The Language Scientists

Today the Language Scientists are back to present the last episode of Series 3! It's been so interesting to have the chance to revisit some of the topics from this season. In this episode, we discuss some of our...

Why do “The Language Scientists” keep saying that Leicester is a great location to discuss multilingualism? In this episode, Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta interviews Dr Michelle Harrison, a lecturer in French & Francophone...

What does it mean to be "bilingual"? How can we encourage and support parents to raise children bilingually? In this episode, Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta talks all-things-bilingual with Professor Antonella Sorace from the...

In this episode Dr Marie-Josee-Bisson talks to Dr Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen about language choices in the family. How do parents decide which language they will speak to their children at home and are there rules to...

As a language learner in the classroom, you may feel like you’re starting from no language skills and a lot of confusion. However, as Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta and Dr Tracey Costley discuss, even a new learner is bringing in...

In this episode Dr Marie-Josee Bisson talks to Ellie Chettle-Cully about celebrating multilingual speakers in the primary classroom. Ellie is a teacher and language lead at one of our local primary schools in Leicester...

In this episode Dr Marie-Josée Bisson interviews Sajan Odedra from the Jalaram Bal Vikas Gujarati language school based in Leicester. They talk about the motivations for parents and children to learn more about their...

In this episode Dr Marie-Josée Bisson interviews Dr Marion Krauthaker about "La petite école de Leicester" a community language school project for French speakers. Celebratory of heritage language, this is a school...

What does it mean to be a "heritage speaker"? The answer is a bit complicated. In this episode Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta speaks with Professor Silvina Montrul on the topic of heritage language speakers and what language...

In this episode Dr Marie-Josée Bisson and Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta discuss raising children bilingually. Exposure to another language does not just occur in the classroom but may also occur in the home environment. This...

In this Episode, Dr Bisson talks to Professor Emma Marsden about a really important change coming to the French, German and Spanish curriculum in England. There is going to be a more defined and constrained list of...

In this episode, Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta interviews Professor Neil Kenny, Professor of French at University of Oxford, Senior Research Fellow in All Souls College, and Lead Fellow for Languages for the British Academy. This...

In this episode, Dr Kaitlyn Zavaleta interviews Dr Jiayi Wang, about those "unwritten" rules of language use, which are known as "pragmatics". What's really interesting about pragmatics is that they aren't really...

In this episode, Dr Marie-Josee Bisson asks Dr Walter Van Heuven about language organisation in the brain. How does the brain cope with having words in different languages and how come we don't make lots of mistakes...

In this Episode, we welcome you to Season 2 of the Podcast and talk about how the language that we know can influence the way we learn other languages. In particular, some foreign language words look really different...

In this episode, Dr Zavaleta speaks with Dr Anue Kukona about psycholinguistic research. In particular, they discuss conduction research over the internet and the advantages that come with that in terms of a more...

In this episode Dr Bisson interviews Dr Zavaleta about her research on speech errors (when you say cat instead of dog or "Platurn" instead of planet because you were also thinking of Saturn... ). Dr Zavaleta explains...

In this episode, Dr Bisson talks to Professor Matthew Inglis about the importance of randomised controlled trials in education research. In other words, why is it crucial to allocate pupils to an intervention randomly...

In this episode Dr Bisson speaks with Dr Angelos Lengeris about phonological abilities and their importance for language learning. Join us to hear about how we can train our ear to hear sounds that do not exist in our...

In this episode Dr Zavaleta speaks with Dr Elizabeth Enkin about using virtual reality as a tool for language learning. Join us to hear research using virtual reality to help students speak in the target language whilst...

In this episode, Dr Bisson interviews Dr Alex Mangold from Aberystwyth University on the topic of creative assessment. They discuss the decline in uptake of modern foreign languages at University level and Alex explains...

In this episode Dr Zavaleta talks to Dr Ana Pellicer-Sanchez about learning vocabulary through reading as well as her research using films with bilingual subtitles. You will find out what Ana recommends to improve...

In this episode, Dr Bisson speaks with Professor Kathy Conklin about eye-tracking in language research. From archaic equipment with bite bar to newer online tools to track people's eyes, Kathy explains what eye-tracking...

In this episode, Dr Bisson speaks with Professor Kathy Conklin about eye-tracking in language research. From archaic equipment with bite bar to newer online tools to track people's eyes, Kathy explains what eye-tracking...

In this episode Dr Zavaleta talks to Dr Bisson about incidental learning and how we can use this type of learning to help us learn a language in and out of the classroom. Being exposed to a language can help you pick up...