Modern Languages Initial Teacher Education
This course will give you the necessary skills to support pupils to develop the linguistic skills and intercultural competence required to operate effectively as 21st century global citizens.
Make your beliefs and values come to life in the classroom
We aim to encourage your capability for professional reflection and autonomous development. We want you to become a thinking professional and to be able to articulate your own values and beliefs through your own dynamic theory of practice. In that process you will experience the self as teacher-learner-researcher and change agent.
Promoting intercultural communicative competence and global citizenship
Professionals understand theory and its application to practice. We believe in uniting theory and practice through the joint construction of professional strands of knowledge. We also believe that learning a modern language is for all ages and it goes across schools, subjects and nations. We want to open up possibilities for the teaching and learning of modern languages for intercultural communicative competence and global citizenship.
Gain up to date, in-depth subject expertise
You will be taught by language subject tutors who have extensive school teaching and academic research experience. In addition to this, you will also benefit from input from academic experts, school colleagues and contributors from outside organisations. This will give you solid foundations to start your career as an informed and critical teacher, able to make sense of what happens in the classroom and to draw from a broad repertoire of knowledge and strategies.
Be part of a plurilingual, diverse community of practice
Our course is centred on celebrating the diversity and the plurilingual repertoires of students, teachers, and pupils. We welcome students with a broad range of backgrounds each year on the course, who go on to develop a strong sense of being part of ‘something bigger’ and contribute to diversifying the languages on offer in schools across the region and beyond.
Empower young people on their language learning journey
Using language to learn as well as to communicate and supporting young people in schools to become confident independent, autonomous language learners and users through interactive approaches, is at the core of our vision. We want you to take risks and be a change agent in our schools – this is the challenge!
Continue to develop your subject knowledge for teaching
As professional linguists we need to maintain and develop our skills in all the languages we are teaching. Our subject knowledge enhancement programme encourages you to use a range of methods of support to develop your own and your learners positive attitudes towards life-long learning and a greater understanding of others.
Innovate and collaborate
We use collaborative and innovative approaches to teaching and learning, as well as technology, to break down different kinds of barriers. Becoming a pioneer for teaching languages across the curriculum, and to primary as well as post-16 pupils, is fundamental to our vision.
Become part of a wider network shaping the ways languages are taught
The University of Nottingham Language Education Research Group (LERG) is a flourishing network of language educators from our Initial Teacher Education partnership of schools. It has a focus on researching developing issues and approaches in language learning and teaching. Over the last few years we have established a thriving, dynamic, research-informed, collaborative multilingual community of practice amongst language colleagues in the East Midlands. We use professional development workshops to explore the relationship between research, policy and practice and these facilitate the sharing of creative and innovative ideas about how to improve and promote language learning and teaching.
Language requirements
Applicants should have two languages - with one of them being French, Spanish or German. We welcome all language combinations and particularly value lesser-taught languages such as Russian and Mandarin. We also welcome all levels of second language proficiency, whether native or beginners, and support all applicants with their subject knowledge enhancement before and during the PGCE course. Please contact Ruth Koro if you have any queries.
I love working in partnership with our school-based mentors to support our trainee teachers to develop their own theories of practice, enabling them to become inspirational, innovative teachers of languages who are able to help young people to gain the linguistic competencies and intercultural skills they need to thrive locally and globally in increasingly multilingual and multicultural societies.
Dr Lesley Hagger-Vaughan
Secondary PGCE Modern Languages Course Leader
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I honestly never expected to receive the amount of support we did. Both my school mentor and my university tutor were very knowledgeable and professional, but at the same time very caring. As a single mum to two very little boys, sometimes things would not go as planned, but I always felt I could count on them to help me get back on track with my course work and teaching practice. The support we were given was highly tailored to our needs as well.
Greci Cristina Queiroz Taylor
Secondary PGCE Modern Languages
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