Global Futures – a plan to improve and promote modern foreign languages will come into effect from September and will be supported by up to £480,000 of Welsh government funding in the first academic year.
Under the plan, one secondary school in each of Wales’ four regional consortia will be appointed as a Centre of Excellence for Modern Foreign Languages.
Teachers at the appointed Centre of Excellence will receive targeted CPD and benefit from new partnership arrangements with a number of language institutes and Welsh universities to help them develop high level language teaching skills.
They will then be tasked with working in partnership with other secondary and primary schools in their area to drive up teaching standards for MFL across the region.
The Global Futures plan will also see the creation of a mentoring programme for key stage 3 pupils in order to promote the benefits of studying a foreign language to learners.
A MFL steering group, made up of experts from schools, universities, Estyn, British Council, language institutes and education consortia, will also be established to ensure the plan is fully implemented.
The group will be tasked with developing a wider strategy for promoting MFL subjects and will consider how undergraduates and postgraduates can be encouraged to work with the new Centres of Excellence to improve language learning.
It will also look at how the Welsh government can engage partners such as the BBC and the Open University to harness digital technologies to improve language learning for pupils and teachers.