings, games afternoons and film screenings in our Language Lounge, and regular Stammtische, Café Français, etc. with our language assistants. We have been pioneering the use of games in Higher Education language teaching and offer a huge selection of foreign language films and TV broadcasts for language learning.
Heritage speakers are typically defined as individuals who have been exposed to a language other than the dominant language of the society they live in, often from a young age, usually in a home or community setting. This exposure typically occurs in the context of informal interactions, rather than through formal education. Heritage speakers of a language often have varying levels of proficiency, which can range from basic conversational ability to near-native fluency. They are often stronger in spoken communication, with potential gaps in formal contexts, grammar knowledge, and academic/professional use of the language. Integrating heritage speakers into language degree courses involves recognising the unique linguistic and cultural backgrounds of these students and adjusting the curriculum and teaching methods to meet their specific needs.
At Liverpool, we research the situation of heritage speakers in British education, and we collaborate with schools to celebrate our diverse and multilingual communities. In our languages degrees, we welcome heritage speakers and those with previous language knowledge, for example, having lived and worked abroad. Following an initial test to determine their actual language level, we offer curricular adaptations to suit their needs, including taking core language modules out of sequence and adapting assessment and independent learning to help these students improve their weaker areas and capitalise on their strengths.
Back to: Centre for Teaching Excellence in Language Learning
