LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

Training to be a teacher is a stressful undertaking but for trainee language teachers, whose linguistic skills are under constant and close scrutiny from mentors, tutors and pupils, this can be a particularly challenging time. Many students, for a variety of personal and professional reasons, allow their language competence and confidence to decline. This study investigates ways of reactivating lapsed language skills in the context of a PGCE programme where students have been invited to take part in a reflective activity to identify effective ways of regaining their former linguistic competence and to contemplate useful strategies to maximise their language memory and ways to develop effective learning styles. This research project is nearing the end of its initial stage and it is intended that the findings will form the basis for a guided learning programme for the next cohort of modern foreign languages trainee teachers.