A study into how to engage parents/carers in language learning in order to motivate young linguistics without causing undue workload for practitioners
Martyn studied the impact of parental engagement on student achievement and explored methods of involving parents or guardians without increasing teachers’ workload. He carried out this intervention with a top set of Spanish students in Year 9 who had chosen to continue to GCSES. The parents/guardians of these students were asked to write comments in their child’s learning diary, directed both to the student and the teacher.
While students were largely supportive of the idea of a learning diary, they reported that the diary did not actually lead to more discussion with their parents. Martyn recommends that schools should identify the contextual barriers that hinder parental engagement in children’s education.