20 Ways to Promote Language Skills and Exchange
During the workshop held at Newcastle University on 16 March 2016, we heard many ideas for encouraging better modern language skills in early modern studies and the humanities more widely. We tweeted twenty of these ideas after the event, and copy them here. Thanks to all the participants who suggested them, especially Elizabeth Andersen (Newcastle).
- Your home Language Centre/IWLP as a first port of call, e.g. @SML_Newcastle @LangCen_QMUL
- Specialist provision like @UniOfYorkLFA's courses on reading skills for art historians http://bit.ly/22rdHax
- Training partnerships like @Northern_Bridge for tailored support and sharing resources
- Programmes from governments and cultural institutes like @GI_London1 @DAAD_Germany and @BritishCouncil
- Having a core executive staff at centres/institutes, like at @IMEMSDurham, so that there are people who know who everyone else is.
- Creating a vibrant student community à la @DurhamMEMSA (with @Catherinellis and @NiallOddy among others) http://bit.ly/22tiDyX
- Registers for EMists that share expertise within institutions, like the one at Cambridge run by @JenniferJBishop. http://bit.ly/21EQxv2
- Conferences with regional/transnational focus, e.g. Iberian Lit. & Culture, July '16, Newcastle @EarlyModernist http://bit.ly/1pyo126
- Mentors, especially benevolent retired academics.
- Explaining the national strategic importance of language skills, as our funder @britac_news has been doing: http://bit.ly/1UmHdNM
- ‘A Mosaic of Subject Associations’: see @UCML's document: http://bit.ly/1UmHdNM
- Pointing out the need for foreign languages in business, as @CBItweets has done, e.g., http://bit.ly/1Nn2XF5
- The Transnationalizing Modern Languages Project @TransModernLang http://bit.ly/1UrqhFn
- The just-launched AHRC Open World Initiative @ahrcpress http://bit.ly/1V196Jx
- Routes into Languages, linking schools and HE Institutions @Routesintolangs http://bit.ly/1ojKjn7
- Setting higher standards, like how @uclnews asks new undergrads to have a GCSE in a foreign language http://bit.ly/1pHRd6J
- Forums like http://www.h-france.net/index.html and Listservs like C18-studies
- Help with foreign resources from national libraries like @britishlibrary http://bit.ly/1MQ5Qdn
- Aggregated resources like http://leme.library.utoronto.ca/index.cfm and https://artfl-project.uchicago.edu
- Lists of teaching and research resources compiled by experts, e.g. @NeoLatinSociety http://bit.ly/1USScOp