Projects
Improving oral language skills in children with English as an Additional Language through a drama-based intervention (2022-2023)
This project, which is funded by the John Fell Fund (Oxford University Press), aims to develop and test an intervention for improving EAL children’s oral language skills in English through theatre – a medium that seems well-suited to developing oral language, but whose potential has not been evaluated to date.
The project involves a systematic review of the literature on the effect of creative activities on oral language development; a steering workshop with teachers and researchers; the design of the theatre workshops in collaboration with drama facilitators; the piloting of the resulting drama-based intervention with Year 1-3 children; the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data for evaluation purposes; and a knowledge exchange workshop to update the teachers and researchers who steered the project.
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PI: Dr Faidra Faitaki | Co-I: Prof Victoria Murphy | Postdoctoral RA: Dr Sophie Liggins | RA: Joyce Li
This MSc project aims to probe the correlation between musical aptitude and second language listening comprehension, with a particular focus on different French varieties spoken throughout the Francophone world. The objective of this study comes to light as the French input which learners receive in the Modern Foreign Language (MFL) classroom in the UK is overwhelmingly a ‘standard’ metropolitan French accent, as the curriculum ignores the rich variety of accents which French speakers use. This means that when learners of French leave the French classroom and hear non-standard accents, they are not well prepared to engage with and comprehend these speakers. This study aims to uncover whether an individual’s musical aptitude may predispose them to more proficient listening comprehension with non-standard varieties.
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MSc Student: Madeleine Masters | Supervisor: Dr Faidra Faitaki
Musical aptitude and comprehension of non-standard French accents in the French Language classroom (2022-2023)
