Languages can be the most inclusive subject on any curriculum, and universities can play a role in making that happen.
The Inclusive Outreach through Translation Project launched at the Queen’s Translation Exchange in 2021, in partnership with the Stephen Spender Trust. The project aims to ensure that QTE’s and SST’s creative translation resources are accessible, engaging and appeal to as many young language learners as possible.
We believe that languages can be the most inclusive subject on the curriculum, and that universities can play a key role in making that happen. We want to make sure that our materials and activities create a sense of belonging, excitement and fun around MFL for all students, regardless of their background.
The project has been steered by a group of teachers, university students, third-sector experts and academics (see below), and led by Dr Charlotte Ryland with Catriona Parry.
Teaching Resources
We created a selection of new teaching resources which explicitly seek to include and appeal to the broadest range of young people by taking account of factors including ethnicity, socio-economic background, gender and sexuality. We also conducted a review of some of our existing teaching materials, particularly focussing on our poetry resources, to explore how these could be more accessible, engaging and empowering for young language learners. These new and updated resources will be made available as part of the Anthea Bell Prize in 2023-24.
Round Tables
We held a number of roundtable discussions to review new and existing Anthea Bell Prize resources and to gather feedback and ideas from teachers, Oxford University students, and other expert translation and language specialists. We worked with teachers to test the new resources in classrooms. Using the new resources, we also delivered a series of creative translation workshops in secondary schools in Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Merseyside, in partnership with the Institut français and the Goethe-Institut in London and supported by the Franco-German Cultural Fund.
Alongside these Anthea Bell Prize resources, we are also developing a set of guidelines and principles for inclusive creative translation, which will be published on our website in summer 2023. We are developing these guidelines and principles in consultation with the project’s steering committee. This guidance will inform the development of all future QTE and SST materials, and is also designed to support teachers and schools to deliver their own creative translation activities in the classroom, to inspire and encourage more young people to continue studying and engaging with languages at school, university and beyond.
The Inclusive Outreach through Translation Project is supported by the Oxford Humanities Culture Change Fund, The Queen’s College Oxford, the Franco-German Cultural Fund, the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at the University of Oxford, and the Stephen Spender Trust.
We are also especially grateful to all the teachers, students, committee members and others who have given generously of their time and expertise in support of this project.
Steering Committee
Lead: Dr Charlotte Ryland (charlotte.ryland@queens.ox.ac.uk)
Coordinator: Catriona Parry (catriona.parry@lincoln.ox.ac.uk)
- Yvonne Kennedy
- Holly Langstaff
- Chantal Wright
- Nicola McLelland
- Michelle Bolduc
- Zac Brigg
- Pam Stallard
- Maud Waret
- Felicity Callanan
- Katja Manhkopf
- Georgia Nasseh
- Sharvi Maheshwari
- Ye-Ye Xu
