Community-School-University Partnership Seeking to Unleash the Potential of Bilingual Children
Mission
Our mission is to mobilise the linguistic capital and cultural heritage at home, school, in the community and the wider society, to support bilingual children on the move.
About Us
CRiCLE-Net was established in 2014 as a research initiative supported by the Newton Fund. Hosted by the Second Language Education Group (SLEG) in the Faculty of Education, it provides a research forum where practitioners, research students, academics and policy makers in Cambridge, and more broadly at national and international levels, can engage in critical debates on language, heritage and migration.
‘Community languages’ refer to a wide range of languages that exist alongside the dominant national language(s), and are often used at home, among cultural/religious groups or within diaspora communities. In the UK context, community languages include, for example, Arabic, Bengali, Catalan, Cantonese, Farsi, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Somali, Swahili, Tamil, Turkish, Urdu, Yoruba, among many others.
Research in this field emerges in response to transnational migration and increasing needs of immigrant communities to preserve their heritage languages and cultures. In a broad sense, relevant research has been conducted under different names, such as 'asset language' in England, ‘community language’ in Australasia and the UK, 'mother tongue' in Africa, 'heritage language' in the Americas, 'home language' in Asia, 'migration language' in Europe, and 'refugee language' in conflict zones. In the UK, community language education has become an important field of research in recent years. There is a need for a dedicated initiative to look at the education of bilingual children at home, school, in the community, and to support them to maintain their languages across the lifespan.
Vision
To establish a Local Community-School-University Partnership and a World Heritage Language Consortium to promote the benefits of multilingualism for education, integration and wellbeing of migrant-background children and youth
Aims
The CRiCLE-Net has both an international and a local focus and pursues an interdisciplinary approach to policy, theory and practice of community language education.
We work with children, for the community and through partnership;Our research seeks to build evidence, inform policy and improve practice.
The CRiCLE-Net aims:
- To provide a research forum where policy makers, academics, practitioners and research students can exchange ideas and expertise in community language education;
- To collaborate with local, regional, national and international institutions to identify critical issues in community language education and to engage in theoretical and methodological debate on these issues;
- To develop a corpus of research evidence that can advise the development of community language education policy and practice;
- To build interdisciplinary connections and create grounds for cross-fertilisation among Applied/Educational Linguistics, Bilingual/Multilingual Education, Second/Foreign Language Education, Community/Heritage Language Education, Minority/Indigenous Language Education, Language/Literacy across the Curriculum, and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)/Languages Other than English (LOTE).
Governance
The governance of the network is supported by an executive committee, an international advisory panel, a school advisory board and a working group. The network also plays an active role in supporting local schools and communities and serves as a research resource centre for community language education in the East of England and nationally.
Collaboration
Members of the CRiCLE network are well connected to the University's interdisciplinary research initiatives on Migration, Language Sciences, Public Policy and Heritage Research.
Language, Heritage, Migration Research Group
Cambridge Migration Research Network
Cambridge Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement
Cambridge Language Sciences Strategic Research Initiative
Cambridge Interdisciplinary Center for Language Sciences
Cambridge Public Policy Strategic Research Initiative
Center for Science and Policy (CSaP)
Cambridge Heritage Research Centre
Partnerships
CRiCLE works in partnership with local community schools and Cambridge Bilingual Groups, a volunteer support organisation which offers hands-on training for professional development of community teachers and step-by-step guidance to help ethnic communities to set up community language schools. Join their facebook to follow up-to-date information on community language education.
In a multi-level partnership, CRiCLE, Cambridge Bilingual Groups, Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum, and Norfolk County Council's EAL Advisory Service recently established the innovative Cambridge Community School Leadership Forum to facilitate rapid policy consultation and coordination of local support.
We have a long-standing partnership with the Bell Foundation working on reseach and development projects on EAL teaching and assessment in schools.
We also work in partnership with Association for Language Learning (ALL), National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum (NALDIC), Cambridgeshire County Council and the Bell Foundation in the education strand of a flagship AHRC/OWRI project on multilingualism and language policy (MEITS) led by Professor Wendy Bennett. A campaign called 'We are Multilingual' (WAM) is being led by Professor Linda Fisher which forms part of the legacy of the education strand of this project. Follow project updates on blogs, news, events and Twitter.
Research Programmes
Members of CRiCLE have been involved in a range of projects within five research programmes, each with a distinctive theme:
- Theme 1: English as an Additional Language (EAL)
'The Cambridge EAL (CamEAL) Research Programme' (Bell Foundation) - Theme 2: Multilingualism and MFL Learning in Schools
'Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies (MEITS)' (AHRC/OWRI Large Grant, Education Strand) - Theme 3: Community/Heritage/Home Language Education
'Linguistic Capital in the Community: Reimagining Complementary Schooling' (Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement) - Theme 4: Bilingual/Trilingual/Multilingual Education
'Defining the Knowledge Base of CLIL Teaching in Multilingual Primary Education Settings' (British Council Report)
Conceptualising Assessment Literacy of Teachers in Content and Language Integrated Learning Programmes (Hong Kong Research Grants Council/HKU, International Partner) - Theme 5: Language(s) and Literac(ies) in Development and Refugee Contexts
'The Learning Passport' Programme (Cambridge/Unicef/Microsoft)
'Language, Integration and Media: A Majority-inclusive Approach to Migration' (Research Council of Norway, International Partner)
Impact
Cambridge Community School Leadership Forum, created as an innovative partnership among CRiCLE, Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum, Cambridge Bilingual Groups and Norfolk County Council EAL Advisory Service, under the auspices of the interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement.
EAL Assessment Framework for Schools (2.0) and the Digital Tracker, in collaboration with the Bell Foundation
We Are Multilingual (WAM), MFL open resources as part of the legacies of the AHRC MEITS Project
Language Policy Forum (LPF) 2020, under the sponsorship of the Language Policy SIG of BAAL
Cambridge Masterclasses on Multilingualism, Education and Language Policy, hosted by SLEG
Cambridge Distinguished Lecture Series in Second Language Learning and Teaching, hosted by SLEG
Languages Change Lives, campaign to raise awareness of the value of multilingualism among the general public, the AHRC MEITS Project
Research Approaches
Research Domains
Languages at home
Languages at school
Languages in the community
Languages for work
Languages for Education in Emergencies
Research Dimensions
Language teaching
Language learning
Language policy
Language maintenance
Language teacher development
Teaching and Learning Programmes
CRiCLE students and alumni are all members of the Second Language Education Group (SLEG) in the Faculty which provides an intellectual home for students and staff researching on second, foreign, heritage and additional language/literacy education. The SLEG research group also hosts or involves in a range of teaching and learning programmes including:
PhD/EdD in Language and Education (LAE)
MPhil/MEd Research in Second Language Education (RSLE)
MEd Transforming Practice Thesis Projects on Modern Languages in School (TP)
PGCE in Modern Languages (MFL)
Education Tripos (Undergraduate) Research and Investigation Projects on Language Education (R&I)
Education Tripos (Undergraduate) Core Paper in Language, Communication and Literacies (LCL)
PPD Certificate/Diploma Projects on English as an Additional Language (EAL)
Bespoke Professional Development Workshops for Community Language Teachers (CLT)
Visiting Scholar and Visiting Student Programmes
Logo designed by David Almeida with the assistance of Clare Yerbury