Languages Sheffield

Research

The MultiLingual City Forum carries out research into language learning and language provision services. In doing this it makes use of its contacts in the two universities, Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam - a number of departments in the Universities are corporate members of the Forum - and in the communities.
It is able to carry out commissioned research.

Current Research

At the request of  Burngreave language communities interested in the employment prospects of their community members, a bid has been drawn up for the investigation of workplace language use and representations of work language use in the area of Burngreave. This is to use interviews with employers and employees to explore language needs and the use of various languages  for workplace purposes.

The multilingual city concept

Mike Reynolds and Gibson Ferguson presented a paper in London in June 2005. Their contribution was an analysis of the Multilingual City as a theoretical concept

GCSE pupil performance

This project is investigating the performance in French and Urdu GCSE of a small number of Pakistani pupils. When compared with predicted performance in French, the French results of pupils who sat exams in both languages were significantly higher than those Pakistani pupils who sat only French.

 Past research

  • A  project on literacy/language practices investigated in 2004 multilinguals’ use of languages in their everyday practices, focussing on a small number of members of families in the Panjabi/Urdu and Somali communities (Mary Williams) .

 

  • MLCF in collaboration with the Regional Language Network Yorkshire and the Humber completed a survey to map all language service and language teaching providers, both public and private sector, in South Yorkshire. This project led to an interactive map so that anyone can click on a location to discover which services and languages are offered there e.g. translation into Spanish provided by an agency or teaching in Somali in a primary school.

This was the MLCF contribution to a later research report about the gap between supply of language services and teaching, and on the other hand, demand from companies for languages. 

 See http://www.rln-yh.com/index.php for more information.

 

  • Gloria Townsend and Mary Williams in 2003 completed an interview study of 5 multilingual pupils aged 15-16 who were learning French as their 4th, 5th or 6th language. This research identified language learning strategies and the motivational factors which promoted and supported the management of their language learning.  
     
  • The Forum was involved in the Research Feasibility study carried out between January and March 2002 as part of the set-up activity of the Burngreave Language Support Agency. This study has investigated the needs among the Panjabi, Somali and Yemeni communities in Burngreave for language support services, in order to have proper access to health, educational, social and other services. The results of this research are feeding in to the ongoing development of the Agency.
     
  • A three-year evaluation of the Sheffield Multilingual City initiative was carried out by Dr. Lalita Murty, as a joint Sheffield/Sheffield Hallam Universities research project. This looked at how language learning was progressing in 6 primary and nursery schools where language learning had taken root. One key finding was the importance of the Head's support for the initiative. The study also looked at three schemes of co-operation between community language and mainstream schools.
     
  • Mary Williams and Brec'hed Piette (and other colleagues from Sheffield Hallam University) studied the attitudes of about 200 secondary schoolchildren, including  bilinguals and monolinguals, towards bilingualism and towards the people of 4 European countries. The study (using questionnaires and interviews) found no significant difference in attitudes to people of these European countries when comparing pupils aged 12 and aged 15 and when comparing monolinguals and bilinguals. Bilingual pupils, most of whom spoke Asian languages did not relate their existing biculturalism to their views of European peoples. Bilingual pupils, however, had more positive attitudes towards bilingualism than monolinguals but in interviews appeared like monolingual pupils to have doubts about their ability to learn further languages.
     
  • Mike Reynolds and Mohammed Akram (High Storrs School) carried out an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study of language maintenance among the Panjabi community in Sheffield. A key finding was that Panjabi and Urdu are being maintained at home and among the family, but not being used elsewhere. However, the family is a key domain of communication for community members.
     
  • In 2000, a 'parents' consultation' survey among parents of children in nursery and primary schools in different areas of Sheffield. Nearly 400 parents took part. Over 330 (85%) agreed that "Language learning should take place in nursery and primary schools - the earlier the better".

Over 90% wanted a range of languages to be offered: not just French, for example.

294 (nearly 80%) wanted multilingual signs, to reflect the city's multilingualism.

If you would like references for the research summarised above and/or would like to join our research group, please contact us at the address below. 

 
The Forum will be happy to consider any other research projects connected with languages, languages learning and language service provision. If you have a topic or project you would like researched, please contact us.

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