Professor Suzanne Graham, Professor of Language and Education at the IoE, University of Reading,  is working in collaboration with Dr Alison Porter from the University of Southampton on a research project investigating Digital Empowerment in Language Teaching (DELTEA). DELTEA is exploring the role of digital technology in primary languages education.

As part of their study, they are looking to recruit schools to act as “controls”. Please see details below and communications from Professor Graham and Dr Porter.

Dear all,

As part of our study we are looking to recruit some schools to act as “controls”.
We are looking specifically for Year 5 classes who are learning French or Spanish.

Being a ‘control’ means that teachers in those schools carry on teaching their normal lessons but that on two occasions their Year 5 class does the same tasks as the children in the intervention schools.  The tasks explore learning in: decoding, sounds, reading comprehension, vocabulary, creativity, motivation and empathy.  Most of the tasks (apart from creativity) can be completed online via tablets or Chromebooks.  The creativity task would involve a pen and paper activity (including drawing) which could then be posted or scanned and sent to us.

The tasks would take place in mid-end January 2024 (pre-test) and June-July 2024 (post-test).

Control schools are crucial to education research because they allow researchers to identify whether any improvements are “just” through normal developmental patterns or ongoing exposure to language or whether they might be attributed to the specific programme of teaching/learning that the intervention children undertook over a period of time.

If you were happy to join the research as a control school, you would receive £75 in funding for your choice of FL resources for your school.  You would also receive free access from June 2024 to all the DELTEA professional development tools and the associated foreign language learning resources in either French, Spanish or both (digital stories with native speaker voiceovers and a phonics app with real-time pronunciation feedback).

If you’re interested in supporting our research by becoming a control school, please respond to this email by completing this short form:  https://forms.office.com/e/uPb12jSDg7

We’ll then send some more details about participation.  We know you’re busy so thank you so much for taking the time to read this email.

Best wishes

Suzanne Graham, Alison Porter,  and the DELTEA Team


Suzanne Graham, Professor of Language and Education |University of Reading, Institute of Education, London Road Campus, Reading, | E: s.j.graham@reading.ac.uk | W: https://www.reading.ac.uk/education/staff/suzanne-graham

Dr Alison Porter

Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics, Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts & Humanities
University of Southampton, Modern Languages & Linguistics, SO17 1BJ, UK.
Staff Profile  http://www.southampton.ac.uk/ml/about/staff/aporter.page
Research Centre  http://www.southampton.ac.uk/cllear/