nice thread summarising my talk at Birmingham today. thanks Stephen Pihlaja and to Kamran Khan for the invite! 💖

It was great participating in the APPG Modern Languages meeting in London with NewcastleCityCouncil, Coventry City of Languages, Manchester City of Languages & Portsmouth City of Languages.

Discussions called for an integrated approach to #LangEd that acknowledges linguistic diversity as an asset, not a challenge 🙌.

More in depth discussion of civic university engagement with multilingualism as part of the Multilingual Manchester project that I led at School of Arts, Languages and Culture The University of Manchester to follow in my forthcoming book
cambridge.org/core/books/spe…

It was inspiring to discuss the vision of genuine and independent local civic initiatives that seek to establish sustainable and equal partnerships with community partners.

An opportunity to reflect on rewards, challenges and pitfalls of running civic engagement under the managerial control of universities, and the tensions between pursuing transformative social justice agendas and flagging diversity for the purpose of reputation and profit.

Yesterday I spoke at the House of Lords to members of APPG Modern Languages about the Multilingual Manchester project that I founded and led at School of Arts, Languages and Culture The University of Manchester and about the Manchester City of Languages initiative that continues its legacy.

Fantastic APPG Modern Languages meeting today on Cities of Languages about city- /borough-wide initiatives to boost and celebrate languages in schools & communities with inputs from Newcastle, Coventry, Portsmouth and Manchester:

i'm speaking at the university of birmingham this thursday (2-3pm) if local folks are free and interested in hearing about how 'research evidence' about spoken language in education policy relies on deficit perspectives about marginalised communities. birmingham.ac.uk/schools/educat…

Fantastic to see MPs supporting their cities' languages initiatives at today's meeting including Zarah Sultana MP Mark Logan MP Catherine McKinnell - #languagepolicyUK

Thanks to International Newcastle NewcastleCityCouncil StPaulsPSNewcastle Coventry City of Languages Manchester City of Languages, Yaron Matras, Portsmouth City of Languages, Hackney Services for Schools Raquel Tola Rego Bernadette M Clinton Parkwood Primary, International Spanish School

Great to attend APPG Modern Languages meeting with NewcastleCityCouncil Coventry City of Languages Manchester City of Languages & Portsmouth City of Languages to discuss important work on boosting languages education.

Thanks to the impressive StPaulsPSNewcastle students for joining me for a quick tour of Parliament on the way!

Looking forward to speaking next week to APPG Modern Languages about Manchester City of Languages and its forerunner Multilingual Manchester

Universities in the Anglosphere want internationalization without language learning. They are failing their students, as Rosemary Salomone explains
time.com/6963810/englis…

📢 CfP now open (deadline: 15 May 2024)! Join us in Leeuwarden (NL) for the 1st Mercator International #Conference on 7-8 November 2024. Theme: Shaping #Policy for #MinorityLanguages and #Multilingualism . 🌐 Abstract submission: forms.office.com/e/9eVTk98Fay.

Celebration can be a way of reclaiming public space to lend support to new narratives instigating policy debates and even policy changes (section 8 of the article below) @geraldroche.bsky.social Ian Cushing Laura Smith-Khan (new acc) lauraskh.bsky.social

wpull.org/wp-content/upl…

Today, the ROLE Collective Symposium kicks off with the opportunity to discuss 'harmful native speaker / signer ideologies'. I'll be contributing a mini-talk, which will be recorded and made available online. What a great initiative.
rolecollective.github.io/ROLESymposium/

just published open access in Annual Review of Applied Linguistics - new work which pushes for transformative justice, abolition, the ending of linguist-police collaborations, and reconceptualisations of 'impact' work in applied linguistics. cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Exciting collab alert! 🎉 Explore into our discussion with Manchester City of Languages on the transformative power of language in our multicultural city. Watch here: youtube.com/@ManchesterCit… Interested in joining our meetings? Drop us an email at [email protected]!

Check out our new video channel, with events, individuals' language stories, conference and more surprises to come!

youtube.com/@ManchesterCit…

Now available in open access: global.oup.com/academic/produ…