Edinburgh
Bilingualism Matters Edinburgh provides advice and talks around the Edinburgh area and Scotland on bilingualism and language learning. Our members are academics and researchers based mainly at the University of Edinburgh, as well as student volunteers who receive training and experience delivering public engagement activities and events.
22 Aug 2023
Teacher Education About Multilingualism (TEAM) project is releasing free educational resources, aimed to help educators understand and navigate the intricacies of working with multilingual pupils and in multilingual classrooms. Help us evaluate our open education resource TEAM .
30 Nov 2023
Join Bilingualism Matters and SCILT online on 31 January 2024 for ‘The Bigger Picture’ - a free, online event designed to give teachers working in complementary and heritage language schools a deeper insight into the role that teachers can play in bilingual language development
20 Oct 2023
Our annual interdisciplinary research conference is on again this year, with a two-day programme packed with the latest bilingualism research. The conference is held at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA and online. Registrations OPEN NOW.
24 May 2023
The annual BM KE Forum is an opportunity for all to meet and learn about the work led by Bilingualism Matters members across the world of research, practice and media.
Projects
Events
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31 January 2024
Join Bilingualism Matters and SCILT online on 31 January 2024 for ‘The Bigger Picture’ - a free, online event designed to give teachers working in complementary and heritage language schools a deeper insight into the role that teachers can play in bilingual language development
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27-28-October 2023
Join an international group of researchers for a two-day conference on the acquisition, learning and teaching of Tense, Aspect and Modality (TAM) in second languages (L2)
7 Sep, 2023
Does comparing monolinguals and bilinguals really matter? Professor Antonella Sorace explores this and more in her upcoming talk for The Royal Society of Edinburgh's Curious Festival (04-17 September 2023)
25 August 2023
Bilingual, trilingual, quadrilingual, pentalingual – does your brain change for the better the more languages you know? Join Antonella Sorace in this CODI Fringe show to find out.
17 August 2023
Antonella Sorace debates if knowing only one language still possible in today’s world and Chris Cummins explores how linguistics can help us detect lies, in this new CODI show for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
27 April 2023
The last of three workshops in the Scotland’s Saturday Language Schools Series, organised by Bilingualism Matters and SCILT
05 April 2023
The next in-person meeting of the Bilingualism Matters Centre at the University of Edinburgh is on Wednesday 5 April 2023, 12.30-13.30 (UK time). This event is open to current and prospective members of Bilingualism Matters Edinburgh.
20-February-2023
Join us online on Monday 20 February, 16.00-17.30, for a showcase of up-to-date work on children and adults learning Gaelic for World Gaelic Week | Seachdain na Gàidhlig.
11-November-2022
Join us in our new online format. Live and online with Q&A, chat & Expo + 3 months to catch up on anything you miss.
24 August 2022
Does anyone really speak only one language? At what point do you know enough of another language to call yourself bilingual? Join Antonella Sorace in this CODI Fringe show to find out.
15 August 2022
Antonella Sorace debates if single-language speakers really exist and Alan Gow explores how to keep sharp as we age, in this CODI show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
11 August 2022
Online panel discussion event at Curious, the online summer events programme from The Royal Society Edinburgh.
27 - 29 May 2022
Festival in Edinburgh exploring Bulgarian language and highlighting bilingual stories and artists from the lands of thistles and sunflowers.
1-May-2022
Come and celebrate Polish Heritage Day with us!
30 March 2022
The official launch of our new Bilingualism Matters social enterprise on 30 March 2022.
News
View allChildren aged 5-7 who speak French and English are invited to participate in this University of Edinburgh study
Children aged between 3-11 years old are invited to participate in this University of Edinburgh study on the bilingual development of autistic and non-autistic children
Watch researchers from the Bilingualism Matters Centre at the University of Edinburgh discuss some of the surprising upsides of being bilingual
By Lourdes Barquín Sanmartín, Teaching Fellow at the Spanish School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, University College Dublin
Professor Antonella Sorace has received the 2023 Ondras Award in recognition for her research investigating bilingual development and for her tireless work to publicly educate on the benefits of bilingualism in any languages.
Teacher Education About Multilingualism (TEAM) project is releasing free educational resources, aimed to help educators understand and navigate the intricacies of working with multilingual pupils and in multilingual classrooms. Help us evaluate our open education resource TEAM .
Take a fascinating journey into the bilingual brain with Maria Garraffa, Antonella Sorace, and Maria Vender in this newly adapted version of Il Cervello Bilingue (2020) translated by John W. Schwieter
Prof Antonella Sorace answers Maria Júlia, aged 14, from São Lourenço, Brazil on whether some languages can be harder to learn than others in this article for The Conversation.
Children at Scottish Gaelic Medium Education schools between Primary 2 and Primary 5 who speak Gaelic, English and at least one other language at home, are invited to participate in this University of Edinburgh study researching how multilingual children learn Gaelic and English.
A collection of online resources from Bilingualism Matters at the University of Edinburgh for parents, carers and children involved in or considering Gaelic Medium Education in Scotland.
Find out about the MultiMind Project Final Conference and how to access free resources on multilingualism, including a fun quiz, flyers and videos on multilingualism and developmental language disorders, and policy reports for professionals.
University of Edinburgh PhD candidate Mariel Deluna is investigating teacher perspectives on the relationship between “race”, language, ethnicity, and nationality.
Find out about our new Bilingualism Matters social enterprise and how to get involved.
We are looking for research participants for a study on bilingualism - can you help? English-Italian bilinguals living in the UK or Italy.
Find out more about the exhibition of creative art works by primary school pupils during the Polish through Art project.
Bilingualism Matters Edinburgh has teamed up with educational platform Twinkl and SCILT to create a range of free resources on bilingualism for teachers to use in English and Gaelic speaking classrooms.
A BM Edinburgh project aiming to inspire local Edinburgh communities to connect with languages has won the Collaboration Award at the recent Creative Edinburgh Awards.
The 'Bilingualism and Hate Speech Experiences' study needs participants to help with research.
Help with research and be compensated for your time! PhD student looking for native Spanish speakers from Spain, living in the UK or Spain.
The latest news and updates from Bilingualism Matters at the University of Edinburgh, including upcoming events and research.
Bilingualism Matters is working in partnership with UNESCO on the Futures of Education initiative. Find out about about latest developments and reports.
By Lourdes Barquín Sanmartín, PhD in Applied Linguistics, University of Edinburgh
BM Edinburgh volunteer Dr Maria Dokovova interviews Dr Lauren Hall-Lew from the University of Edinburgh about accents and trust.
The UNESCO International Commission on the Futures of Education is looking for feedback on its Progress Update report by 30th April 2021.
Blog post by Maggie Mroczkowski, BM Edinburgh Volunteer and PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh
Bilingualism Matters is a collaborator in this year's festival, which has a great programme of Portuguese and Spanish documentary films, available across the UK and Ireland.
Bilingualism Matters has contributed two full reports and a summary consultation report to the UNESCO Futures of Education initiative, highlighting the crucial role of languages in education.
A research team from the University of Edinburgh is looking at how bilingual children learn Gaelic and English and which areas of the languages are hard for them.
Blog post by Mariel Deluna, PhD Education Student at University of Edinburgh & BM Edinburgh Volunteer
Post by María García Basanta, BM Edinburgh Volunteer, on her native language, Galician.
Article by Bérengère Digard, with the support of Sonny and Fergus from AMASE
Find out about the Edinburgh Multilingual Stories Festival, a celebration of languages that ran in 2018 and 2019, and we plan to host again in the future.
A selection of online videos from events and talks given by Prof Antonella Sorace, and links to articles in the media.